Nightmare
Driven to madness by the cruelty of a small group of people, a young novelist sets about taking murderous revenge.Simon Whalley is an unsuccessful novelist who is gradually going to pieces under the strain of successive setbacks. Brooding over his troubles, and driven to despair by the cruelty of his neighbours, he decides to take his revenge in the only way he knows how – by planning to murder them . . .Lynn Brock made his name in the 1920s and 30s with the popular ‘Colonel Gore’ mysteries, winning praise from fans and critics including Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot. In 1932, however, Brock abandoned the formulaic Gore for a new kind of narrative, a ‘psychological thriller’ in the vein of Francis Iles’ recent sensation, Malice Aforethought. Advertised by Collins as ‘one of the most remarkable books that we have ever published’, the unconventional and doom-laden Nightmare provided readers with a disturbing portrayal of what it might take to turn an outwardly normal man into a cold-blooded murderer.This Detective Story Club Classic is introduced by Rob Reef, author of the ‘John Stableford’ Golden Age mysteries, who finds philosophy at the heart of Brock’s landmark crime novel.
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‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1932
Introduction © Rob Reef 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Francis Durbridge asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008137779
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008137786
Version: 2017-09-27
TO MY WIFE
All the characters and incidents of this novel are entirely fictitious.
Table of Contents
Lynn Brock’s Nightmare is not a regular Golden Age offering. Its bleak atmosphere bears comparison with noir fiction and the disturbing, almost absurd, hopelessness of its main characters reminds one of protagonists in plays by Samuel Beckett. From a purely formal point of view, Nightmare is most comparable to the fiction structure of inverted detective stories like Francis Iles’ Malice Aforethought or Freeman Wills Crofts’ The 12:30 from Croydon. In all these books, published in the early 1930s, one can follow the genesis of a murder shown from the perspective of the perpetrator. They all paint a gloomy picture of the human condition, but while Iles and Crofts develop sophisticated studies in psychology in their tales, Brock seems to motivate his Nightmare from an even darker and deeper source.
To those who know Brock’s more traditional Colonel Gore detective novels, this ambitious book will come as a surprise. For all the others not so well acquainted with the author, it seems appropriate to start with a brief biographical outline.
Lynn Brock was a pen name used by Alexander Patrick McAllister, an Irish playwright and novelist born in Dublin in 1877. He also published using the pseudonyms Henry Alexander and Anthony P. Wharton. Alexander, or Alister as he was known in the family, was the eldest son of Patrick Frederick McAllister, accountant to the port and docks board in Dublin, and his wife Catherine (née Morgan). Educated at Clongowes Wood College, he later obtained an Honours Degree at the Royal University and was appointed chief clerk shortly after the inception of the National University of Ireland. At the outbreak of the First World War, McAllister enlisted in the military. On July 21, 1915 he went to France, where he served in the Motor Machine Gun Service of the Royal Artillery. Wounded twice, he returned to Dublin in 1918 and resumed his occupation as a clerk of the National University of Ireland. He married the same year. Once retired on a pension, McAllister and his wife Cicely (née Blagg) settled in London before later moving to Ferndown near Wimborne in Dorset where he lived many years and died at the age of 66 on April 6, 1943.
In Dorset, McAllister wrote his first detective novel at the age of 48 under the pseudonym Lynn Brock. This work, The Deductions of Colonel Gore (1926), became a huge success. Many of his later novels featuring his title hero-detective were often reprinted and widely translated. His complex plots and witty style won the praise of Dorothy L. Sayers, T.S. Eliot and S.S. Van Dine. Against this background, his publishers at Collins had perfectly justified high expectations for
