A review of Crime de Luxe by Elizabeth Gill – 231216

Originally published in 1933 and reissued by Dean Street Press, Crime de Luxe is the third and final book in Elizabeth Gill’s Benvenuto Brown series. Her tragic death from complications following surgery the following year at the age of thirty-three robbed crime fiction of a strong and emerging talent. This is an enjoyable tour de force about artificial fertiliser.

Benvenuto Brown, artist and occasional amateur sleuth, is on board the Atalanta en route to New York where a gallery is putting on an exhibition of his paintings. His plans for a relaxing five days people watching are disrupted when a nervous woman who was discombobulated when boarding because she had seen someone she had recognised and with whom Brown had just been talking to is fished out of the sea. Was it suicide, an accident, or murder? Brown was last to talk to her and the contents of her luggage reveal a surprise that makes him even more determined to find out what happened to Miss Smith.

Setting her plot on a liner allows Gill to limit the number of suspects while assembling a motley collection of people and, boy, she does not let the opportunity of creating a number of strong, memorable characters pass. One of her undoubted strengths in her short literary career was her ability to bring a character to life, to capture their behaviour and mannerisms, so that they are fully rounded. She is also not averse to injecting a little humour into her books and, just to titillate the readers, introduce a little love interest as Brown falls for the undoubted charms of Ann Stewart, who is on a mission of her own.

The story revolves around the arch-capitalist, Lord Stoke, who has got his hands on a formula for a miraculous fertiliser which will turn even the most unpromising patch of land into the Garden of Eden. One of his fellow passengers, Gowling, claims that his lordship had swindled him out of the formula and is seeking revenge. Soviet enthusiast, Roger Morton-Blount, wants the formula to give to the world gratis and Ann Stewart who has loosely teamed up with him has her own reasons for doing Lord Stoke down. There is, of course, also a link between Miss Smith and Lord Stoke and to add to the mix the recently wed Lady Stoke is playing fast and loose with a Hollywood heartthrob, Rutland King.     

The ship has its own detective, a retired policeman, Inspector Markham, who is reluctant for Brown to tread on his patch but gradually he realises that the sleuth can bring much to the party. With the help of information telegraphed from Blighty, Brown cracks the relationship between Lord Stoke, Miss Smith, and Gowling, but his attempts to finesse a deal that will pass the formula to the league of Nations are scuppered when Lady Stoke and Rutland King are found in flagrante delicto.

By introducing characters with such radically different world views, Gill can indulge herself in debating the respective merits of the capitalist and communist systems and how the British character and way of life, epitomised by the wonderfully oh-so middle class British couple, the Pindleburys, compare and contrast with the American way. In some ways this is a love letter to America which Gill visited several times, a perspective that makes the text even more moving.     

The five day journey gives the book added pace and while it seems a tall order to make an entertaining and page turning story out of fertiliser, Gill has achieved it with aplomb. It makes you wonder how great a writer she would have been.