The Great Lost Canadian Mystery Novel?

'Four To Go'
Kay Grant [Hilda Kay Grant]
The Star Weekly (24 - 31 March 1973)

I once thought that Hilda Kay Grant's bibliography could be divided neatly into two unequal parts. The first spanned thirteen years, beginning in 1951 with The Salt-Box, a fictionalized memoir of her youth published under the name "Jan Hilliard." Five novels followed, all using the very same nom de plume, the last being 1964's Morgan's Castle. The second part, which lasted from 1967 to 1969, consisted of three works of non-fiction written or co-written under the name "Kay Grant."

And then silence... Again, this is what I once thought.

Last autumn, while working on the Ricochet Books reissue of Morgan's Castle I stumbled upon a reference to a novel by "Kay Grant" titled Four To Go published over two 1973 issues of Toronto's Star Weekly.  

Surely this couldn't be same Kay Grant. It had been nine years since her last novel. Besides, all her fiction had been published as being by "Jan Hilliard." Could this be the other Kay Grant, the one who wrote wartime verse like It's 'ard to Keep Straight in the City (1941) and It's 'ard to Be Good in the Blackout (1944)?*

Rural life can be 'ard. I was spoiled during my Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto years in having ready access to resources. It took some effort to access those old issues of the Star Weekly, but the heart leapt when I did. Here's why:

The Niagara Peninsula! Why, Morgan's Castle is set in the Niagara Peninsula! So is her 1956 novel The Jameson Girls! I next came across this:

The Star Weekly, 17 March 1973

Written by Gwen Beattie, it's an author profile published in anticipation of the next week's publication of Four To Go. In it, Kay Grant is identified as Jan Hilliard, the author of "earlier Niagara-based novels – The Jameson Girls and Morgan's Castle."

I would've felt confident in declaring Four To Go as the work of Hilda Kay Boyle just the same. Location aside, it contains two elements found in each and every Jan Hilliard novel: dysfunctional family and an unusual house.

Twenty-five-year-old widow Katie Gaylord is narrator and protagonist. Maiden name Whitney, she'd thrown off her family-pressured engagement to stable second cousin Charles Davis, a lawyer, and had eloped with freewheeling Harry. During their two-year marriage, Katie's husband promised much, delivered little, and brought it all to an end by drowning off the coast of California. Left with next to nothing, Katie packs her clothes in cardboard boxes. gets in a pale green convertible – "purchased during a brief period of affluence" – and drives the more than four thousand kilometers home to Cragsmore, the grand Whitney family home on the Niagara Escarpment.

Katie knows that her 87-year-old grandmother Beatrice will accept her back. The prodigal granddaughter  reappears as Beatrice is entertaining two other elderly ladies:

"Well, Katie," she said, as matter-of factly as if I'd left home that morning. But she clutched my hand tightly as she lifted her face to be kissed. "Sit down and have some tea. You know everybody. Mrs. Kemp, Mrs. Taylor. They're collecting for the unmarried mothers."

Grandmother Beatrice will never say a word about Harry or his tragic death. He will be forever forgotten, expunged from the Whitney family history.

* * *

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

— Leo Tolstoy

Katie's family isn't particularly happy or unhappy, though its history is tinged with tragedy. Only one of Gran's children lived beyond infancy, that being Shane O'Neill, described by daughter Katie as a "philanderer and amateur sadist":

Three years later, forty-something Shane married eighteen-year-old Rose, then three months pregnant with Katie. Gran liked this second wife and was heartbroken when Rose's car plunged over a cliff not a half-mile from the family home.

Shane was the next to go (boating accident), but not before fathering a son, Conn, who was left on the doorstep by the teenage daughter of an itinerant fruit-picker.

The Whitney fortune came from jam.

* * *

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.

—Anton Chekhov

Though it has been just two years since she left, Cragsmore is much changed from the house Katie knew. Thirty-three-year-old Martha, a woman who had never once garnered a second look from a man, is now married to local lothario Joe Bennett. Mrs Baines, the long-time cook is gone. Joe replaced her with a man named Horace. He lives with his "cousin" Dickie in an apartment above the old coach house. Dickie is employed as Gran's chauffeur.

