With thoughts of school reunions still lingering in the air I thought I would look for a few more murder mysteries using that particular underpinning theme. From my very rudimentary research it would seem to be a surprisingly small field, especially when one disqualifies college/university reunions or any others that bring together groups that were formed largely in (relative) adulthood. Of those, Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Gaudy Night’ is perhaps the most well known and best, yet I admit I am drawn much more to reunions of childhood/teenage ‘friendships’ because these seem to me to be ones fired through with the most profound disconnects that nevertheless do not overpower something altogether more powerful and peculiarly comforting that draws them together.

Anyway, as mentioned last time out, Clifford Witting made a good fist of a school reunion murder mystery back in the 1950s with ‘A Bullet for Rhino’, but typically uses the fee-paying private school as its setting. This does make perfect sense for its use of the ‘alien’ setting (see also the Country House) as a method of necessarily distancing the generations of readers who grew up in the age of the Welfare State and who were schooled in Comprehensives or (whisper it) Secondary Moderns. Yet it must also be remembered that for Witting and his contemporaries the fee-paying private school (boarding or otherwise) would have been the de-facto experience for themselves and the bulk of their readership, so this sense of the reader as historical and cultural tourist would exist to a far lesser degree. Are there, then, some murder mysteries written since that time where the setting is the comprehensive school reunion? As I say, my research is rudimentary at best, but it would appear not. The closest I could find is ‘Maxwell’s Reunion’ by M.J. Trow, but whilst this has the titular character (one Peter Maxwell) as a teacher in a contemporary Local Authority Comp, the reunion in question is still of seven former students of a private school. The 2001 novel is apparently the seventh instalment in what currently appears to be a 21 book run, several of which, if their titles are anything to go by, take aim at some of the easy targets of state education. So we have ‘Maxwell’s Inspection’, ‘Maxwell’s Academy’ and, ahem, ‘Maxwell’s Zoom’. None of which, as a retired state school teacher, I have much desire to read. Indeed I rather wish I had not picked up ‘Maxwell’s Revenge’, for whilst it all trots along at a reasonable pace and is over relatively quickly, there is still an element of ‘skip to the end…’.

It must be admitted at this point that I have my own prejudices about many (most?) ‘modern’ murder/crime mysteries to contend with here, and sadly ‘Maxwell’s Reunion’ presses a lot of those buttons. A predilection for dropping popular cultural references (in this case mostly film)? Check. One dimensional characters who seem to adhere to the lowest common denominator stereotypes? Check. A general air of insufferable smugness around the lead (Peter Maxwell) character? Check. Managing to make the reader care not one jot about the fates of any of said characters? Check again. All of which makes reading the book feel a little like working through a checklist, which usually suggests that the writer may have approached the writing in much the same way. Others will, and indeed have, thought differently of course. I dare say one cannot get to 21 books in a series (as well as innumerable other titles and other series, apparently) without doing something right in the eyes of many, but hey ho. Not for me.

Better by far, for a variety of reasons, is June Wright’s ‘Make Up for Murder’. One of these reasons is most certainly that it was originally published in 1966, which makes it as old as me; another might be that it’s plot and premise is largely one that has been twirling around in my mind since my own high school reunion some weeks back, one that, if I did not find fiction writing to be such an insufferably hard slog, I might one day actually write. Something to do with celebrity, identity, self-(re)invention, secrets and the slippery shape-shifting qualities of truth. Don’t hold your breath.

