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Death of an Airman - Christopher St. John Sprigg
Just for the record, I bought this book because it had a biplane on the cover.
(And also because I like Golden Age murder mysteries; I mean, I likely wouldn't have done it if the book overall didn't look interesting. But the airplane on the cover was certainly a factor.)
And it was interesting, although it's also a very weird book. In fact it feels almost like two books stapled together; there is a very convoluted and occasionally very weird murder mystery plot with multiple murders and three detectives (two professional, one amateur). There is also an interesting, quirky, and often funny portrait of a working aviation club with a female manager.
The sheer number of women in this book was honestly very surprising to me, doubly so because the characters just take for granted that of course there are a lot of female pilots around and treat them just like any other pilots. (I mean, it's the 1930s so you have to account for language a bit, grown women being referred to as "girls" and so forth, but on the whole the book itself treats them in a very evenhanded and non-stereotypical way that I find really fascinating given that it's written by a male author in the 1930s.) There is also a tremendous range of female characters, from transcontinental aviators to a troop of small girls who are given the opportunity to help out with an aviation show. The book was published in 1935, so the author is presumably working off firsthand experience and/or expectations of the period.
And the book also leans into the aviation aspect; the airplanes are not merely set dressing. The book also deals quite a lot with the day-to-day workings of a small aviation club and charter flying business in the UK.
Things I have learned from this book about the general state of aviation in the 1930s (other than that there were a lot of women in it) include:
- Aero clubs were a bit like racehorses in that they were owned/funded by rich people who were vaguely interested in aviation, and then managed by people who were actually pilots, and visited by their rich owners occasionally.
- There were a LOT of aviation events just going on normally: exhibitions, airplane races, stunt flying shows and so forth. I cannot believe that there is not a single Biggles book that involves an airplane race, at least none I've encountered so far.
- Open cockpit 2-seat biplanes had a telephone connecting the two seats that plugged into the user's flying helmet, so that they could talk to each other without shouting while in the air.
And probably more, but these are what occur to me off the top of my head. There's a lot to do with ordinary aviation as practiced by normal people, the then-very-new field of using airplanes to fly consumer goods around, and that sort of thing.
Another minor thing that interested me as a general 1930s milieu thing is that the characters swear a lot, including the women - mostly mild stuff like "damn," but there's also the amusingly described:
Miss Sackbut's feelings found relief in an expletive which in the ordinary way would have staggered Creighton, as he had been brought up to suppose that it was a word ladies did not know, much less make use of.
(She definitely said "fuck" right there.)
Anyway ... the plot concerns the death of a flight instructor, at first appearing to be a fatal aviation accident, which then turns out to be a lot more complicated, of course. I found the actual murder mystery a bit dull just because it involves a lot of characters who aren't that interesting - a student at the aero club, a local policeman and (eventually) a Scotland Yard detective, all of whom are pretty bland. The solution to the mystery is interesting and it is a really fascinating puzzle, a seemingly impossible murder that happened in the air with a lot of witnesses who watched the flight - essentially it's a locked-room mystery in the cockpit of a biplane. But I was really more interested in everything happening around it.
The author doesn't shy away from making his characters likable, which can produce a bland effect in places, but also gives the book a cozy and pleasant flavor - it was actually more like modern cozies (sweet, funny, not too violent) than the sharper edge that a lot of Golden Age mysteries can have. Rather than the most unlikable person in the book getting murdered, it was a very appealing guy who everyone liked and no one - on the surface of it - had any reason to kill. (His death is actually really sad, which is something I don't feel in most murder mysteries.) Most of the suspects are also varying degrees of amiable and pleasant, and even their petty jealousies and resentments (as assorted motives start to emerge) are relatively minor, and the murderer, although ruthless, turns out to have a surprising amount of conscience.
