The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Reprints from Dean Street Press

If you're a casual mystery reader who looked at our little niche corner on the internet, you might get the impression that the prevailing belief is that locked room mysteries and impossible crime fiction is the pinnacle of the genre – a final form if you will. That's not true. It's only a small faction of the fandom riding their favorite hobby horse into the ground. I'm perhaps more guilty of riding that hobby horse to pieces than most, but I love a good, old-fashioned or classically-styled detective story and a body in a hermetically sealed room is not a necessity. Even though you don't always get impression from this blog. So let's put the spot light on some classic, non-impossible Golden Age mysteries.

In 2015, Dean Street Press began what seemed, at the time, to be the Herculean task of filling the immense, gaping hole that the still sorely missed Rue Morgue Press left behind. But they have tackled that task head on in an almost industrial way. Not content with simply reprinting one or two titles from a specific writer, DSP turned them out in badges of five or ten at a time. Sometimes even more than that. So in less than a decade, DSP has republished nearly five-hundred Golden Age mystery novels that include the complete works of once obscure or long out-of-print writers like Christopher Bush, E.R. Punshon and Patricia Wentworth. They're currently working on the doing the same for Brian Flynn with Glyn Carr possibly being next in line to go through a round of reprints. But what are some of the best titles DSP brought back from obscurity?

I wanted to do one of these publisher-themed five-to-tries or top 10 lists and initially planned doing a top 10 favorite translations from Locked Room International, but the intention of this post is to take a break from those damned locked room puzzles. So that left me only with Dean Street Press as enough of their reprints have been discussed on this blog to compile a top 10 best favorite reprints. That was easier said than done and had to give my favorite writers a handicap by limiting the list to one entry per author. So no desperate attempts to convince you Christopher Bush's Cut Throat (1932) is not shit, if only you tried to make it through to the end without getting despondent. It appears to have worked. 

 

Top 10 Favorite Reprints from Dean Street Press (in chronological order):

 

The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye (1928) by Brian Flynn 

The ongoing run of Brian Flynn reprints has left me spoiled for choice, but decided to go with the obvious suspect and the 2019 Reprint of the Year Award winner. A case with Flynn's typical Doylean touches as Bathurst investigates a murder involving Royal blackmail and a magnificent, blue-shaded titular emerald. While that might sound like a typical, dated 1920s mystery novel, Flynn provided a solution shining with all the brilliance of the coming decade that makes The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye a classic of the '20s. 

 

The Night of Fear (1931) by Moray Dalton 

This pick is perhaps a little out of season to bring up now, on the tail-end of March, but The Night of Fear is one of the earliest and best country house mysteries at Christmas from this era – in addition to being Dalton's most accomplished detective novel. A well-spun drama that begins during a Christmas party concluding with a game of hide-and-seek in the dark and the discovery of a body, which the police try to pin on the blind Hugh Darrow. But how to prove his innocence? A must read for the December holidays.

 

Murder at Monk's Barn (1931) by Cecil Waye 

“Cecil Waye” was the third, previously unsuspected penname of John Street, better known as “John Rhode” and “Miles Burton,” who wrote four once extremely obscure novels under that name. Three of the four are so-called metropolitan thrillers, but Murder at Monk's Barn is, plot-wise, in the traditional style of his Rhode and Burton mysteries. Where the book differs is the tone and characters. The detectives are a brother-and-sister team, Christopher and Vivienne Perrin, who were a hold over of the 1920s Young Adventures like Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. So while the mysterious shooting of an electrical engineer comes with all plot-technical expertise and ingenuity expected from Street, Murder at Monk's Barn is no humdrum affair as the two Bright Young Things livened up the whole story. 

 

The Case of Naomi Clynes (1934) by Basil Thomson 

A predecessor of the contemporary police procedural and ultimately a very simple, uncomplicated and straightforwardly told story of a crime, which nonetheless succeeded in creating complex and intricate plot-patterns. A plot that excelled with simplistic beauty. More importantly, I remember The Case of Naomi Clynes as a surprisingly warm, human crime story with some decidedly original touches to the ending.

 

The Case of the Missing Minutes (1937) by Christopher Bush 

It has been observed that Christopher Bush was to the unbreakable alibi what John Dickson Carr was to the impossible crime, which makes The Case of the Missing Minutes his version of The Three Coffins (1935). Regardless of what the book title suggests, The Case of the Missing Minutes is not some dry time table or math puzzle. It can actually be counted among Bush's best written, most well-rounded and certainly bleakest of his earlier detective novels with a meticulously put together plot that runs like a Swiss timepiece. 