Anyway, ‘Make Up For Murder’ is actually the last of the seven novels written by “Australia’s answer to Agatha Christie”, an epithet apparently predicated on the fact that her first novel ‘Murder In The Telephone Exchange’ outsold Christie in the Australian market during its publication year of 1948. The book (which gained publication thanks to a competition run by London publisher Hutchinson, and judged by Anthony Berkeley Cox, John Creasey and Dennis Wheatley) is by some distance Wright’s longest and in my eyes weakest book. The local colour lent by its Melbourne setting perhaps explains some of its appeal to the Australian market, and certainly Wright’s own experience of working in a telephone exchange lends it an air of detail that carries the narrative convincingly. Such an approach of ‘write what you know’ is not always good advice however, although perhaps one can only judge this if one has had similar experiences. Had I worked in 1960s telephone exchanges myself then I might be rolling my eyes at Wrights’ depictions in much the same way as I have done to Trow’s depictions of teaching in the naughties. That said, this familiarity with the workings of a telephone exchange is also the novel’s weakness, for it feels like far too much time is spent/wasted describing all the little idiosyncrasies of the exchange, little of which ends up having much input to the solution of the crime(s). It feels too as though Wright felt impelled to add layer upon layer of complication to the plot, in so doing confusing embellishment with quality detailing, though doubtless this would have appealed to Berkeley Cox… As a first piece of detective fiction it is a pleasant enough diversion, but one can’t help but be glad that Wright seemed to learn from the process, implementing the golden rule that Less Is More in her subsequent work, particularly in the three Mother Paul novels.

The first of these, 1958’s ‘Reservation for Murder’, is a fine if slightly odd way to start. Narrated in the first person by Mary Allen, a resident in the Kilcomoden business girls’ hostel in Melbourne, Mother Paul actually rarely features in any significant way. Rather she floats around in the background, flitting into view at opportune moments to ask an oddly probing question or to make an astute observation. Admittedly this does feel rather appropriate given her position as a Reverend Mother so one must assume that it was a conscious decision in style by Wright, but in my eyes it does not quite come off. ‘Reservation for Murder’ then is a fine enough murder mystery that suffers only from that slightly odd first person narrative and, whilst avoiding the excesses of ‘Murder In The Telephone Exchange’, being a touch too lengthy for comfort with Wright still a little guilty of stuffing too much into the one story. 1960’s ‘Faculty of Murder’ is better by far, with Wright having trimmed the fat and arrived at what feels to me like the perfect fighting weight for a murder mystery. There are fewer detours, a sympathetically drawn policeman in Inspector Savage as capable supporting actor, and a neatly crafted mystery that plays on sibling connections, questions of identity (a recurring theme in Wright’s work, it seems), the struggles of youth to grapple with the vagaries of adulthood and the struggles of all ages to deal with the passions of jealousy. Gone is the first person narrative, proof perhaps that Wright acknowledged the difficulties that approach presented in ‘Reservation for Murder’, but Wright continues to write Mother Paul as a figure who moves gently around the book whilst never taking centre stage for very long. Wright instead centres the narrative around a faculty tutor at Melbourne University and the approach works well, allowing Mother Paul to deftly manipulate everyone else into making the moves and uncovering the facts that support her thoughts and theories. And whilst Mother Paul still remains rather too hazy a character to ever rival the confidently drawn Miss Marple, for example, there is something altogether admirable in the way she calmly positions all the parts of the puzzle. Faith and Truth in some delicate dance on the road to enlightenment, perhaps. ‘Faculty of Murder’ certainly feels like a significant step in June Wright’s journey.

Before getting (at last!) to Wright’s 1966 swansong of ‘Make Up For Murder’ it is worth taking a sidestep to consider the posthumously published ‘Duck Season Death’. Written in the mid-1950s but inexplicably rejected by her publisher and remaining unseen for some sixty years, this short novel is a real treasure. For if her other pieces of detective fiction show Wright working competently within the traditional structure of the genre, ‘Duck Season Death’ sees her playfully lifting the curtain and gleefully exposing the workings. The narrative revolves around the murder of what appears to be a particularly unpleasant character within what is effectively a closed-circle of suspects, all of whom would seem to have good motive for the crime. So far so classic Country House murder mystery. What lends it an extra level of pleasure, however, is the fact that the victim’s nephew decides to employ his learning from years reviewing detective fiction to find the killer, whilst himself becoming Prime Suspect for the Police. And is it a spoiler to point out that Wright employs that most irritating of all detective mystery tropes of identifying the real murderer by introducing some facts at the denouement that the reader was not previously privy to? Perhaps so, but in truth it rather feels amusingly appropriate. Perhaps too this knowing sense of self-deconstruction was just a shade ahead of its time, and whilst this would certainly explain the rejection by conservative publishers in mid 1950s Australia, it makes for a thoroughly entertaining read in the 21st Century.

