The Murder on the Golf Links by M. McDonnell Bodkin
death takes a golf holiday
It’s so hot, you guys. I’m dreaming of escape, of white sand beaches, crystal clear water, cool breezes. And murder.
This summer, Death Takes a Holiday in a series of vacation themed posts exploring the dark side of the sunny season — Caribbean cruises gone wrong, bodies washing ashore on beaches, honeymooners plotting murder. Grab a cold drink and find a shady spot. The heat is murder.
Golden Age short stories tend to be more of a vibe than a true mystery, and the vibe of this one is… golf. Every character is obsessed. Set at a golf resort (a fairly new and novel location at the time) and featuring Bodkin’s recurring detective (and golfer) Paul Beck, “The Murder on the Golf Links” is true to its title: the body is found at the 17th hole, the murder weapon is buried in a sand trap and the only real clue is found one the green. As Caroline Crampton notes in Death Under Par1 golf’s rise in popularity dovetailed neatly with the Golden Age, which helps explain the popularity of golf-related mysteries (the best known today is Christie’s Murder on the Links from 1923). Somewhat ahead of its time is this short story, published in 1907.
Not only does Bodkin take full advantage of his setting, but his characters are defined by their game as much as by their personalities.
All the varied forms of golf lunacy were in evidence there. There was the fat elderly lady who went round ‘for her figure,’ tapping the ball before her on the smooth ground, and throwing it or carrying it over bunkers. There was the man who was always grumbling about his ‘blanked’ luck and who never played what he was pleased to think was his ‘true game.’
And so on. As is often the case in these stories, aptitude equates to moral virtue. Our heroine, the young and lissome Mag Hazel is the “undisputed queen of the links” and therefore worthy of our sympathy. She is engaged to wealthy diamond merchant Sam Hawkins but is in love with the poor engineer Ned Ryan (also an excellent golfer). When Hawkins is found murdered after an early morning round of golf, Ryan is quickly arrested for the crime. Mag, convinced of his innocence, asks Beck to investigate. (Beck describes himself as a “lucky player,” but Bodkin is more generous, writing: “If he never made a brilliant stroke, he never made a bad one, and kept wonderfully clear of the bunkers. The brilliant players found he had an irritating trick of plodding on steadily, and coming out a hole ahead at the end of the round,” and if that’s not a metaphor for his skill as a detective, I don’t know what is.)
The denouement takes place off the course, in a delightfully silly and unrealistic scene aboard a train. Although not quite a fair play mystery — Beck is privy to information the reader only learns at the end — and it’s fairly obvious who the culprit is from the start, it’s still a fun ride. Whether I actually enjoyed this little treat of a story or just found it easy reading on a hot summer day is hard to say, but it went down like an ice-cold aperitif on a hot summer night.
Read with me
Next week: Lady Killer by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
In two weeks: “Razor Edge” by Anthony Berkeley
Shedunnit podcast episode “Death Under Par” from April 19, 2023