Paula Messina Reviews: Case with No Conclusion: A Sgt. Beef Mystery by Leo Bruce

  

Please welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

 

Case with No Conclusion

 

By Paula Messina

 

 

Leo Bruce loves to make fun of mystery writers. Case with No Conclusion is no exception. It begins with Sgt. Beef complaining that his chronicler, Mr. Townsend, is doing him a disservice. “You don’t seem to make much of my cases. Not what some of them do for their detectives….Not like Miss Christie, or Mr. Freeman Wills Croft. They do get taken notice of.”

In turn, Townsend gripes about Beef, and because Townsend is telling the story, he gets to gripe ad infinitum. It’s true Beef previously managed to solve two cases, Townsend tells us, but that was dumb luck. Beef drinks too much beer. He’s easily distracted and barely seems to work. Beef doesn’t speak the King’s English, and he’s a few darts short of a game.

By the end of the novel, Townsend blames Beef for destroying both their careers. “It’s not only yourself you’ve ruined by failing in this case….Here I’ve been working to build up a reputation for you, and the whole things smashed. If you ever get another case there’s not a publisher in London would use the story of it.”

This is not a mutual admiration society akin to the relationship between Sherlock Homes and John Watson. Townsend is never dazzled by Beef.

In No Conclusions, Beef has retired from the police force and set himself up as a private investigator. Much to Townsend’s great surprise. Beef gets his first client when Peter Ferrers hires Beef to investigate the Sydenham Murder and exonerate Peter’s brother Stewart, who is awaiting trial for the murder of Dr. Benson.

Beef admits that things look grim for Stewart. Benson was killed at The Cypresses, Stewart’s home. Stewart’s fingerprints are the only ones on the murder weapon. The house was locked tight, so no one else could have entered and killed the doctor. It’s widely known the doctor’s wife and Stewart have been carrying on an affair, and a heated argument between Stewart and Benson is well documented.

Despite the deck being stacked again Stewart, Beef sets about investigating the murder. Investigating seems like too highfalutin a word. Townsend has a point. Beef’s methods are unusual. Make that odd. At times he barely seems to be doing anything except to insist he knows what he’s doing. Beef can be belligerent while interviewing. He follows leads down a rabbit’s hole, is easily distracted, and refuses to explain himself. Still, Beef is one hundred percent certain Stewart did not kill the doctor.

If only Beef could prove it.

He interviews Benson’s wife and learns that she was not having an affair with Stewart. Peter admits he’s the adulterous guilty party. Besides, Benson knew all about their romantic activities. Indeed, the Bensons planned to divorce.

Beef and Townsend follow Stewart’s chauffeur and one of his maids to Europe, a trip that appears to be a waste of time and Peter’s money. The butler commits suicide. Was that a confession of guilt? Was the butler blackmailing Stewart? Beef attempts to question a bum who might be a witness by plying him with beer. Chalk that up to another Beef failure.

The evidence he accumulates is rather thin. However, nothing can dissuade Beef from the certainty that Stewart did not murder Dr. Benson. Beef fails to prove Stewart’s innocence in time to stop the jury from convicting him of murder. The next step for Stewart is the gallows.

It comes down to the wire, and while Beef is still adamant he knows who the murderer is, he has no proof that would prevent Stewart’s encounter with a noose. It’s sayonara, Stewart.

This shouldn’t be surprising in a book called Case with No Conclusion. Bruce hammers home repeatedly that Beef has no evidence to exonerate Stewart. Bruce even warns his readers before they crack open the book that there will be no conclusions.

While hanging is no laughing matter, Case with No Conclusion is downright hysterically funny.

Stewart might be a lost cause, but it is not wise to underestimate the intellectually stunted Beef. He might swill a lot of beer, and his detecting skills might be underwhelming, to say the least. But he knows what he’s doing. The ending is both unexpected and immensely satisfying.

