Review of Bishop Pendle; or, The Bishop's Secret (1900)

28 Aug 2019 - Courtney Floyd

Published in The Bookman (May 1900)

Mr. Fergus Hume knows how to keep a secret. His new story may not be quite so sensational as some of his earlier ones, but none of the old ingenuity or skilful weaving of threads is wanting in it. With such a set of circumstances as are represented here––where a bishop is the centre figure, the bishop’s chaplain, ‘a Jesuit in disguise,’ plays the part of amateur detective, and the whole circle of ecclesiastical society is keen for gossip, not to say scandal––the reader may expect interesting situations; he certainly gets them in this volume. Here, too, we are introduced to an entirely original style of detective. Ben Baltic, after a very indifferent career in Samoa, becomes a reformed character, and, subsequently, a combination of missionary and private enquiry ageny; his self-ordained duty consisting in hunting down law-breakers and forcing them, when their case is hopeless, into paths of truth and righteousness; his success is variable, but he is an entertaining character. Mr. Fergus Hume has in this volume succeeded once again in producing a detective story which is at the same time a novel; he has produced it in a racy and well-sustained manner, too; and what a lot of Latin he knows!