And so finally, yes, to ‘Make Up For Murder’, which continues the approach used in ‘Faculty of Murder’ in having the narrative centred around a character other than Mother Paul, who once again is allowed to slip stealthily around in the background, perceptively solving the crime whilst everyone else pursues the red herrings that Wright still enjoyably throws into the mix. Red herrings are of course the bread and butter of most writers of mystery fiction, and June Wright certainly sprinkles her stories liberally with them. Indeed, this predilection is, as already suggested, perhaps the main stumbling block in enjoying ‘The Telephone Exchange Murder’ because there really are just too many of the things constantly getting in the way of the story. It’s as if Wright wanted to use up all of her ideas in that one book, which is fair enough when one considers she might well have written it thinking it might be her one and only. By the time of ‘Make Up for Murder’ however Wright has something of a handle on this, and the herrings are rather more cautiously dealt into the story. And is that story one of a school reunion? Well yes and no. The murder in question certainly takes place during a reunion for former students of the fictional Maryhill school for girls, a reunion at which TV celebrity Rianne May is the star attraction. The relationships between several of the former classmates is also something of a key theme, although this is not explored in the depth that one might have thought possible. That said, whilst working up the threads of those relationships into something altogether meatier might have added some potential literary interest to the story, it might also have added a bulk that, having learned from the excesses of ‘Murder In The Telephone Exchange’ and to a lesser extent ‘Reservation for Murder’, Wright was keen to avoid. She certainly does avoid bulk, and like ‘Faculty for Murder’, ‘Make Up for Murder’ is a pleasantly trim tome with a pace that clips along nicely. As for the murder in question, the question from the off is always about whether the intended target for the poison in the teacup is Rianne May and how the answer to that might explain her subsequent disappearance. The disappearance of May rather mirrors the continued relative invisibility of Mother Paul in the story and is quite a neat piece of paralleling, particularly in light of the denouement and the idea, perhaps, that Wright was drawing similarities between the realm of traditional organised religion and the then relatively new religion of television. There are some quite delicious little threads of theatrical illusion running through everything (something that The Church has had centuries of practice in) and issues of secret and altered identities abound. The central one of these identities of course is Rianne May herself, or plain old Maisie Ryan as she had been known as a schoolgirl, put upon by some of those classmates who remained in Melbourne whilst she found fame in London, eventually to return home the conquering hero (or heroine as would have still been the case in the 1960s). Television, then, and the multitudinous cast of characters required to produce and maintain the illusions it creates, is the central theme for ‘Make Up for Murder’ and Wright takes great pleasure in sketching those characters with a deftness of touch. Few, if any, come across as altogether pleasant individuals, with perhaps only May’s personal secretary Sue Berry, around whom Wright builds the narrative, emerging relatively unscathed from Wright’s gentle barbs. As noted, the books clips along at a fair pace and although Wright still arguably crams one or two too many narrative arcs into the limited space for true comfort, it is all throughly enjoyable. Enjoyable too is the inevitable thread of romance that Wright often employs in her stories. Does the girl gets the man? What do you think… And although it all comes across a little eye-rolling for 21st Century audiences, the attitudes Wright describes are very much of their time and place and should certainly be enjoyed as such.

Such a notion of time and place is certainly key to enjoying June Wright’s books, and ‘Make Up for Murder’ is as valuable a piece of Pop Cultural documentation as it is an enjoyable murder mystery. Belonging very much to a place and time could also be said about June Wright herself. Certainly one wonders whether in another time and another place she could or would have continued to write and publish novels after ‘Make Up for Murder’. For although Wright was clearly hitting her stride with the Mother Paul stories (the reappearance of Inspector Savage suggests the possibility of a serial double act that would, I think, have been very successful), and a fourth had been planned and plotted, Life, in the form of family and her husband’s mental health rather got in the way. Had things turned out differently would further Mother Paul mysteries have gained the character the affection shown to Miss Marple? Would a larger body of work have established June Wright as more than being something of an antipodean curio? Such questions are moot, of course, and in truth we ought to be thankful her work has resurfaced for our pleasure. She is certainly worth investigation.