I’ve just finished The Secret of the Pointed Tower, a collection of short crime fiction by French author Pierre Véry. Originally published in 1937 – the middle of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction – the collection has recently been translated into English by mystery writer Tom Mead.
I enjoyed these stories immensely. They are whimsical and eccentric, with satisfying resolutions. I’m not sure if they are completely fair play, since I don’t try that hard to puzzle things out; I’m just along for the ride. But I never felt cheated while reading them, never felt that Véry had pulled something out of thin air that took me completely by surprise.
In many ways, this collection reminded me of Lord Dunsany’s crime fiction collection, Two Bottles of Relish, which I reviewed some years ago. I’ve always been a fan of Dunsany’s voice, and his way of adding fanciful details to the stories he tells. As I mentioned in that review, I got the impression that Dunsany, a fantasist, didn’t take detective fiction that seriously: the stories felt more like pastiches of classic ratiocination fiction, rather than what you might call “serious” examples of the genre. But that’s part of what gave those stories their charm!
Véry, on the other hand, was a professional mystery writer, well-regarded in France, although not so well-known to English language readers . He, too, had a fondness for folklore and the fantastical, and the blending of these elements into his crime fiction is a hallmark of his style. In fact, Tom Mead, in his foreword, quotes Véry as saying “For me, the roman policier is the brother of the fairy tale.”
I think it’s this taste for the fantastical that gives the stories in The Secret of the Pointed Tower their delightful voice, and their slightly off-kilter viewpoint—much like Dunsany’s crime fiction.
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Multo (Ghost) 
