W A Ballinger* - The Strange Face of Murder - Mayflower Dell - 1965
Paperback book, stated to be Sexton Blake Library, 5th Series, Number 20
*I gather W A Ballinger was a `house pseudonym` used by a number of different writers. I`ve checked on Blakiana but apparently the true author is unknown. Although I`ve read SBLs by a number of writers, I would hesitate even to make an educated guess.
Ignore the atrocious artwork, this is actually an entertaining read.
A comedy thriller, one could imagine this being adapted to be made into an Ealing film. As it is, unfortunately it's likely to languish in obscurity, saved from total neglect only by the Blake connection.
Which brings us to a question. Does it really deserve to be regarded as part of the Blake saga ? In my view, yes, but only by the skin of it's teeth.
Blake appears repeatedly throughout the story, sometimes taking an active part in proceedings, but mostly it is concerned with Graham Sykes and his sidekick Johnny Hammond, two down-at-heel artists who make an ill-advised decision to set themselves up as private investigators and soon find themselves completely out of their depth.
One has to wonder if it is actually some writer's unpublished novel that has simply been adapted into an SBL title, either to make a quick buck or simply to avoid it remaining unpublished.
It is inevitably dated, with Sykes himself being portrayed as a 'lovable rogue' and Hammond as his 'hapless sidekick', and generally it is difficult to imagine it finding much of a readership today, not least because, as far as I know it is only available as a cheaply produced 1960s paperback.
The ending does seem a little rushed, with some of the eventual explanations really not making much sense
Overall, I enjoyed it but there again I am easily amused.
If you can pick up a cheap copy in reasonable condition it would be a good purchase, with the proviso that it's not likely to endear itself to Sexton Blake purists.
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