Fool Errant: A Benbow Smith Mystery: 1 (The Benbow Smith Mysteries)

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Born in Liverpool, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old. Married since late 1960s, he has three grown sons. He is currently relocated to Britain. He is a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers.

This may be a Golden Age book, but the book itself is perhaps bronze, or tin. Successive illogical happenings, the flightiest girl ever, a hero cast in the bumbling-but-ultimately-triumphant Brit mold, a fake femme fatale, and an untenable plot leave you with the impression that what you're reading is more a comic book than anything else.Filidor, nephew and sole remaining heir of the Archon, has been kind of a dandy. He is at a club partying with his superficial friends when he gets a summons to see the Archon. It's a dwarf that has carried the message who recognizes that Filidor will try to squirm his way out of the meeting and won't let him out of his sight. They go to Binch to find they've just missed him, the same thing at Ektop, Zeel and Jasp. Paul Brians(2009),“ arrant/errant”, in Common Errors in English Usage, 2nd edition, Wilsonville, Or.: William, James & Company, →ISBN. A bigger complaint, though also less important, were the names for the characters. I found them quite odd and other than suggesting an "otherness," which shouldn't have been since I believe this is a "future earth" setting, they didn't seem to have any sort of thought out basis. Maybe Matt would be able to suggest some though.

At each of these stops Filidor runs into trouble with the monomaniacal natives where he has a hazardous and bizarre adventure. Even traveling between the towns turns out to be full of risks. Throw in an evil wizard that wants the box that Filidor is supposed to deliver to the Archon. I really love these books from between the wars. Well, I'm not crazy about the casual racism, sexism, and xenophobia, but the core of the story is corny genius. Hugo alternates between blushing and stammering like an ingenue and doing the right thing because, dash it all, he's an English gentleman. William Safire( 22 January 2006),“ On Language: Arrant Nonsense”, in The New York Times Magazine‎ [1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-09-08.There is humor that offsets the repetitiveness, and each location has its own monomania. After the second time that Gaskarth leaves Filidor alone to go to the local Archonate office, I would have expected him to try to accompany the dwarf. Other than that Filidor does learn along the way, which is the point of the story. How he started off avoiding meaningful endeavors and now sees that sort of life is a waste, even though the adventures have been terrifying and dangerous. The brave young Loveday and the vampish Madame de Lara are the two poles of womanhood in these espionage novels. Loveday is pure and childlike, prone to mad acts of bravery followed by weeping on Hugo's manly shoulder. She nearly gets sold into white slavery due to trusting the wrong people. I mean, reely. Madame de Lara is a vamp, a scamp, and a bit of a tramp. She is not so much evil as greedy. This is my second non-Miss Silver novel by Wentworth, with my first being Silence in Court (1945) and one of the main things this second read has taught me is that Wentworth is a much more creative writer when she is not tied down by the character of Miss Silver. Furthermore, I think in the beginning of the novel Wentworth shows brief moments of a much more literary, possibly even modernist writing style. But in all in all this is a thriller, a genre which actually marries well with Wentworth’s writing skills and penchant for including romance.