Below the cut, a few spoilers about the mystery, not whodunnit but as far as generally what's going on and the locked room mystery solution:
The plot turns very Biggles-ish when it turns out to involve an insanely convoluted cross-Channel drug smuggling ring, with secret codes in newspaper gossip columns placed through multiple layers of secondary agents for maximum anonymity, and hidden packets of drugs slipped inside newspapers which are then disseminated to newsagents and bought by customers who are pretending to buy papers but actually are buying drugs. I am pretty sure no drug dealer in the world would go to this much trouble. But the novelty is the point, and the fact that using airplanes is incredibly new to everyone makes it interesting. The police initially don't even believe that airplanes could be used to transport drugs because it's such a new concept. (It did amuse me that if this had been a Biggles book, there would also have been an airplane chase and a shoot-out, and the resolution would have happened on-camera; as it is, most of the actual resolving of the drug smugglers side plot happens entirely off-page and we're just told about it later.)
(Edited to add: There was a curious terminology issue regarding drugs that I have genuinely no idea about, which is that drugs were evidently categorized as "white" drugs - cocaine - and "black" drugs - opium and marijuana. This turns out to be impossible to google for, because all you get are drug statistics by race, so I have no idea what this was actually referring to, if it was racial or based on the appearance of the drug or its origins or what, but in the book it's clear that the characters regard them as very different things and it's taken for granted in the book that people who deal one probably don't deal the other, at least not as part of the same business operation.)
The locked room mystery also had a very convoluted but clever solution which involved a stunt flyer actually flying the plane and fake-crashing, then the body - already killed elsewhere - being swapped in at the last minute by an accomplice to make it look like an accident and/or suicide. There are probably a dozen ways they could have faked his death or disappearance that would have been less public and risky, but it was a really fascinating puzzle and I had no idea how they'd done it up until the final reveal. There was a second murder later also involving an airplane flight, this time more directly involved in the murder (it's an open cockpit biplane and the victim's seatbelt was cut; he falls to his death when the plane flips over). It was clear that the author had put some thought into novel ways of killing people using airplanes.
Anyway, A+ leaning into the premise; the cover and title promised airplanes, and the book did indeed deliver airplanes and plenty of them.
(And also because I like Golden Age murder mysteries; I mean, I likely wouldn't have done it if the book overall didn't look interesting. But the airplane on the cover was certainly a factor.)
And it was interesting, although it's also a very weird book. In fact it feels almost like two books stapled together; there is a very convoluted and occasionally very weird murder mystery plot with multiple murders and three detectives (two professional, one amateur). There is also an interesting, quirky, and often funny portrait of a working aviation club with a female manager.
The sheer number of women in this book was honestly very surprising to me, doubly so because the characters just take for granted that of course there are a lot of female pilots around and treat them just like any other pilots. (I mean, it's the 1930s so you have to account for language a bit, grown women being referred to as "girls" and so forth, but on the whole the book itself treats them in a very evenhanded and non-stereotypical way that I find really fascinating given that it's written by a male author in the 1930s.) There is also a tremendous range of female characters, from transcontinental aviators to a troop of small girls who are given the opportunity to help out with an aviation show. The book was published in 1935, so the author is presumably working off firsthand experience and/or expectations of the period.
And the book also leans into the aviation aspect; the airplanes are not merely set dressing. The book also deals quite a lot with the day-to-day workings of a small aviation club and charter flying business in the UK.
Things I have learned from this book about the general state of aviation in the 1930s (other than that there were a lot of women in it) include:
- Aero clubs were a bit like racehorses in that they were owned/funded by rich people who were vaguely interested in aviation, and then managed by people who were actually pilots, and visited by their rich owners occasionally.
- There were a LOT of aviation events just going on normally: exhibitions, airplane races, stunt flying shows and so forth. I cannot believe that there is not a single Biggles book that involves an airplane race, at least none I've encountered so far.
- Open cockpit 2-seat biplanes had a telephone connecting the two seats that plugged into the user's flying helmet, so that they could talk to each other without shouting while in the air.
