Windows To The World

Black Land, White Land: A Mr. Fortune Novel by Henry Christopher Bailey


The title to this novel was very intriguing giving the impression of meaning one thing, but in reality meaning another. It is taken from the saying "Black land, white land, always at strife". It came from an area of the British Isles where the dark loam rich fertile ground is cheek and jowl next to white chalky dirt fit for nothing but sheep. There has always been fierce competition to own the more productive black land.


This is the second of H. C. Bailey's Mr. Fortune novels and is felt by some to be his best case. Mr. Fortune is asked to look at some bones recently found when a chunk of chalk fell off one of the white cliffs. The man who unearthed them was hoping that Mr. Fortune would substantiate his theory of the existence of giants in days of yore. Instead Mr. Fortune reveals the bones to be that of an elephant mixed in with newer bones, those of a young man  that had been in the earth for about ten years. Reggie Fortune sets the town police on their ears as he knows who the victim must be and he accuses the investigators of not investigating the disappearance of this man because they were afraid to reveal the culprits who might be responsible.

  I found myself wishing the prose was more black and white. Mr. Fortune speaks in a convoluted confounding fashion that was difficult to understand at times.Sometimes he is given to grandiloquent statements like "Everything meant something and nothing meant anything."


These words express my feelings to a T.