A review of The Body in the Dumb River by George Bellairs – 230808

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a man who worked as a bank manager by day and moonlighted as a writer of crime fiction at night should have been interested by the possibilities offered by a man who leads a double life. The Body in the Dumb River, originally published in 1961 and now reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, is the 35^th in George Bellairs’ Thomas Littlejohn and also went by the alternative title of Murder Masquerade. Bellairs was Harold Blundell’s nom de plume – he also wrote four novels under the name of Hilary London – and his murder victim, Jim Lane, happens to have led a double life.

The story opens with Littlejohn in Fenland, the weather is dreadful, the police resources are stretched dealing with the aftermath of the floods and Bellairs’ series hero agrees to stay on to lead the investigations into a body found in the swollen river Dumb. The victim is identified as Jim Lane, who ran a hoopla stall in a travelling fair and, as he was generally well liked, it is a mystery as to who and why he should have been stabbed in the back and his body thrown in the river.

Littlejohn is a painstakingly thorough detective, but one who shows surprising empathy with all he meets. It is his ability to gain the confidence of those he talks to that leads him to progress with the case and discover that Lane led a double life. He always returned to Yorkshire at the weekends to his wife, Elvira, where he was known as James Teasdale and gave the impression that he was a travelling salesman. The contrast between his two lives is marked.

As Lane he has taken up with Martha Gomm with whom, it emerges he is to have a child. In Yorkshire Teasdale leads an unhappy life. His family, dominated by his indolent and bibulous father-in-law, Major Scott-Harris, are snobbish and aspiring and he is a bitter disappointment to them. The crisis is brought to a head when Teasdale is spotted running his hoop la stall and news of his double life reaches Scott-Harris. A request for a divorce leads to a bitter row with tragic consequences.

This is less of a complicated murder mystery – there are very few plausible suspects, and the only real source of mystery is what happened to Ryder, Scott-Harris’ butler – and more of a police procedural. Littlejohn’s methodical style of investigation allows the reader to get to know the characters and understand how they are all trapped in the mundanities of their everyday lives and how only a major crisis is going to change things. Although Teasdale is an adulterer, he is treated sympathetically by Bellairs, a contrast to his delight in portraying the grotesque characters and attitudes of those from whom he sought to escape.

Although the body was found in the Fens, the root of the mystery lies in Yorkshire and the action mostly takes place there, as Littlejohn gets to grips with what happened on the fateful night when a family’s cosy existence imploded. Bellairs writes with no little humour and while there is little complexity to the mystery, it is a story well told. There is a fine sense of place and the gritty realities of lower middle-class life are brought to life. Enjoyable.