The Methods of Sergeant Cluff

July 4, 2016
Originally published in 1961, North’s second Sergeant Cluff novel (after Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm) is not a classic mystery, despite its inclusion in the British Library Crime Classics series. Rather, it is a rumination on social change in England during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a period that saw the rise of a moneyed professional class. As one character puts it, “In my father’s day they had to be gentry. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry with the cheek can stick his oar in now.” The claustrophobic atmosphere of Gunnarshaw, the fictional Yorkshire town where the story is set, echoes the gloomy character of its hero, Sergeant Cluff. There is a hypnotic pleasure in watching Cluff, usually in the company of his collie, Clive, wandering the back alleys and canal tow paths, scoffing gravy-filled meat pies at a workingman’s cafe and gossiping with the locals. These seemingly inconclusive activities in fact reveal the prejudices, mores, and class structure of Gunnarshaw and lead Cluff to intuit the murderer of a young local woman. Anglophiles will find a lot to like.

July 1, 2016
Sgt. Caleb Cluff, the no-nonsense Yorkshire copper created by pseudonymous Geoffrey Horne (1916-88), is resurrected by the British Library Crime Classics.Cluff's second case, originally published in 1961, begins when a courting couple's tryst is interrupted by their discovery of a body on a cobbled street in the town of Gunnarshaw, where everyone knows everyone else and everyone knows what kind of woman Jane Trundle was. Cluff, a lone wolf who's been recalled from leave to help overworked, underinspired Inspector Mole work the case, is under no illusions about the victim either, but he's coolly determined to avenge her. Her young man, Jack Carter, swears he didn't kill her--he didn't even get her pregnant. Although there's no evidence to back his statement up, Cluff, whose maverick attitudes toward authority and procedure seem to make him much more like American than British police officers, isn't afraid to trust his own instincts and focus instead on Greensleeve, the chemist Jane worked for. Accompanied by his dog, Clive, whom no one would dream of separating from him, he makes the rounds of a surprisingly small number of witnesses and suspects, pondering the relations among them as he walks along, then reaches out to seize the killer, though not soon enough to prevent a second death. Martin Edwards' brief but informative Introduction notes that the Cluff stories inspired a BBC television series, and you can see why: North's elliptical scene-setting and clipped dialogue are perfect for brief, understated segments on the telly, and they're strikingly modern to boot.

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