Martha has taken to wearing makeup and now cares more about her dress. Katie doesn't even recognize seventeen-year-old Conn. He's grown his hair and bought a motorcycle, but really only as an act of rebellion against Martha. Conn's also taken up with a runaway named Sue, who he has hidden away in a room above the old barn. It also contains his rock collection. At night, he uses the old dumb waiter to sneak out of the house. It works on a pulley system that involves ropes and lead weights running from the cellar to the second of Cragsmore's three storeys. Originally used to carry coal, now used to carry laundry, Martha has the dumb waiter inspected every March and September by old Mr Bennett. He died in April. 

You'd be right in thinking that something's going to happen with that dumb waiter.

I'll leave it at that.

Four To Go is a conventional mystery. An argument can be made that it is the author's only mystery. I'm happy to have found it, all the while being disappointed. Four To Go just doesn't reach the level of the Jan Hilliard novels. Black humour is absent, the pacing is off, and the denouement seems so very long.

In that old Gwen Beattie Star Weekly article she describes Four To Go as a condensed version of the author's "latest Niagara novel."

The uncondensed version has yet to be published. The manuscript has yet to be found.

Is Four To Go the Great Lost Canadian Mystery? 

I don't suppose we'll ever know. Are there other lost Canadian mystery novels? 

Is Four To Go worth republishing as is?

Of course, it is.

* What little I know of Australia's Kay Grant comes from the brief author bio found on the rear jacket of the American edition of the intriguingly titled It's 'ard to Keep Straight in the Navy.

cliquez pour agrandir

Related posts:

The Jan Hilliard Ricochet
A Nova Scotian Writes Ontario Gothic
As He Lay Dying

The Ten Best Book Buys of 2025 (and five gifts!)

This year, Simon Thomas of Stuck in a Book and Tea or Books fame made a fourth stab at what he refers to as "Project 24," his goal being to purchase only twenty-four books "for myself" throughout the year. The "for myself" bit is important. Why deprive friends?

As most of my books are stored in one of our outbuildings – there's no way they would all fit in the house – I chose to follow Simon's example. My Project 24 had a different carve-out: I would not be counting books purchased at a certain charity shop in nearby Smiths Falls. My justification for the exception had to do with my support of the charity... and, admittedly, the ridiculously low prices. One 2024 visit yielded three signed Margaret Atwood first editions from the 'seventies for two dollars in total.

When June hit I was feeling quite proud of my myself. I'd purchased just eight books. I'd been picky, even at the charity shop, Between Friends/Entre Amis being my only purchase.

All fell apart two days later when I visited a different charity shop, this one in Brockville, where I came across twelve seemingly unopened Folio Society Anthony Trollope novels at $2.50 each. I bought the lot. This meant that to get back on track I would have to keep my wallet in check until November.

Of course, I paid no mind to that constraint, continuing apace until late August when contractors appeared at our door, bringing the year's book buying to an abrupt end

Home renovations will do that.

I ended up purchasing twenty-nine books in 2025, which is far from a disgrace when one takes into account the twelve Trollopes. This year's list of best buys is atypical in that it features two Canadian books I already owned, and another that is Canadian in title only: 

The Victors
Robert Barr
New York: Stokes, 1901

There are real bargains to be had with Robert Barr. Most titles listed online are dirt cheap – so cheap that booksellers can't be bothered to provide a photo. Such was the case with this novel. I have no idea what it is about, but the subtitle, A Romance of Yesterday Morning & This Afternoon, intrigues.

The Girl from Toronto
Hugh Clevely
London:

   Amalgamated, 1954

A last minute addition to an order placed with a UK bookseller, the title caught my eye. Hugh Clevely was a Brit. Nothing in the two-columned 64-pages suggests he ever so much as visited Toronto. But that cover!

Lantern Marsh

Beaumont S. Cornell

Toronto: Ryerson, 1923

A novel set in a "provincial city" modeled on Brockville, Ontario, I'd been looking for a copy since buying a home in the area seven years ago. Cornell was born in nearby Athens Township and became a leading figure in cancer research. The jacket promises a "motif of woman-interest introduced in a rather unusual way." Intriguing!

Murder in a Road Gang
Hugh Cresswell
London: Sampson Low,

   Marston, 1936

Long a subject of interest, I tracked down a copy of this early Canadian murder mystery, likely the very first to be set on the Prairies. Illicit drugs figure!

Hearts and Faces

John Murray Gibbon

New York: John Lane, 1916

The scarce debut novel from the same man who would one day write the brilliant Pagan Love (1922).  This one appears to have been inspired by the Parisian art world. I'll let you know. A fortuitous eBay find, I was surprised and delighted to find that the copy I received was inscribed by the author.

