Major Cecil John Charles Street OBE, MC (1884 – 1964) by Robert H Crabtree

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.

Burton novels have more flights of fancy than Rhode's, such as the witchcraft theme in the best known one, The Secret of High Eldersham (1930), which also constitutes the first of the series. Street must have careful not to advertise himself as Miles Burton, because the true authorship of these novels was uncertain until the text of Burton's The Menace on the Downs (1931) was seen to reflect special knowledge of Central European affairs that Street was known to possess. Burton's plots marry the brilliant amateur detective, Desmond Merrion, with the plodding Yard detective, Inspector Arnold. One of the best, Death in the Tunnel from 1936, has been reprinted in the British Library Crime Series and so is today probably his best known title. 

Other attractive ones include The Platinum Cat (1938) and Murder M.D. (1943), but many of the Burtons are totally unavailable today so I have not read the majority of his output. We can hope that additional Rhode and Burton titles will be reprinted by the British Library so that Street can be better appreciated by the reading public.