Mr. Fortune Finds a Pig (1943)
Blurb:
My review:
Mr. Fortune Finds a Pig is one of Bailey's weakest novels: the plot, which involves Nazism and witchcraft, is silly, and the book suffers from a lack of direction: a straightforward detective story trails off into an average thriller. Typhus among refugees in Wales leads Mr. Fortune to uncover a Fifth Column plot; this was handled much more successfully in Dead Man's Effects. Well before the halfway mark, Mr. Fortune discovers the identity of the chief quisling: not a character to whom the reader has been introduced; and, by the end of the book, it turns out that every character (apart from victims and police) is part of the conspiracy. The principal motive—not one to which the reader has much of a clue—is the kidnapping of a prominent British general. Witchcraft is also thrown into the mixture, certainly not up to the level of Gladys Mitchell or John Dickson Carr: the handling of witchcraft is laughable, especially the very camp sacrifice scenes at the end.