The back cover explains that this was the seventh Sgt. Beef mystery, but it was the third one Bruce wrote. That explains why Townsend repeatedly refers to two only previous successful cases. It’s a literary gift to know that Bruce didn’t stop writing at number three. There are nine novels in the Sgt. Beef mystery series.

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Paula Messina ©2025

Paula Messina lives within spitting distance of the Atlantic. She writes historical, contemporary, and humorous fiction.

Paula Messina Reviews: Our Jubilee is Death: A Carolus Deane Mystery by Leo Bruce

  

Please welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

 

Our Jubilee Is Death 

By Paula Messina

 

            When a woman revels in her nastiness, her death is a jubilee for everyone in her world.

There are myriad reasons for the characters in Leo Bruce’s Our Jubilee Is Death to contemplate shortening mystery writer Lillianne Bomberger’s time on earth. It’s the reader’s delight that Bruce decided to  kill off Bromberger in this hilarious book.

Leo Bruce is Rupert Croft-Cooke’s pseudonym. A prolific English writer who died in 1979, Croft-Cooke wrote numerous non-fiction books as well as plays, literary novels, and short stories. He is most remembered for his two mystery series, the amateur sleuth Carolus Deene and the decidedly unconventional Sergeant Beef. Bruce reveled in sending up his fellow mystery writers and making his readers laugh out loud. At least this reader could not suppress her laughter while reading Jubilee.

Carolus is not your typical private eye. He’s not a misanthropic Nero Wolfe nor a superior know-it-all Sherlock Holmes. A history master at Queen’s School, Carolus is standoffish and blunt. The closest thing Carolus has to an Archie Goodwin or Dr. Watson is one of his students, the annoying Rupert Priggley, who insinuates himself into the investigation.

It’s conveniently the end of term when Carolus receives a letter from his cousin Fay, who had a frightful experience with the detestable Bromberger. Fay stumbled over Bomberger’s head in the sand at Blessington-on-Sea. What else would a master facing a boring vacation do? His cousin needs him. Carolus heads straight for Blessington to investigate Bomberger’s demise.

When asked by a police officer if she touched the body, Fay says, “Touch her? I always said I wouldn’t touch Lillianne Bomberger with a barge-pole when she was alive. I certainly don’t want to touch her dead. Not even my dogs wanted that. A sniff was quite enough for them.”

Bomberger was a hack who bullied her way into publication and to the top of the best seller lists. She constantly berated her nieces who lived with her, made unreasonable demands on her nephew and his wife, belittled her secretary, and habitually battled with her publisher. In short, there wasn’t a single person in her life spared her venom.

Her publisher said about her. “She was a bitch, Mr. Deene. The bitch of all times, if you want it straight. An egotist on a scale you can scarcely believe. Folie de grandeur, and with a morbid selfishness and pettiness which were quite terrifying to see. The only surprising thing about her murder is that it did not happen years ago.”

Given Bomberger’s personality, it’s no wonder Carolus doesn’t lack for suspects. Everyone’s got a crackerjack reason for wanting her dead. Carolus’s investigation is stymied because there are more lies than motives. As all mystery readers know, the police and private eyes expect lies. Usually one person is telling the truth. Not in Jubilee. Everyone lies. Everyone tells the same lies.

Bruce enjoys poking fun at his fellow mystery writers. Bomberger “wrote the same book over and over again to the end,” her publisher says. “We’ve had her for twenty-three years, and it’s been like a prison sentence. She was the most insufferable human being of this century. Or any other,…”

By the end of the book, Carolus Deene knows who the murderer is, but he has no proof. He tells everyone he is leaving Blessington-on-Sea. The police will have to solve the case without him.

Of course, departing won’t do. Carolus is talked into telling what he knows. A meeting is arranged. After all, that’s how most mysteries end, even ones not written by hacks. The revelation is a surprise. Bruce plays fair with his readers. The clues were there all along.

