The Methods of Sergeant Cluff

 The Methods of Sergeant Cluff (1961) by Gil North (Geoffrey Horne)

Sergeant Cluff has a murder on his hands. It's the murder of a young woman and the obvious suspect is the young man who has been dangling after her. The girl had more money and better clothes than her job at the local pharmacy would allow and everyone assumed that she was making money at night. In the ways that ladies of the night might make such money. And everyone in town assumes that the lovelorn young man couldn't stand what she was doing and didn't respond well to her rebuffs. Well, neither I nor Sergeant Cluff were ready to believe the obvious. I went looking for clues. I'm not sure what Cluff was looking for. He wasn't all that communicative. You see...

One of Sgt. Cluff's methods seems to be to keep the identity of the victim a secret (from the reader, anyway) as long as possible. I love it when the story starts with a bang--murder up front and we're off and running on the investigation. So...we get that. But do we get to know who she is? Nope. Cluff knows, but he's not telling (and won't let his inspector tell us either). [And--just so you know--the library thoughtlessly plastered their barcode sticker over the part of the blurb where I think the name is revealed. So, having bought this at the library used book shop, I'm in darkness until somebody decides to mention the girl's name.] Ah...finally...she has a name! But not until Cluff had wandered all over town.

"She's--" Mole started to say, opening the handbag.

"I know who she is," Cluff stopped him.

Mole pushed the envelope he was pulling out back in the bag. "Of course," he said bitterly. "I was forgetting. You were born and bred in these parts. You know everybody."

Other methods seemed to include elliptical conversations with all the people he meets. Conversations where the eavesdropper (that would be the reader) feels like they have poor reception on a cell phone and are missing half or more of the conversation. Most of his "interviews" don't seem to make sense. I didn't see the ending coming and I honestly don't know how anyone could. Cluff didn't even figure it out...he only knows the final solution because he played eavesdropper outside a door and overheard the murderer confess. 

To say that I'm underwhelmed with Sergeant Cluff would be an understatement. To say that I have another of the Cluff books on the TBR pile and I'm not at all sure I want to read it would very accurate. This one, however, is going out the door--re-donated to the Friends of the Library Bookstore. Maybe somebody else will appreciate Sergeant Cluff more than me. ★★ and I think I may be a bit generous.

First line: The constable watched him swing across the deserted High Street, from the corner by the church.

More than facts was in question here, the intangible, invisible passions of human beings. Facts could have one meaning to Mole, another to Barker, still another to Cluff. It wasn't facts that mattered, but what lay behind the facts.

Last line: He added, before he was too far away for Barker to hear, "Where's the Sergeant got to, anyway?"
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Deaths = two hit on head