"The Sting of the Honey Bee" by Roger Longrigg

Dan Mallett has to be one of the most unusual protagonists in a detective or crime story that I’ve ever read.

He’s not a policeman or private detective. He was once a banker, to please his mother, but he finally couldn’t stand the dailyness and tedium of it. So, he followed in the footsteps of his father: poacher and thief.

 

Dan has certain skills that lend themselves to detective work. He can quietly set traps for birds without the owner of the land aware of it. He has connections to fences for stolen goods. He knows how the police operate, and he knows the police really well. But what starts as a simple pony party for children will take Dan very close to death.

 

Roger Longrigg

A man arrives from London with his two young children, determined to buy the family farm he believes his father was cheated out of. The farm is occupied by two elderly and rather unlikeable sisters, who operate a pony riding business. The man makes a generous offer, which the sisters refuse. The man then takes a series of steps to force the two women to sell, and he covers himself extremely well. It’s a benefit that the local people have never liked the two curmudgeonly sisters and are glad to see them go.

 

The man, as it turns out, is connected to the London underworld. And he’s hired goons to frighten and terrorize the sisters. Dan’s more concerned about a pony he stole and hid among the sisters’ stock, and what the police will do when the sisters finger him. But he also sees what’s coming down on top the sisters’ heads, and he decides to help. Or he finds himself in such a fix that risking capture by the police may be the best option.

 

Sting of the Honey Bee is the second of the Dan Mallett novels by Roger Longrigg, writing as Frank Parrish. It’s less of a detective story and more of general crime novel; the only mystery is how Mallett is going to escape disaster and help the sisters survive the onslaught of a London gang leader. It’s got a bit of romance as well, with Dan admiring and somewhat falling for the pony trainer hired by the gang boss who has no idea what’s really going on.

 

Watching Mallett at work and pulling off a stunning upset makes the novel an absolutely fun read.

 

Longrigg (1929-2000) wrote numerous mystery and suspense novels under different pseudonyms. He used Frank Parrish for the eight Dan Mallett novels, and Ivor Drummond and Domini Taylors for others. He’s also published under his own name, both fiction and non-fiction, about foxhunting and horse racing. 

 

Related:

 

Fire in the Barley by Roger Longrigg.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Legacy of The Lodger, Marie Belloc Lowndes’ Influential Jack the Ripper Story – Victoria Gilbert at CrimeReads. 

 

“The Unfortunate Fate of Septimus Wise”: A Ghost Story – Stephen Masty at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“A Vagabond Song,” poem by Bliss Carman – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Rose at the Golden Heart – Spitalfields Life.

"Fire in the Barley" by Roger Longrigg

Dan Mallett wasn’t always a poacher. In fact, Dan went to school and trained as a banker. He was even employed by a bank, and seemed to be doing very well, much to his mother’s delight. She was married to a poacher, and she knew the highs and lows of that occupation. And then Dan’s father died; Dan threw over the banking business, moved home, and followed in his father’s footsteps.  

Dan is certainly wily, finagling his way of scrapes and near apprehensions. He’s got more ways of slipping through the police’s fingers (and those of irate Yorkshire farmers and his neighbors) than anyone can quite believe. But a series of vandalisms at farms and garden greenhouses has the police’s eyes trained on Dan, and only on Dan.

Someone is blackmailing farmers and rural homeowners: pay up and pay monthly, or you’ll lose a crop, a barn, a greenhouse, or worse. It’s a protection racket, operating under the shadowy name of “AgriSecurity.” Dan, forced to “go to ground” because both the police and local farmers are after him, has to learn who’s behind this. He figures it our soon enough; what’s more difficult is gathering the evidence to prove it, and perhaps exacting some revenge.

Roger Longrigg

Fire in the Barley by Roger Longrigg (writing as Frank Parrish) was first published in 1977. It’s the first in the Dan Mallett series, and it may be the only mystery series where the detective is a poacher. The story has lost none of its charm and mystery; the poaching scenes almost sound as if they were based on the author’s own experience.

Longrigg (1929-2000) wrote numerous mystery and suspense novels under different pseudonyms. He uses Frank Parrish for the Daniel Mallett novels, and Ivor Drummond and Domini Taylors for others. He’s also published under his own name, both fiction and non-fiction, about foxhunting and horse racing. Other Daniel Mallett novels include Snare in the Dark, Sting of the Honeybee, and Fly in the Cobweb.

Fire in the Barley is a well-told tale and just as fresh as it was 43 years ago. And a protagonist like Dan Mallett makes you want to read immediately the next book in the series.