 

Murder on Paradise Island (1937) by Robin Forsythe 

Some of you probably expected a title from Forsythe's short-lived Algernon Vereker series, like The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (1933) or The Spirit Murder Mystery (1936), which took an interesting approach to plotting a detective story – spinning a great deal of complexity out the circumstances in which the bodies were found. Murder on Paradise Island is a standalone mystery and has a much lighter touch to the plot, but the backdrop and circumstances the characters find themselves makes it his most memorable contribution to the genre. A cross between Anthony Berkeley's Mr. Pidgeon's Island (1934) and a Robinsonade as a group of survivors of a ship disaster get washed up on the pearly beaches of a desert island in the middle of the Pacific. 

 

Bleeding Hooks (1940) by Harriet Rutland 

Arguably, the best and most deserving title to have been reprinted by DSP as well as my personal favorite of the lot. A pure, Golden Age whodunit set in a Welsh fishing village with an inn catering to fly fishing holidaymakers, but the Fisherman's Rest becomes the scene of murder when the vulgar Mrs. Mumby is found dead with a salmon fly deeply embedded in her hand. The doctor concludes she died of combination of poor health and shock from the wound, but the detective-on-holiday, Mr. Winkley, suspects foul play. There's a neat little twist in the tail. John Norris called the book “something of a little masterpiece.” I agree! 

 

There's a Reason for Everything (1945) by E.R. Punshon 

The return of E.R. Punshon's Bobby Owen series to print also posed a difficulty in picking a favorite, because Punshon allowed his Bobby Owen to age and evolve as a character. And tended to try something different every now and then. So there are differing periods in the series that feel distinct from one another, but decided to go with strongest, most intricately-plotted detective novels. A complex detective story concerning a murdered paranormal investigator in a haunted house, vanishing bloodstains and a long-lost masterpiece by Vermeer. A great demonstration of Punshon's ability to erect and navigate labyrinthine-like plot without getting tied-up in all the numerous, intertwined plot-threads. 

 

The Threefold Cord (1947) by Francis Vivian 

So far, The Threefold Cord still stands as the best written, most ingeniously plotted of Francis Vivian's detective novels I've read to date. Inspector Knollis is dispatched to the village of Bowland to investigate wholesale pet murder at the home of a local and unpopular furniture magnate, Fred Manchester. Someone twisted the necks of the two family pets, a budgerigar and cat, before placing a silken cord loosely around their broken necks – which proved to be a prelude to a gruesome ax murder. Vivian expertly tied the present-day murder to the story of a public hangman who died under mysterious circumstances before the war. Every piece of the puzzle fitted beautifully together to form an inevitable conclusion.

 

The Heel of Achilles (1950) by E. and M.A. Radford 

Edwin and Mona Radford, a mystery writing husband-and-wife team, who specialized in forensic detective stories in the tradition of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. John Thorndyke series occasionally peppered with challenges to the reader (e.g. Murder Isn't Cricket, 1946). Their often tightly-plotted detective stories somehow were all but forgotten until DSP reprinted half a dozen of them in 2019 and 2020. The Heel of Achilles is an inverted mystery with the first-half following the murderer as he executes, what he thinks, is the perfect crime. The second-half brings their detective, Dr. Manson, to the scene who begins to laboriously poke holes into the killer's supposedly watertight plot. A cold, impersonal examination of a crime that meshed very well with the intimate and personal opening half depicting the murderer and his crime. A genuine classic of the inverted mystery.

The Case of Alan Copeland (1937) by Moray Dalton

Looking back over my recent blog-posts, it became very evident I have been overly indulgent of everyone's favorite detective sub-genre, locked room and impossible crime fiction, but, every now and then, you need to dismount from your comfy hobby-horse. So it seemed like a good idea to pick as my next read something that's the complete opposite of a trickily-plotted locked room mystery. 

The Case of Alan Copeland (1937) is the seventeenth mystery novel by "Moray Dalton," penname of Katherine Renoir, who wrote twenty-nine mysteries between 1929 and 1951, but despite her productivity she had been entirely forgotten for the better part of a century – until Dean Street Press started reprinting her novels in 2019. Over those few years, Dalton reemerged from obscurity as a precursor of the modern crime novel with her "criminally scintillating," character-oriented mysteries with attitudes or subject matters that were sometimes a few decades ahead of their time. This could possible have contributed to Dalton's obscurity.

