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| John Rhode |
In
punning allusion to his own name, John Street wrote his crime novels under three pseudonyms, John Rhode, Miles Burton and
Cecil Waye. The Waye novels did not take
off and were soon abandoned but the other two series were long-lived and
successful throughout the English-speaking world. Many of the Burtons were also
translated into French and German and this must have been in substantial
numbers because they have often survived in much larger numbers than the
original editions, to judge from their relatively greater availability in the
secondhand market.
The
main character in the Rhode books, the distinguished but irascible ex-Professor
of Mathematics, Dr. Priestley, makes oracular pronouncements that eventually lead
his Yard policemen friends, Superintendents Hanslet and, later, Waghorn to the
true solution. Priestley's right-hand man, Harold Merefield, marries
Priestley's daughter, April, in an early novel but she unaccountably disappears
from the scene thereafter although Harold continues to be described as
Priestley's son-in-law. Did they break up? Did she die? It's a mystery within a
mystery! Likewise, 'Jimmy' Waghorn marries Diana at an early stage of his
career and, although largely invisible, Diana at least gets some later speaking
roles. Rhode has no difficulty with placing women as major players in the cast
of potentially criminal characters, however.
Rhode's
forte was dreaming up exotic, ingenious and unexpected ways to kill the
generally unpleasant corpses-to-be that infest his otherwise pleasant small
towns and villages. Often these involve detailed technical knowledge, such as
the way tides and wind combine to affect the way a boat rides at anchor in an
estuary, thus affecting our interpretation of the direction from which the
fatal shot was fired. If we find any of Rhode's suspects is technically competent,
therefore, the chances are that we have also identified the criminal. Rhode is
a tolerant individual and his works are generally free of the politically
incorrect attitudes that sometimes mar the works of other authors of his
vintage.
Judging
from the prominence of pubs, drinking and smoking in his works, Street himself,
no doubt a jovial and sociable soul, must have spent much time in pubs. This
may even be where he picked up some of his detailed technical knowledge of jobs
and professions relevant to his stories. His 1940s wartime novels show insider
knowledge of the operations of the Home Guard, suggesting he was an active
member. Many of his novels throw light on the social history of the period, for
example the 1940s rationing or the multiyear waiting lists to buy a car in the
early 1950s.
Street
was extraordinarily productive, writing four novels a year for nearly 40 years.
This level of production may well be the reason that he wrote under two main
aliases for different publishers, because each one would probably take no more
than two novels a year. Rhode's policemen age appropriately with time so
Hanslet is eventually replaced by his protégé, Jimmy Waghorn at the Yard. On
the other hand, Dr. Priestley is already in his forties when he first appears
in 1925 in The Paddington Mystery, so his survival to 1961 with his
mental faculties intact in The Vanishing Diary is something of a medical
miracle. Clues in the text of Men Die at Cyprus Lodge (1943) suggest
that he was born before 1882.
As
for the writing itself, characterization is adequate for the purpose but not
the main interest in Rhode novels, which reflect the details of contemporary
life of small towns in Southern England. Rhode's plots often involve
interesting twists and turns and involve a greater dose of realism than is the
case for some authors of the period. Some of his wartime books are no longer
convincing when he deals with German espionage in World War II, given what we
now know about this, except perhaps to show the prevalence of spy scares at
that time.
Particularly
attractive titles in the Rhode series include the following:
The Davidson
Case, US:
Murder at Bratton Grange (1929);
Tragedy On the Line
(1931);
The Claverton Affair (1933);
Death at the Helm (1941);
The
Lake House US:
Secret of the Lake House (1946);
An Artist Dies US:
Death of an Artist (1956).
Death in the Hop Fields US:
The
Harvest Murder (1937)
is also of interest in documenting the yearly
migration of East Enders to Kent for a paid holiday picking hops. The notorious
unsolved Wallace case (Liverpool, 1931) which led Raymond Chandler to comment:
"the Wallace case is unbeatable; it will always be unbeatable," is
the basis for Rhode's nonseries The Telephone Call U.S.: Shadow of an
Alibi (1948) that gives Rhodes fictional solution to the puzzle.
