Published in 1937, this is by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1883-1955). I confess I had never heard of him, but Martin Edwards points out, in his Introduction to the text I read, that Farjeon was "a major figure during the Golden Age of murder between the two world wars". By the time this one hit the bookshops, he had already published more than two dozen novels. And the flap text tells us that Dorothy L. Sayers rated him highly, commenting that he "is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures".

He's also, by the way, the brother of Eleanor Farjeon, known for her children's stories and poems (and for the text of Morning Has Broken).


Available at the Internet Archive

The subtitle is A Christmas Crime Story (there's the reason for reading, then, although I slightly overshot the deadline for finishing it). And indeed, the narrative opens on the day before Christmas, when England has been hit by a vast pile of snow: "It floated down from its limitless source like a vast extinguisher... It grew beyond the boundaries of local interest. By the 23rd it was news. By the 24th it was a nuisance."

We start with six passengers marooned in a railway compartment. The train has stopped because of the snow, and no-one knows quite when it will resume its journey. We have Mr Edward Maltby of the Royal Psychical Society, a little inclined to pontificate, and initially you're not sure if he will be wise or weird; David and Lydia Carrington, a bright-and-breezy brother and sister; Mr Hopkins, who starts as a world-class bore, but mellows over the course of the pages; Jessie Noyes, a slightly world-weary chorus girl; and Robert Thomson, a drab and downtrodden clerk.

In dribs and drabs, our six leave the train, thinking they'll be able to make their way to the next station. But the snow is blinding, disorienting, thoroughly hostile. Eventually, they all pitch up at a country house. The door is open; the fires are lit; the table is laid. But there's no sign of life. Short on options, they decide, nevertheless, to take refuge there, very decently listing everything they use so they can eventually reimburse the owner.

At once, further mysterious things start happening: Strange noises behind a locked door, which later is no longer locked; strange impressions picked up by Jessie, who seems to be hyper-sensitive to atmosphere; the suspicious bread knife on the floor in the kitchen; the arrival of an unsettling and belligerent stranger... A murder has been committed on the train, it turns out, and the killer is apparently on the loose. But as the story goes on, he seems to be the least of anyone's worries...

There's a definite stage-play quality about the narrative, as characters regularly leave (via windows as well as doors), only to reappear later.

But it's undeniably atmospheric. The house that should be cosy, but is actually creepy, contrasts with the whited-out world outside, into which every expedition becomes a battle: The shifting tracks of footprints in the snow; a body buried by the indefatigably falling white-out; the claustrophobic feeling engendered by the impossibility of fetching help.

Finally, on another reconnaissance mission, David comes across a stranded car. The father and daughter inside, Mr Strange and Nora, were on their way to the house, but met with misadventure. It's their family's tragedy that has brought about all the events of the snowy night.


Joseph Jefferson Farjeon

There's something about the second half that doesn't totally work. The foul deed that originally kicked off all the intrigue happened a long time ago, and the more contemporary nasty business happens "very offstage, both in terms of time and space". The denouement, then, is not quite as polished as the build-up. But it's still a very decent read, and kept me engaged and guessing until the end.

There's a whiff of a ghost story in the narrative. But Mr Maltby is at pains to ground such phenomena in something like reality: "If," he says at one point, "by your expression spooks and ghosts, you imply conscious emanations, aftermaths of physical existence capable of independent functioning of a semi-earthly character, well, then I probably do not believe in that sort of thing... But if, by spooks and ghosts, you imply emanations recreated by acute living sensitiveness or intelligence from the inexhaustible store-houses of the past, then I do believe in that sort of thing." David tries to clarify: "You mean we can conjure up the past?" But Maltby objects to the word he's used, pointing out: "There is nothing magical in the process. We can reveal -- expose -- the past. The past is ineradicable." It's like a gramophone record, he says, in that it's all to do with the capturing of waves: "Potentially everything that has ever existed, everything born of the senses, can be recovered by the senses."

This is the basis that Maltby uses to unravel -- by a combination of intuition and deduction -- the whole saga of the Strange family. It helps, of course, if you have an ultra-sensitive person like Jessie on hand...

All the characters, including those from what would undoubtedly then be seen as the lower classes, are treated sympathetically. As Edwards remarks: "For all the chill of the Christmas-time snow in Mystery in White, there are repeated clues to Farjeon's amiable personality that shines through from start to finish." And yes, it's refreshing to have a 1930s crime story that doesn't have any racism, classism, or anti-Semitism to explain away... I guess it's true to say that it's the men who take the lead in the action. But Lydia, Jessie, and Nora are pretty feisty. And the female villain is nothing if not cold and calculating.

So, yes, I'd be in for more...


More of the white stuff, in Travnik, 2022