Curt Evans, of The Passing Tramp, who introduced the new DSP edition is Dalton's most well-known champion today, praising her ability to "plot an interesting story and compose an intriguing sentence," but it's her strong, vivid characterization that makes her work standout. Curt commented on my review of The Strange Case of Harriet Hall (1936) is that what makes Dalton unique to him is that she actually makes him worry about her characters, which made her unusual during a period "when so many mysteries are drier academic exercises." The Case of Alan Copeland holds a similar attraction being "an emotionally gripping and credible tale of murder" with "genuine detection" and indications to the murderer's identity laid throughout the book. That's what attracted my attention to the book. 

The Case of Alan Copeland distilled the village mystery to a closed-circle situation with the cast of characters comprising of the only handful of notables populating the tiny hamlet of Teene.

Mabel is the cruel, sharp-tongued and tightfisted older wife of former artist and now struggling poultry farmer, Alan Copeland, who felt obliged to marry her after she nursed him back to health, but has become completely depended on her and made him give up painting – determined "he should not waste her money on paints and canvas." She knows how to wound her husband with mean-spirited, carelessly uttered comments. Miss Emily Gort is "one of these ultra prim and proper old maids" who's Mabel confidante and actually enjoys some of her charity. She also dotes on the vicar, Reverend Henry Perry, who's wholly consumed by his meticulous study of the Byzantine Church in the fourth century. Old Mrs. Simmons is an "ex-barmaid grown monstrously fat" who presides over the village from her a wayside garage and petrol station where she reads people's fortune with a pack of greasy cards. She runs the place with her flapper daughter, Irene, whose supposed to marry her cousin, Ern, but she's in love with Alan. Miss Getrude Platt is the local schoolmistress with an unconventional taste in art and literature, but she used to be a fellow art student of Alan before becoming "an instructress of youth."

This small community receives a delayed shock when the vicar's niece, Lydia Hale, comes to stay with her uncle to recover from the flu. After a fortnight, she leaves again without realizing she's pregnant with Alan's child. Remember this was still a controversial and touchy subject at the time, which usually meant ruin to a woman's character and reputation. But, as Curt noted in the introduction, Lydia doesn't suffer from any "recriminations against her character" except from the people who the reader is supposed to dislike. So I can understand why Dalton has a click with crime-and mystery reader's of today. Not their little moment of weakness is without some terrible consequences.

When they're unexpectedly reunited in London, Alan is wearing a mourning band on his sleeve as he recently became a widow. Mabel had passed away after a very brief, but not unexpected, sickbed and she left him all her money. Alan "arranged for the sale of his stock, shut up the house and left the neighborhood for a while" and agreed to immediately marry Lydia when he learns she's pregnant. Nine months later, they return to the village, but hardly anyone approves of Alan remarrying before the year of mourning was over. It wasn't long before tongues began to wag. The police started receiving anonymous, spitefully worded letters accusing Alan of murder.

A discreet investigation provides the police with ample justification to exhume Mabel's body and Alan is indicted for murder, which is where the story shifts from a character-driven crime story to an investigative legal drama – culminating in the trial of Alan Copeland. Strangely enough, this second-half reminded me of the style of crime novels from the late 1800s, like Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), as there are several investigative characters involved with the case. There's the official police, represented by Detective Ramsden, who unearthed all the incriminating evidence. Alan's country lawyer, John Reid, who engages Hugh Barrymore to defend his client in court and advises Lydia to not talk to the press, because Barrymore isn't cheap. She might need to sell her story later on to cover all the legal costs, which is one of those sobering realistic touches that makes Dalton's work standout. John Reid also hires a private detective, George Hayter, to go over the case again and track down the anonymous letter writer. Hayter began his investigation believing Alan was guilty as hell, but changed his mind in spite of everything.

