The Ledger Is Kept

Inspector Holly #2

by Raymond W. Postgate

When Desmond Maverick set out to visit his old friend Henry Proctor at a Ministry of Supply station engaged in producing atomic isotopes he anticipated no more than a normal social visit. It was a shock to find himself travelling with Chief Inspector Holly, who was visiting Proctor for strictly official reasons; it was an even greater shock to find himself involved in the investigation of a death.

Against the unusual background of scientific research here is a crime story to delight the connoisseur.

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Raymond William Postgate (6 November 1896 – 29 March 1971) was an English socialist, writer, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist, and gourmet who founded the Good Food Guide.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another neat book by Raymond Postgate. Or do I mean wack? Certainly, it doesn't work as well as his two previous mysteries, because the middle flashback bit is so poorly blended in. But if you just wanted a nicely-put-together mystery, you shouldn't read Postgate. He's more about tearing up expectations. Of course the policeman is a big fan of Thomas Henry Huxley. Of course this is more about social and political issues and realism than detective work. Of course the secret Soviet spy is named Blunt--this about 25 years before Sir Anthony Blunt was revealed to be a Soviet spy (both this Blunt and Sir Anthony have decided attitudes towards art--coincidence?). Of course I loved it. Wish he'd written more.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mystery, full of political and religious commentary and period detail. The author sounded depressed. Both he and Britain had been through devastating times.
Has a certain amount of misanthropy, sometimes inexplicable, and ends on a nasty note.
The mysteries kept me guessing until the very end.

[^ · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title “The Ledger Is Kept” is a surprisingly apt title for this work of crime fiction; which I bought for reasons of curiosity and historical interest. Curiosity in the author, who was a noted Communist and the father of Oliver Postgate, beloved by children growing up in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, for Noggin the Nog, Bagpuss, The Clangers, Pugwash, Ivor the Engine and others; curiosity also for the subject: the British Scientific Civil Service of the 1950s.

The title proved, to my mind, to be unfortunately apt. As demonstrated within these pages, accounting is rarely an exciting career. The characterisation IS good; but is unpicked by this book possessing probably one of the slowest-moving plots in detective fiction that I have yet come across. It was also, distressingly, one of the easiest I’ve yet found to pinpoint the murderer.

Some sections did make me smile. For example the description of a university education (p.64) during the First World War:

“His tutor had suggested to him some lectures; he could attend them or not as he pleased. He could buy what books he chose. Once a week he would see his tutor and read him an essay; and at the end of two years he must pass an intermediate examination with success. That was all the control there was. He was a gentleman, a free man, his own master; and if he couldn’t swim he would be left to drown.”

Nowadays, in the 21st century, one hear about university and college student unions threatening to take lecturers and professors to Court for ‘inadequate’ timetables provision of lectures!

Postgate, with a grain of truth, chillingly observes a difference between Science and the Humanities (p.101):

“… in the outside world, the world of economics, history, and politics, the world of human activities in short, there are no exact facts, and no experiment can ever be repeated. All generalisations are vague and inaccurate; they are little more than metaphors. No town is really like another, no class is like another. Or even the same as it was ten years before. As for testing by experiment, you cannot even repeat so much as a general election in the same conditions. Good sense and skill in these subjects are founded on a knowledge of estimate of nuances, tendencies, probabilities, ideologies, and old history. The scientist, for whom systemisation is truth, is especially disqualified in judging these.”

My final extract I thought particularly topical to the present calumny of severe national debt in the Western world (p.106):

“But then, of course, you have had your dole over here so long that maybe you don’t realise, as we do, the danger to national character from this sort of perpetual poor relief. Your unemployment has as a result gone on for years and years; and it will go on. Why should people work when they can live off the State?”

Such views are what does make this book worth reading today. This book acts as a reminder that human beings and human societies are remarkably complicated. The conundrum for the reader lies in the reading required to get there, together with the unfortunate sadness of seeing a potentially promising plot tortured and stretched like lasagne through a pasta machine on setting 7, to meet a publisher’s specification for a novel, not a religio-political essay.

[Martin Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant surprise! Like many decent crime novels, this is far more than a mere "whodunnit", but an insider's tale of people who gained a precarious a toehold on the Establishment, with shades of C.P. Snow. Above all, it is superbly well written and today has the added bonus of being a very readable period piece; it is a little quaint in places, but perfectly recognisable.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...