Antidote To Venom

More than 60 years later, readers will probably find the second attempt to be the more successful and interesting part of the twofold experiment. It was a brave experiment to make in the 1930s, when the notion that crime does not pay was still one of the understood rules in the game of detective fiction.

Crofts allows us to understand the temptation to commit crime by presenting the book's principal character, George Surridge. A middle-aged director of a zoo, unhappy in his marriage, and facing increasing debts, his situation becomes desperate when he falls in love with Nancy Weymore, who represents his only prospect of happiness. He lives dangerously for some time, trusting that a legacy that will come to him after the death of an elderly aunt will allow him to escape to happiness.

The aunt dies, he is named as legatee, and then comes the most unexpected shock. The shock occurs half way through the book, and the suspense leading up to it is as skillfully wrought as in any Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Crofts' sleuth, Inspector French, takes centre stage thereafter, and for once his forming and checking of theories, his alibi-cracking, and his time-table measuring seems less interesting than usual.

Nevertheless, this is certainly one of Crofts' best stories. I would not argue with readers or reviewers who might think it deserves a five star rating.

This particular fictitious Chief Inspector of New Scotland Yard starred in a total of thirty mysteries from 1925 through 1957, many of them involving ships, trains (Crofts was an Irish railroad engineer), intricate time-tables, and supposedly unbreakable alibis.

"Antidote to Venom" (1938) is no exception. Inspector French must dredge up every scrap of physical evidence to recreate the fiendishly clever gizmo that was used to murder an eminent professor of pathology. He must smash the villain's alibi, and build the time-table that puts him near his victim at the time of death. He must also figure out how a poisonous Russell's viper escaped from its supposedly sealed display case at the Birmington Zoo.

The difference between this Inspector French mystery and others I've read is that most of the story is told by the murderer's accomplice. There is no mystery as to who killed the old professor. "Antidote to Venom" is a `howdunit' rather than a whodunit.

The narrator is George Surridge, the middle-aged Director of the Birmington Zoo. He is a man trapped in a loveless marriage, who belatedly discovers the woman of his dreams. His reasons for helping a murderer are gradually constructed through the first half of the novel, and the author skillfully drew me in to sympathizing with him. I was actually sorry when Inspector French entered the case. I knew from my previous reading of Crofts' finely constructed mysteries, that George Surridge was doomed.

"Antidote to Venom" has a rather old-fashioned, contrived ending, but don't let that prevent you from reading this mystery author who Raymond Chandler called, `the soundest builder of them all.'