Needless to say, the second-half is my favorite part of the story, but can't deny the buildup to the murder was not expertly handled and particularly liked Dalton showing the characters saying one thing and thinking another. I actually liked the entire story right up until the murderer's identity is revealed, which failed to impress me. I half-suspected this person, but a small, important piece of information was withheld from the reader (ROT13: gur nhag jub qvrq bs gur fnzr fhccbfrq vyyarff nf Znory) which made the dramatic court room revelation possible. However, I hold a minority opinion on the ending and The Case of Alan Copeland is not about cast-iron alibis, dying messages or impossible crimes. It's a character-driven, legal crime drama focusing on the impact of a murder on a small group of people and it does that very well. Even if the ending didn't live up to my personal standards, but I have little doubt Dalton will come to be known in future years as one of the Crime Queens of the detective story's Renaissance Age.

That being said, Dalton's The Night of Fear (1931) and Death in the Cup (1932) were more to my taste with the former being an excellent, highly recommended Christmas-themed mystery. One of the earliest examples of such holiday mystery. I'm eagerly looking forward to a reprint of her post-Apocalyptic detective novel The Black Death (1934).

The Art School Murders (1943) by Moray Dalton

Last year, Dean Street Press reissued five novels by the then forgotten mystery novelist Katherine M. Renoir, who wrote twenty-nine detective novels as "Moray Dalton," which our resident genre-historian and blogger, Curt Evans, described as "the finest British crime fiction" of the mid-century period – originally published between 1929 and 1951. I thought The Strange Case of Harriet Hale (1936) was overpraised, but The Night of Fear (1931) and Death in the Cup (1932) were good examples of the sophisticated, character-driven mystery novel closely associated with the Crime Queens.

So it was encouraging to see these new editions were successful enough to bring more of Dalton's long out-of-print, nigh forgotten mystery novels back in print. DSP reissued five further titles in March and, while The Black Death (1934) was not reprinted, the line-up still looked promising!

The Art School Murders (1943) is erroneously listed online as a non-series novel, but Evans reckons it's the tenth title in the Inspector Hugh Collier series. A mystery novel tantalizingly combining three popular mise-en-scènes of the Golden Age detective story: murder at a school for artists during the blacked-out nights of the Blitz.

Aldo Morosini is a well-known, celebrated Italian artist who founded the Morosini School of Art with the lofty dreams of discoursing through its hallways "surrounded by an adoring crowd of students," but the eager, hard-working students were unable to "feed his hungry vanity" and the school ceased to amuse him – still "a paying proposition." So he now only comes around at the end of each term to decide who's to be promoted to the life class and has left the teaching in the hands of two staff masters, John Kent and Mr. Hollis. Not surprisingly, the overly expensive art school is dying a slow death with more students leaving than enrolling. War isn't exactly helping, either. Nor is the presence of a femme fatale.

Miss Althea Greville used to be the favorite model of "a big noise in the art world" and went to pieces when he died, but she retained enough of her beauty and allure to continue working as an artistic model. A year previously, Miss Greville was engaged as a model at the school and turned the heads of many of the male students ("you'd never credit the harm a woman like that can do in three weeks"). At the time, one of the masters had pegged her as "potentially dangerous," but she was allowed to come back when another model canceled and this gig ended with the discovery of her blood drenched body behind the screen in the life classroom!

The local police is confronted with "a formidable list of suspects," forty-five students, two masters, one secretary and the caretaker, who all had access to the school and could have been there at the time of murder without attracting any attention – which is quite a departure from all the locked room mysteries of late. So they decide to immediately call in Scotland Yard, but, before Inspector Hugh Collier really can get to work, a second murder is reported!

One of the students, Betty Hayden, is an avid moviegoer who regularly patronized "a small picture-house," the Corona, catering to people "who would rather see a good old film than a poor one fresh from the Hollywood mint." She always sat all the way in back, on the balcony, which is where her body is found. Someone had stabbed her silently, in the dark, while Fred Astaire was singing on the screen. Betty had been hinting that she had seen someone lurking around who shouldn't have been there.

Usually, these so-called "emergency murders" of pesky witnesses or people who simply know too much add very little to the plot, or story-telling, except to help tighten the noose around the murderer's neck. But that was not entirely the case here.

This second murder places Betty's school friend, Cherry Garth, in possible danger, because the murderer might be under the assumption that Betty shared her secret with Cherry. So this second murder actually furthered the plot and story-telling, but just as interesting was the scene of the crime. Surprisingly, I can only name six detective novels and one short story that use a darkened cinema as a stage for murder and have only read four of them. You have Rex Hardinge's very obscure short story, "The Cinema Murder Mystery" (1927). P.R. Shore's extremely obscure The Death Film (1932). One of the victim's in Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders (1936) is stabbed inside a movie theater and Gerald Verner's The Whispering Woman (1949) is on my to-be-read pile. John Russell Fearn's One Remained Seated (1946) and Pattern of Murder (2006) made the best use of the cinema setting.

