Best 1926 Adventures (6)
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March 10, 2016
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1926 adventure novels. Happy 90th anniversary!
C.S. Forester’s crime adventure Payment Deferred.
In this early effort by the author of the Horatio Hornblower series and The African Queen, William Marble, a London bank clerk desperately worried about his family’s finances, is presented with an opportunity when a nephew carrying a large amount of cash drops by unexpectedly. Speculating with his ill-gotten gains, Marble makes a fortune in the foreign currency market — at which point his family wants to move to a new home. But Marble can’t leave… because his nephew is buried in the garden! What will happen when his wife realizes the truth? Something terrible!
Fun fact: Payment Deferred was overshadowed, in the year of its publication, by Agatha Christie’s much-discussed The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Today, it is almost entirely fogotten. Adapted in 1931 as Broadway play, and in 1932 as a movie. Both starred Charles Laughton.
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1926 adventures that you particularly admire.