WADE IN, NOT WADE THROUGH

 

Henry Wade (pseudonym of Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 1887–1969) is one of the most highly regarded of the so-called ‘Humdrum' writers of the Golden Age, with many of his books having been reprinted by Harper Perennial in the 1980s. (This was an excellent series; they also reprinted most of Nicholas Blake and Cyril Hare's books, as well as several by Christianna Brand, Michael Gilbert, Philip MacDonald, John Rhode, and Clifford Witting.)

Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor's Catalogue of Crime described him as

One of the great figures of the classical period. He was not only very productive but also varied in genre. His plots, characters, situations, and means rank with the best, while his prose has elegance and force.

Similarly, Charles Shibuk, writing in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (ed. John M. Reilly, New York : St. Martin 's Press, 1980) described him as

a practitioner of the school of modern British realism and a master of the police novel. A staunch advocate of the classical detective story in its purest form, Wade also had the ability to write inverted stories that bear comparison with the highest achievements in this genre. Wade can best be compared to Freeman Wills Crofts in whose own demanding tradition Wade ranked second to none. His police novels and inverted tales never quite achieved the pinnacle of Crofts's The Cask or The 12:30 from Croydon , but his gifts for characterisation were deeper—especially in the inverted stories…

However, Julian Symons dismissed Wade as a Humdrum—one of those supposedly dull hacks who were more interested in plot than characterisation or theme, and whose number included most of the great writers of the 1920s and early 1930s: J.J. Connington, John Rhode, and G.D.H. and M. Cole. Symons's definition of Humdrum—apart from such odd inclusions as Gladys Mitchell and E.R. Punshon—seems to have been writers who emphasised ingenuity of plot and soundness of construction over characterisation, and believed that whodunit was much less interesting than how the detective would prove the murderer's guilt. In short, writers in the rigorously intellectual tradition of the orthodox detective story.

(A very interesting thesis could be written on the transformation of the detective story (=intellect) into the crime novel (=emotion, with the obligatory domestic upheaval for the protagonist) as a symptom of the decline of western civilisation. A comparison of the modern series of Dr. Who , with its big emotional set-pieces firmly aimed at viewers of day-time soaps and other adolescents, with its more literate and intellectually stimulating forebear would also be illuminating.)

And yet the question must be asked: was Wade actually a Humdrum? Not because his characterisation was too good, but because—after the early books—plot mechanics and ingenuity only play a very small part in his work.

Wade's earliest and best books are genuine detective problems in the tradition of Freeman Wills Crofts, with a police detective, most often the young Inspector John Poole, investigating ingenious murders, often involving big business or politics, and breaking unbreakable alibis. These include The Duke of York's Steps (1929), a classic tale of financial skulduggery; No Friendly Drop (1931), an ironic tale about the poisoning of an elderly aristocrat; The Hanging Captain (1932), a classic country house murder, and my personal favourite of Wade's works; and Constable, Guard Thyself! (1934), in which murder is committed within the hallowed precincts of a police station.

From the early 1930s, however, Wade began to write crime novels, which show the events leading up to murder from the perspective of a single protagonist, and in which police detection only plays a small part. The first of these, Mist on the Saltings (1933), is a dreary work, most interesting for its influence on Nicholas Blake's Beast Must Die (1938), but three others are among Wade's very best work: Heir Presumptive (1935), in which a weak man decides to remove human obstacles to the peerage; The High Sheriff (1937), about a man of old and high lineage who disgraced himself in his own eyes by committing an act of cowardice in the war; and A Dying Fall (1955), about a man suspected of the murder of his rich wife.

Apart from the entertaining but old-fashioned New Graves at Great Norne (1947), many of Wade's subsequent books are not pure detective stories. Several are police procedurals, which show police work as it happens, with the police investigating realistic crimes. These include Bury Him Darkly (1936), Released for Death (1938) , Be Kind to the Killer (1952), and The Litmore Snatch (1957). In many of these works, there is little doubt as to the murderer's identity, even though the police may initially suspect or arrest an innocent man. Others such as Too Soon to Die (1953), about fraud and murder to avoid death duties, are inverted works, in which the first half shows the criminal committing the crime, and the second shows the detective pursuing him. Two books, Lonely Magdalen (1940) and Gold Was Our Grave (1954), commit the cardinal sin of leaving it unclear who the criminal actually is, a violation of the genre akin to Julian Symons's efforts.

Throughout his work, Wade was concerned with two main themes: the decline of Britain , and the private life of policemen.

Wade was an aristocrat, living at a time when the traditional ruling class of Britain lost much of their wealth and power. His books show a conservative despair: the Great War damaged Britain , and WWII and the Welfare State have brought the country very close to ruin. Wade's gentry, who should be leading the country, have been driven to crime by such pressures of the modern world as taxes and poverty, while the younger generation is rotten to the core.

Although Wade's policemen are members of a bureaucratic organisation, they also have private feelings that conflict with their duty. They fail in their duty because of their friendship for the murderer ( Bury Him Darkly ), are suspected of crime ( Be Kind to the Killer , The Litmore Snatch ), or even commit murder ( Constable, Guard Thyself! ). It is interesting that Poole is a bachelor and a loner in the late books, almost without any human tie, other than his professional relationship with his colleagues in the police force. This emphasis on people destroyed by their emotions, and the only “safe” people those who keep themselves private, is almost P.D. Jamesian.

On the whole, Wade, while an excellent and accomplished novelist, commands admiration rather than affection. Although his characterisation and prose are generally superior to those of Crofts, Rhode, Connington or the Coles, he is a much colder writer, and lacks the detective appeal and ingenuity of plot that make their books so rewarding.