If you cheat a little, you can add E.R. Punshon's Death of a Beauty Queen (1935) and Stuart Palmer's "The Riddle of the Whirling Lights" (Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Riddles, 2002), but Dalton's The Art School Murders is a genuine, if unusual, addition to the list – using the setting more as a psychological clue rather than a convenient place to silently knife someone. The murderer is someone with "an unusual degree of callousness" and this murder showed it.

Collier whittled down the list with fifty potential suspects down to five, which is mostly done by interviewing suspects and witnesses. Brad, of Ah, Sweet Mystery, calls this approach "dragging-the-marsh," in honor of Ngaio Marsh, which can bog down a story. Once again, that was not the case here as the story never flagged, but all of the clues and hints were hidden in the statements and movements of the characters. This has always been a precarious way to clue a detective story to the full satisfaction of pesky armchair detective, but it can be done and the opportunity was present here. Only problem is that this particular murderer needed more, stronger clueing to have been an good, effective surprise. Now it felt like a wombat being pulled out of top hat. You'll understand why when you read it.

The Art School Murders is not as good as The Night of Fear, or Death in the Cup, but certainly better than The Strange Case of Harriet Hale with a plot that made interesting use of the second murder, cinema setting and the nighttime black-outs – seriously hampering the police in keeping "tabs on anyone after dark." Recommended to mystery readers with a special affinity for the (uncrowned) Queens of Crime.

Death in the Cup (1932) by Moray Dalton

A month ago, I reviewed The Night of Fear (1931) by "Moray Dalton," a pseudonym of Katherine M. Renoir, who was an all but forgotten author of twenty-nine "finely polished" mystery novels until Dean Street Press reissued five of them back in March – complete with an introduction by the Dean of Classic Crime Fiction, Curt Evans. The Night of Fear proved to be a huge improvement on the generously praised The Strange Case of the Harriet Hale (1936) and decided to move the second title that was recommended to me to the top of the pile.

Death in the Cup (1932) is the last of three novels about Dalton's private inquiry agent, Hermann Glide, who reminded Evans of the enigmatic Mr. Gody. A minor recurring character who was introduced by Agatha Christie in The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) and appeared in three additional Hercule Poirot novels.

Only difference between Mr. Gody and Mr. Glide is that the latter reaches the end of a case without being upstaged by a bloody little Belgian!

Death in the Cup is, like her other work, a character-driven mystery in which the desires, emotions and personalities of the people involved propel the plot and how they acted on them here had dire consequences – complicating the case before it eventually helped Glide solve two murders. A story that begins with the woes of "a professional gigolo."

Mark Armour left his home as an eighteen-year-old when he forged his father's name on a cheque and joined the army when the Great War broke out a few weeks later. When he returned, the handsome Armour began "cadging around" by "making love to silly old women" and hauling them across a dance floor, but a broken leg left him with a permanent limp. And a meager three-half pence in his pocket. So he's forced to stay with his genteel, but scandal-ridden, highly dysfunctional and isolated, relatives in the provencial town of Dennyford. A madhouse household that strongly reminded of the family in Arthur W. Upfield's Venom House (1952).

They live on the outskirts of the town, in the White House, but their chequered past keeps "the family outside the social pale" of the community and were avoided as much as humanly possible.

The roost is ruled by Mark's belligerent, domineering half-sister, Bertha, who's "given to finding fault" and everyone hated her ("nag, nag, nag, all day long"). Winnie is their odd, soft-minded (half) sister and deeply in love with a young doctor, Ian Cardew. She moons all day outside the poor doctor's practice, rings his bell, writes embarrassing love letters and pushes flowers through his letter box. George is the half-witted brother of the family and spends his days cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them into albums. A character very similar to the mentally arrested Morris Answerth from Upfield's Venom House. Their youngest sister, Claire, is free of the family "taint of insanity" and she had endured them for years, but recently, she has fallen in love with gardener, Richard Lee – which would not have been accepted by Bertha. She not the only one in the household carrying on affair behind the back of the family matriarch. Miss Lucy Rivers is the daughter of Colonel Rivers, a local magistrate, who would certainly disapprove of her relationship with Mark Armour. A disreputable member of the local outcasts and a financial dependent of Bertha. Who would also disapprove of the relationship.