And probably more, but these are what occur to me off the top of my head. There's a lot to do with ordinary aviation as practiced by normal people, the then-very-new field of using airplanes to fly consumer goods around, and that sort of thing.
Another minor thing that interested me as a general 1930s milieu thing is that the characters swear a lot, including the women - mostly mild stuff like "damn," but there's also the amusingly described:
Miss Sackbut's feelings found relief in an expletive which in the ordinary way would have staggered Creighton, as he had been brought up to suppose that it was a word ladies did not know, much less make use of.
(She definitely said "fuck" right there.)
Anyway ... the plot concerns the death of a flight instructor, at first appearing to be a fatal aviation accident, which then turns out to be a lot more complicated, of course. I found the actual murder mystery a bit dull just because it involves a lot of characters who aren't that interesting - a student at the aero club, a local policeman and (eventually) a Scotland Yard detective, all of whom are pretty bland. The solution to the mystery is interesting and it is a really fascinating puzzle, a seemingly impossible murder that happened in the air with a lot of witnesses who watched the flight - essentially it's a locked-room mystery in the cockpit of a biplane. But I was really more interested in everything happening around it.
The author doesn't shy away from making his characters likable, which can produce a bland effect in places, but also gives the book a cozy and pleasant flavor - it was actually more like modern cozies (sweet, funny, not too violent) than the sharper edge that a lot of Golden Age mysteries can have. Rather than the most unlikable person in the book getting murdered, it was a very appealing guy who everyone liked and no one - on the surface of it - had any reason to kill. (His death is actually really sad, which is something I don't feel in most murder mysteries.) Most of the suspects are also varying degrees of amiable and pleasant, and even their petty jealousies and resentments (as assorted motives start to emerge) are relatively minor, and the murderer, although ruthless, turns out to have a surprising amount of conscience.
Below the cut, a few spoilers about the mystery, not whodunnit but as far as generally what's going on and the locked room mystery solution:
The plot turns very Biggles-ish when it turns out to involve an insanely convoluted cross-Channel drug smuggling ring, with secret codes in newspaper gossip columns placed through multiple layers of secondary agents for maximum anonymity, and hidden packets of drugs slipped inside newspapers which are then disseminated to newsagents and bought by customers who are pretending to buy papers but actually are buying drugs. I am pretty sure no drug dealer in the world would go to this much trouble. But the novelty is the point, and the fact that using airplanes is incredibly new to everyone makes it interesting. The police initially don't even believe that airplanes could be used to transport drugs because it's such a new concept. (It did amuse me that if this had been a Biggles book, there would also have been an airplane chase and a shoot-out, and the resolution would have happened on-camera; as it is, most of the actual resolving of the drug smugglers side plot happens entirely off-page and we're just told about it later.)
(Edited to add: There was a curious terminology issue regarding drugs that I have genuinely no idea about, which is that drugs were evidently categorized as "white" drugs - cocaine - and "black" drugs - opium and marijuana. This turns out to be impossible to google for, because all you get are drug statistics by race, so I have no idea what this was actually referring to, if it was racial or based on the appearance of the drug or its origins or what, but in the book it's clear that the characters regard them as very different things and it's taken for granted in the book that people who deal one probably don't deal the other, at least not as part of the same business operation.)
The locked room mystery also had a very convoluted but clever solution which involved a stunt flyer actually flying the plane and fake-crashing, then the body - already killed elsewhere - being swapped in at the last minute by an accomplice to make it look like an accident and/or suicide. There are probably a dozen ways they could have faked his death or disappearance that would have been less public and risky, but it was a really fascinating puzzle and I had no idea how they'd done it up until the final reveal. There was a second murder later also involving an airplane flight, this time more directly involved in the murder (it's an open cockpit biplane and the victim's seatbelt was cut; he falls to his death when the plane flips over). It was clear that the author had put some thought into novel ways of killing people using airplanes.
Anyway, A+ leaning into the premise; the cover and title promised airplanes, and the book did indeed deliver airplanes and plenty of them.