A View of the Town
Jan Hilliard [Hilda

   Kay Grant]

New York: Abelard-

   Schuman, 1954

I already owned a copy of Nelson, Foster & Scott first Canadian edition, but this was signed! The author's first true novel, it is one of only two set in Nova Scotia, the author's home province. 

Trespass Against None

Eric Cecil Morris

Montreal: Whitcombe &

   Gilmour, 1950

Morris should be remembered for having co-written 1965's The Squeaking Wheel, but that bigoted screed is as forgotten as his quirky debut novel A Voice is Calling (1947). I was going on about Morris to a friend when I remembered this second novel. The only copy listed online was signed. An easy sale.

Looking Forward

Hugh Pedley
Toronto: William Briggs, 1913

Early 20th-century Christian science fiction inspired in part by early 19th-century Washington Irving, in Looking Forward a pious man of science hibernates for decades, awakening to a Canada made utopian by the union of its Protestant denominations.

Sister Woman
J.G. Sime
London: Grant Richards,

   1919

This book is in horrible condition, but is so very rare that I had to rescue it. The Quebec bookseller had no idea what he had.

Unrecognized in its day, the novel has since been returned to print by Tecumseh Press (sadly, also unrecognized).

Anything Could Happen!
Toronto: Longmans, 1961
Phyllis Brett Young

A thing of beauty, I first purchased a copy in Toronto six years ago. This memoir of sorts inspired by a summer spent as a girl in Muskoka is not only signed by the author but also inscribed by her mother as a gift to an English relative. 

Twenty-twenty-five brought four generous donations to the Dusty Bookcase:

The Great Canadian Novel

Harry J. Boyle

Toronto: PaperJacks, 1973

A novel I've been meaning to read for over forty years, if only because of the title. When my parents were in university, both Bonheur d'occasion and Two Solitudes were promoted as the Great Canadian Novel. Fifth Business was mentioned most often during my own university years. What are the kids being told today, I wonder.

I have my doubts that The Great Canadian Novel "lives up to its title," as the late Peter C. Newman claimed, but aim to find out. 

Robert Stevenson: Engineer and Sea Builder

Kay Grant [Hilda Kay Grant]

New York: Meredith, 1969

A gift from the author's literary executor, Robert Stevenson was the second of the author's two biographies, the first being  Where the copy of A View of the Town above is signed "Jan Hilliard." this book is signed "Kay Grant." An accomplished lighthouse engineer, Stevenson was the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Beside Still Waters

Edna Jaques

Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1939

This summer, my friend Forrest Pass fed my Edna Jaques obsession with a copy of the poet's fifth collection. Seventy-five titles in total, of those I've read 'To a Radio' is my favourite.

The Poetry of Robert Henri Alphonse McGee

Bob McGee

Sherbrooke, QC: GGEL, 2025

My interest in Bob McGee can be traced back to the 2023 fiftieth anniversary of Véhicule Press. The poet's Three Dozen Sonnets & Fast Drawings was the publisher's very first book. Imagine my surprise in being contacted by Libbey Griffith asking whether I'd like a copy of this new collection.

Would I!

An inscribed copy arrived in my mailbox a couple of weeks later. It's a beautifully produced collection, featuring Three Dozen Sonnets & Fast Drawings and McGee's 1977 follow-up Shanty-Horses, James Bay Poems, along with the previously unpublished 'The Labovrs of Alphonsvs' and 'Votive Haiku,' interspersed with colour illustrations. The cover painting and author portrait are by Libbey Griffith.

Dedicated to the Children of Canada

Mr. Peanut

[Toronto]: Planters Nut and Chocolate Co., [c. 1936]

This past spring, I was contacted by a comic book collector who'd come across a copy of the debut issue of Horace Brown's Original Detective Stories. Apparently, he'd come across a 2011 post about the magazine. After a lively exchange, he offered to sell his copy. It arrived with this unexpected and very generous gift.

I'll be making a second Project 24 attempt in 2026... even though my Abebooks shopping basket holds eighty-nine books.

Thanks to my beautiful wife Anyès for the photo of those Trollopes. 

Related posts:

Thank You for Being a Friend

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Self-Improvement

Bach to the Future, Part I: A Voice is Calling
Bach to the Future, Part III: The Squeaking Wheel

Towards a Canada of Light