This concentration of clashing personalities, hidden-or unanswered passions, financial dependency and mental illness proved to be a volatile cocktail with disastrous results. Someone spiked the glass of milk on Bertha's bedside table with "a thundering big dose" of arsenic. She died the next day and Mark becomes the police's primary suspect.

The series-detective of fifteen of Dalton's mystery novels, Inspector Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, is only mentioned by name and the case is officially handled by Superintendent Brisling, but Lucy's uncle and confident, Geoffrey Raynham, interferes in the investigation on her behalf – until he calls in that wizened inquiry agent, Hermann Glide. Glide appears on the scene, fumbling his lump of modeling wax, but a second death with the features of an accident, natural causes and murder takes the focus off Mark. And redirects the attention of the police to another set of suspects in the Armour household.

I thought this plot-thread was a well-done and original divergence from the customary second murder often used to liven up, or muddle the waters, of the story.

Sadly, the murderer is easily spotted and, initially, rejected this possibility as too obvious and began to suspect another character who had a similar kind of motive, but my first impression turned out to be the correct one. However, this is the only blemish on an otherwise excellently written mystery novel with strong characterization. Death in the Cup is not merely a grotesque portrait of a family of dysfunctional gargoyles, but showed, for better or worse, their humanity.

There are also a number of good, kindhearted characters who try to help the people in the story who find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. Such as Lucy's concerned uncle and the kindly Mrs. Trant. You can't but feel sorry when something bad happens to them. Mrs. Trant is carried out of the story on a stretcher with a broken leg and the consequences of the police investigation forces the family to place George with a specialized doctor, which he does bravely, but tears were in his round, childlike eyes – which was a little depressing. George was the only person living in the White House who was completely blameless, but suffered the consequences.

So, all in all, Death in the Cup is not as strong as a pure detective story as The Night of Fear, but the book stands as a fine example of the sophisticated, character-oriented mystery novels commonly associated with the literary-minded Queens of Crime. I think readers who especially appreciate the old Crime Queens, like Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers, will find in Dalton a legitimate claimant to one of their crowns.

The Night of Fear (1931) by Moray Dalton

Back in March, Dean Street Press reissued a handful of long out-of-print detective novels by the elusive "Moray Dalton," a penname of Katherine M. Renoir, who wrote close to thirty detective novels branded by resident genre-historian, Curt Evans, as "one of the more significant bodies of work by a Golden Age mystery writer" – which remained accessible "almost solely to connoisseurs with deep pockets" for decades. The Strange Case of Harriet Hall (1936) was recommended by Evans as "one of the finest detective novels" of the period.

I politely disagreed with Evans on The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, but he commented that The Night of Fear (1931) or Death in the Cup (1932) were probably more to my taste.

So, with the final quarter of the year in front of us, I decided to go with Dalton's take on the traditional, Christmas-themed country house mystery. A note for the curious: this review was written in late June.

The Night of Fear opens with a telephone call to Sergeant Lane, of the Parminster constabulary, summoning him to the home of George Tunbridge, Laverne Peveril, where a costumed Christmas party concluded with a game of hide-and-seek in the dark – during which one of the participants found a body in the long gallery. Hugh Darrow is an old school friend of the host, blinded in the Great War, who had hidden himself behind the curtain of an alcove in the gallery. As he sat there waiting, he heard a steady dripping, "like the ticking of a clock," but slower. The sound seemed to come from another alcove and when he investigated he found the body of another party member, Edgar Stallard. Who's known to the general public as "a prolific writer of memoirs of a certain type."

Laverne Peveril was packed with family and guests at the time of the murder: there are Mr. and Mrs. Tunbridge. His cousin, Sir Eustace Tunbridge and his much younger fiancée, Miss Diana Storey, who's accompanied by her domineering grandmother, Mrs. Emily Storey. She arranged the marriage between Sir Eustace and Diana. Two of his old friends, Hugh Darrow and an American, Ruth Clare. There's "a kind of protégée" of Mrs. Tunbridge, Angela Haviland, who brought along her brother, Julian. Jack "Rags" Norris brought his two sisters and two of his undergraduate friends with him. So fourteen potential suspects in all, if you exclude the servants.

