Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley

Source of book: Audiobook from the library, but I had to finish reading the last chapter on my Libby app. 

 

A couple weeks ago, my wife and our two youngest kids drove up to the Bay Area to see Ruddygore. As we often do, we found an audiobook to help the miles pass. We selected Trent’s Last Case, but discovered that it was just a bit too long for our driving time. Since we haven’t all been in a car at the same time since then, I went ahead and finished it by borrowing an electronic copy from the Los Angeles County Library system. 

 

Trent’s Last Case is considered one of the greatest detective stories ever written, and was the favorite of a number of other mystery writers. The irony is that Bentley wrote the book as a send-up of the genre, both breaking rules and having his sleuth get nearly everything wrong about the case. It is an anti-detective novel, so to speak. 

 

There are some sour notes, unfortunately, that I want to mention at the outset. The book was written in 1913, and contains some bigoted ideas all too common in the era. Since the book is over 100 years old, I assume that spoilers are okay here. If not, then go read the book first and come back to this post. 

 

The plot turns on a character deciding, it appears, to kill himself in order to frame someone else for murder. This rather unlikely scenario is justified by three things. First, the person is a wealthy investment banker, and we know they all have some strange obsession. (This is doubtful - mostly they are obsessed with making money and lack normal human consciences about it.) Second, he is an American, ha ha, and we know what Americans are like. (Yeah, there was a lot of this in a certain era of British writing.) And third, he had Native American Blood and we (wink wink nod nod) know how hot-headed and irrational those people are. Ouch. 

 

Also present is the use of the n-word and the quotation of racist minstrel songs. So reader beware. These have nothing whatsoever to do with the plot, so I have no idea why he even put them in. 

 

So, that said, the plot centers on the death of the wealthy investment banker under mysterious circumstances. Who committed the murder? Was it his young wife, who had discovered him to be abusive and cruel? Was it one of his two personal secretaries? Was it one of the servants? Or was it a business rival with a vendetta? 

 

While the cops are investigating, a London newspaper enlists Phillip Trent, one of their occasional correspondents, to do his sleuthing magic. 

 

As I noted above, Trent gets everything wrong, at every turn. He isn’t stupid for doing so - the evidence does indeed seem to point in turn to a number of suspects - but he is rather stupid for falling in love with the young widow, hardly something to keep one’s mind free of bias. 

 

After the final revelation, which Trent never sees coming, he announces that he will never again mess around with detection - hence the title of the book. 

 

But, this book is actually not the last Trent book, but the first one - after its smashing success, but more than 20 years later, Bentley wrote two more novels about the detective, although neither of these sold quite as well. He also wrote a number of short stories featuring Trent. 

 

While I thought the book had its flaws, it did have the requisite twists and turns, the interesting characters, and the red herrings that good detective fiction should have. It also had plenty of subtle jokes at the expense of the genre, which were amusing. The style is also a bit of a spoof, hearkening back to the Victorian Era rather than the more modern style of 1913. Overall, it creates a certain atmosphere that is definitely classic British murder mystery. At the same time, its more sardonic and tongue-in-cheek style would influence later writers within the genre. 

 

Overall, worth a read, particularly by fans of the murder mystery.