Just Finished Reading: The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon (FP: 1932) [272pp] 

It all started with an annoying carriage companion on the journey from the North. By the time Richard Temperley had arrived in London in the early hours of the morning he was both exhausted and unwilling to wake his sister at an ungodly hour. Taking advice from a station porter he heads for a nearby hotel to freshen up and rest before journeying on only to find his snoring companion has already arrived. Too tired to change his plans, Richard decides to stay and starts to drift off before realising that something is wrong – the silence. Approaching the now quiet ex-companion Richard discovers, to his horror, that he’s quite dead – shot through the chest. Questioned by the police he has little information to offer. For some reason he fails to tell them about the attractive young woman who left just as he had arrived. He also fails to mention that he has in his possession her left-behind purse and that he knows both her name and home address. Wanting to know if she was indeed somehow involved in the bizarre death of a seemingly harmless man, he makes his way to her apartment only to realise he’s being followed – by the police or by the murderer? What Richard doesn’t know is that the girl is at the very centre of things and that more bodies are already on the horizon.  

This was a bit of a strange one. At times it felt all rather Hitchcockian, and I had flashes of ‘North by Northwest’ going through my mind. Essentially it was two previously unconnected people – both young & both single naturally – thrown together by circumstance and trying to figure dangerous things out as they race across an equally dangerous landscape in pursuit of a murderer – whilst in turn being pursued (or used as bait) by the police. Although I found the plot a little on the ‘thin’ side from time-to-time the actual mechanics of the tale were mostly well done. Both Richard Temperley and his motivating love interest, Sylvia Wynne, were well drawn and likable. The baddie was a rather over-the-top cardboard villain though nasty with it. The side characters, Richard’s sister, the police inspector and the put-upon taxi driver, were fun (and often funny) which lightened the mood when necessary and I liked all three. The long-distance chase gave characters time to know each other as well as muse on the case at hand which was a decent way of progressing things. The end scene was suitably dramatic and cinematic, and the wrap-up made sense. Despite being a little too chaotic from time to time and a touch overly contrived here and there this was still mostly a fun read. Not one of the best BLCC books I’ve read but still above average in the grand scheme. Reasonable.