Sergeant Lane is glad to have his old friend, Inspector Hugh Collier, staying with him over the holidays and assists him in the initial stages of the investigation, but, after interviewing everyone, the story takes a departure from the conventional country house mystery – resulting in Collier exiting the case on two separate occasions. Normally, in a Golden Age mystery, the local authorities tend to be grateful to have the good fortune to have a reputable inspector or famous amateur detective in the neighborhood when a body turns up, but Dalton broke with that tradition in The Night of Fear.

Colonel Larcombe is the Chief Constable and he sends Collier packing, because he prefers to run his own show with his own men. Only to call him back the following morning when Sergeant Lane is found gassed in his bedroom, but he's again removed from the case after a complaint from Sir Eustace. Collier was replaced by Chief Inspector Purley, a policeman of the treat-'em-rough school, who immediately makes an arrest. And his take on the case was nearly identical to my (incorrect) solution.

I assumed the murder of Stallard was the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances that started with the suggestion of a game of hide and seek in the dark.

You see, Darrow drew a pension as a disabled veteran and my suspicion is that he shammed his blindness, which was discovered by Stallard when he saw the supposedly blind man stumbling around in the dark when the lights went out and this was grist on his mill – because Stallard was a sensationalist who dabbled in blackmail. So he had to be silenced. Dalton provided Purley's case against Darrow with a more tangible motive, but either way, Darrow is placed in the dock. This adds one last name to the list of detectives working on the case.

In his introduction, Evans compared Hermann Glide, a private inquiry agent, to an obscure, little-known Agatha Christie character, Mr. Goby, who appeared in The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928), After the Funeral (1953), Third Girl (1966) and Elephants Can Remember (1972). A wizened little man who looks "like a sick monkey" and is constantly kneading "a lump of modeling clay." Collier recommended Ruth Clare, who's in love with Darrow, to engage Glide to help her prove his innocence. And the clock is ticking!

So, after my first, incorrect solution, I spotted the murderer, but there was a surprising, final twist in the tail of the story. A twist that would have been more effective had it been fairly clued or foreshadowed. Now this bolt out of the blue stands as the only flaw in an otherwise excellent detective story.

All in all, I found The Night of Fear to be a more accomplished detective novel than The Strange Case of Harriet Hall and one of the better Christmas-themed country house mysteries from the Golden Age. Highly recommended for those darker, longer days of December.

On a final, semi-related note: The Night of Fear was published in the same year as Molly Thynne's seasonal mystery novel, The Crime at the Noah's Ark (1931), which made me wonder if these two novels started the tradition of Christmas mystery novels – since every single example I can think of were published after these two mysteries. I know there are some short stories predating them, but not full-length mystery novels.

Just run down the list: Anne Meredith's Portrait of a Murderer (1933), C.H.B. Kitchin's Crime at Christmas (1934), Pierre Véry's L'assassinet du Père Noël (The Murder of Father Christmas, 1934) Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1936), Mavis Doriel Hay's The Santa Klaus Murder (1936), Constance and Gwenyth Little's The Black-Headed Pins (1938), Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941) Francis Duncan's Murder for Christmas (1949), Gladys Mitchell's Groaning Spinney (1950), Cyril Hare's An English Murder (1951), Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958) and Ngiao Marsh's Tied Up in Tinsel (1972). So are there are any seasonal mystery novels from the 1910s or 20s that I overlooked?

The Strange Case of Harriet Hall (1936) by Moray Dalton

Katherine M. Renoir is the author of twenty-nine detective novels, published as by "Moray Dalton," which Curt Evans described as "finely polished examples of criminally scintillating Golden Age art," but she has long since slipped into obscurity and her legacy has become a "tantalizingly elusive treasure" to mystery readers – like "the fabled Lost Dutchman's mine." Well, I have some good news.

On March 4th, Dean Street Press is going to republish five of Dalton's best detective novels from her early period. These titles are One by One They Disappeared (1929), The Body on the Road (1931), The Night of Fear (1931), Death in the Cup (1932) and The Strange Case of Harriet Hall (1936). Rupert Heath was, as always, kind enough to provide me with a copy of the book Evans called "one of the finest detective novels" from the genre's Golden Age.

The Strange Case of Harriet Hall begins like a domestic suspense story, not entirely dissimilar to Anthony Gilbert, but, after the opening chapters, the plot begins to fall in line with the more literary, character-based mysteries by other obscure, long-forgotten female writers – such as Dorothy Bowers and Maureen Sarsfield. But with a strong hint of Gladys Mitchell.