It’s fun to dip into the works of authors who are largely forgotten. There’s no explaining why some writers have longevity and others fade into the background. Leo Bruce should be in the first category. 

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Paula Messina ©2025

Paula Messina is a native New Englander who writes contemporary, historical, and humorous fiction as well as essays. Her work has appeared in such publications as Black Cat Weekly, Devil’s Snare, Wolfsbane, Ovunque Siamo, and THEMA. She does not own a cat.

Paula Messina Reviews: Case for Three Detectives: A Sergeant Beef Mystery by Leo Bruce

Please welcome Paula Messina back to the blog today..... 

 

Case for Three Detectives

 

By Paula Messina 

 

Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce is a delicious send up of the traditional British mystery. Mrs. Thurston, a lovely but dimwitted woman, retires to her bedroom after a night of entertaining guests. Mrs. Thurston screams. Her husband, the Thurston’s lawyer Williams, and Townsend, who narrates the novel, rush to her aid, only the door is locked. After breaking down the door, the men find Mrs. Thurston dead, her throat slashed.

Williams immediately takes over and searches every inch of the room. The windows are bolted. There is no conceivable way for the murderer to escape, but escape he did. The husband, guests, and staff are stumped. Williams insists the only explanation is something unworldly.

Rigor mortis hasn’t set in when three detectives, Lord Simon Pimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith, arrive like bloodhounds following a scent. These amateur detectives dazzle the characters and readers with their brilliance. Mystery fans, especially those who revel in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, will immediately recognize the lineage of the three detectives, Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot, and Father Brown.

Pimsoll, Picon, and Smith are so brilliant they don’t need to bother with evidence. Mere details would get in the way of their superior intellects and preternatural ability to know who the killer is and why poor Mrs. Thurston had to die. The facts they uncover include a will that favors the staff and a stepson who stands to profit from Mrs. Thurston’s death. No one knows who or where the stepson is. What would a mystery be without blackmail? Voilà! The wealthy Mrs. Thurston’s account is overdrawn. Someone is blackmailing her because of an affair with the chauffeur who is more interested in marrying the maid. There’s a surfeit of reasons to kill Mrs. Thurston.

Case is the first in a series of Sgt. Beef mysteries. From the get go, Beef says he knows who done it. The three detectives dismiss Beef as a beer-swilling, dart-throwing dullard who couldn’t find his way home after a night at the pub, forget find a murderer. Bruce spins another send up with Beef, who barely appears in the novel. What kind of series stars a character who remains in the background for most of the book?

Parts of Case are laugh-out-loud funny. Bruce nails the most annoying traits of Wimsey, Poirot, and Brown. Pimsoll is an arrogant ass. Picon is in love with himself and his brilliant mind. Msgr. Smith rarely says anything that makes sense. Three detectives mean they provide three solutions with three different murderers. Which one is correct?

Can the star of the series, the dipsomaniac, honest-to-goodness, real-life detective—well real life in terms of the novel—better the three brilliant detectives and bag the murderer? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

In true Golden Age fashion, readers are unlikely to figure out who the murderer is.

Bruce pokes fun at Dorthy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and G. K. Chesterton, his contemporaries and giants of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, but he also has his tongue firmly pressed against his cheek as he makes himself part of the joke. After all, he’s a mystery writer as well. The joke can be extended to all mystery writers who manipulate the plot to satisfy their endings.

Leo Bruce, born Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903 – 1979), was a prolific English writer who published non-fiction, novels, short stories, screenplays and more under his real name as well as his pseudonym. Bruce wrote a second mystery series featuring schoolmaster Carolus Deene.

Some readers will be put off by the lack of action. Case for Three Detectives is quite talky, but the dialogue is hilarious. Case is great fun and worth a read.

  

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Paula Messina ©2024 

Paula Messina writes essays as well as humorous and historical fiction. “Fish Eyes” (Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024) marks Donatello Laguardia’s print debut. 

 

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Bitter Tea and Mystery: #1936Club: Case for Three Detectives

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