Audiobook · read by volunteers
Daffodil Mystery
Edgar Wallace (1875–1932)
Read by J. M. Smallheer, Esther, Sibella Denton, Gesine, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Nathalie J., Annika Feilbach, Katie Gibboney, Melissa, Julie Bynum · 38 chapters · 6 h 56
About the book
An offer rejected, a hunter who declines his quarry, a man who loved Thornton Lyne: Edgar Wallace opens The Daffodil Mystery with a handful of puzzling figures and a murder in the fourth chapter. From there the thirty-eight chapters move at his usual pace, with titles such as The Woman in the Case, The Silencing of Sam Stay, Where the Flowers Came From and The Hospital Book promising secrets, witnesses who must be made to speak and clues hidden in unlikely places. Wallace had a gift for speed, short scenes and a steady supply of surprises, and the story moves briskly from one revelation to the next. If you enjoy early twentieth-century crime fiction, with its drawing rooms, its police inquiries and its taste for ingenious twists, you will feel at home. Ten LibriVox volunteers share the reading, which runs for a little under seven hours.
Introduction
Edgar Wallace, born in 1875 and dead in 1932, was one of the most productive British crime writers of the early twentieth century. He wrote some 175 novels, twenty-four plays and a vast amount of journalism, and more than 160 films have been made from his books. He was in Hollywood, working on the early screenplay of King Kong, when he died at the age of fifty-six. His reputation rests on speed: he could plot a thriller quickly, keep the reader turning pages and close with a twist.
The Daffodil Mystery was published in 1920 and belongs to the detective and crime fiction of that decade. Like much of Wallace’s work, it favours action and surprise over long psychological studies. Its chapter titles, such as the one about an offer rejected, the hunter who declines his quarry or the woman in the case, hint at the lively, slightly theatrical tone that carries through the book.
Readers who know Wallace chiefly from his adventure and thriller titles will find here a story built on pace, a growing circle of suspects and the quick touch that made him popular. The language and some social attitudes belong to their period, which is part of the interest for a modern listener.
This recording has thirty-eight chapters, divided among ten LibriVox volunteers, and lasts about seven hours. Because several voices share the work, the reading has a pleasing variety, and the short chapters make it easy to stop and start. It is worth hearing today as an unpretentious example of the golden age of popular detective writing.
Public domain
Edgar Wallace died in 1932: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text