Amy Steer is a nineteen-year-old woman, without immediate relatives, hopelessly looking for work, but nobody had any use for her. So her situation was becoming an impossible one. Until she noticed an advertisement in the personal column of a newspaper, asking any "relative of the late Julius Horace Steer" to come forward, because they "may hear something to their advantage."

Julius Horace Steer is Amy's late father and the person who placed the advertisement turns out to be her aunt, Harriet Hall.

Amy meets her Aunt Harriet for the first time in the waiting room of a train station and her "blatant personality" makes a "rather alarming" impression on Amy in spite of her friendly generosity. Harriet gives a dazed Amy a hundred pounds to splurge on a new wardrobe and expect her at her cottage, in West Sussex, on the following Monday, but, when Amy arrives at the cottage, Harriet is nowhere to be found. Curiously, the brick floor in one of the corners looked quite wet, "as if it had been recently washed," while the oil container of the stove was still warm. Someone had been in the cottage shortly before she arrived. But who? And where's her aunt?

Over the next couple of chapters, the reader learns that the remote cottage belongs to an old friend of Amy's aunt, Mrs. Mary Dene, who inherited an immense fortune from her brother-in-law and bought the Dower House, at Lennor Park, where she settled down with her three children – Tony, Mollie and Lavvy. Mary Dene had purchased the house to give her favorite child, Lavvy, a proper background. She succeeded in getting her engaged to marry a local nobility, Sir Miles Lennor. Something that has never sat very well with his regal mother, Lady Louisa Lennor.

However, the constant presence of the vulgar Harriet Hall at Dower House, who helped herself to everything in the home, which was resented by family and friends alike. Harriet was spoiling life for everyone around her and appeared to have some kind of hold over Mary. Amy learns first-hand how unpopular Harriet is when she had a nice conversation with Tony on the train, but he bolted as soon as she mentioned that Harriet Hall is her aunt. So there you have a nice premise for a good, old-fashioned murder and the police gets involved when Harriet's remains are found in a disused well, but a bombshell revelation at the inquest draws Dalton's series-detective, Inspector Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, into the case.

I mentioned that Curt Evans, who wrote an introduction and afterword for the DSP edition of The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, praised the book as one of the finest detective novels the genre had produced and, when I read this, I was reminded of the praise heaped on Bowers' Fear and Miss Betony (1941) by Rue Morgue Press – claiming the book had "one of the most original and ingenious plots" in the history of the genre. Funnily enough, I turned out to have exactly the same reaction to both stories: goddammit, I love Agatha Christie. Yes, this is hardly a fair comparison, but Harriet Hall and Miss Betony aren't anywhere near the top of the heap of great detective novels.

Sure, this book has an unforgettable character in Harriet Hall, whose backstory will fascinate many readers today, which also made effective use of the epilogue by showing justice is not always found in a courtroom or at the end of a rope, but the ending is reached by delving into the past of characters. The most important revelations are given to the reader, towards the end, and combined with the lack of any physical clues the story felt rather thin as a mystery.

All of that being said, the peculiar characteristics of The Strange Case of Harriet Hall unquestionably makes it standout in the crowd of 1930s mysteries, however, readers should approach the book as a precursor of the modern crime novel of P.D. James instead of the Golden Age mysteries of Dorothy L. Sayers. So, while the plot didn't quite measure up to my expectations, I still found it to be an interesting read and will return to Dalton when DSP publishes the rest. One by One They Disappeared and The Night of Fear look promising. Hopefully, DSP decides to reprint The Black Death (1934) in the future, because I would very much like to read a detective novel that "merges the murder mystery with post-apocalyptic science fiction."

On a final note, DSP is reprinting more long-forgotten mystery writers in March, such as Joan A. Cowdroy, but the writers who currently have my full attention are a husband-and-wife writing tandem, E. and M.A. Radford, who have dabbled in impossible crime fiction – producing two novels and a collection of short impossible crime stories (Death and the Professor, 1961). Unfortunately, the short story collection has been out-of-print for a long time, but the two novels, Murder Isn't Cricket (1946) and Who Killed Dick Whittington (1947), will be reprinted by DSP in March. My original plan was to review one of them for this blog-post, but Curt's introduction and praise for Dalton lured me away from the Radfords. So I'll get around to them later next month.