Cold Earth - Ann Cleeves

During Magnus Tait's funeral a landslide sweeps down the hill &, along with headstones & grave markers, destroys a nearby croft. Inspector Jimmy Perez is attending the funeral & decides to take a look at the seemingly abandoned croft. He's surprised to find a woman's body among the debris & even more surprised to discover that the forensic evidence points to murder rather than accidental death. The croft, Tain, had belonged to Minnie Laurenson &, after her death, her American niece had inherited the property. Apart from the occasional holiday let, the croft was empty & the identity of the woman proves hard to track down. The only clue is a letter addressed to Alis & a belt that may be the murder weapon. Local landowners Jane & Kevin Hay were Minnie's closest neighbours but polytunnels & trees obscure their view. Perez calls in Chief Inspector Willow Reeves from Inverness to lead the investigation & the team's first priority is to discover the identity of the victim.

Jimmy & Willow have worked together before & their friendship is tinged with a tentative attraction that both of them recognise but are unwilling to explore. Jimmy is still grieving for his fiancée, Fran, & he's caring for Fran's daughter, Cassie. He returned to Shetland some years before & knows the benefits & disadvantages of a tight-knit community when it comes to a murder investigation. The first clues to the victim's identity point to a happy, attractive woman buying champagne for a special Valentine's Day dinner but then another witness, Simon Agnew, comes forward & describes a visit from the same woman to his counselling drop-in service where she had been distraught & despairing. When the team discovers that the woman was using a false identity & that she had ties to Shetland going back some years, they need to find out who could have stayed in contact with her & what brought her back to the island. A second murder close to the scene of the first complicates the investigation & leads to suspicion & mistrust as the victim's private life is exposed.

The Shetland series is one of my favourites (links to my previous reviews are here). Originally a quartet of novels - Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning - but the success of the quartet led to more Shetland novels - Dead Water, Thin Air & now Cold Earth. The Shetland setting is one of the strengths of the books. A remote, relatively closed community (although less so since the expansion of the oil & gas companies) is a classic setting for mystery novels & Ann Cleeves makes the most of the connections between families that result from living in such close proximity. Jimmy Perez is an enigmatic man who has had enough time away from Shetland to be mistrusted by some but it's also given him perspective which is valuable in his work. In a way Jimmy is the typical loner detective, self-contained & melancholy, but he's a more well-rounded character than the stereotype implies. Sergeant Sandy Wilson, who has lived on Shetland all his life, lacks confidence & looks to Jimmy for reassurance. His familiarity with the people & the place is both an asset & a burden but Jimmy has learnt how to work with Sandy to bring out the best in him.

All the characters are interesting & memorable, no matter how small a part they play in the story, like the observant young cashier at the supermarket who grabs any excuse for a cigarette & a coffee break to talk to Sandy to Rogerson's business partner, Paul Taylor, with his frazzled wife & three small sons. Jane Hay is a recovering alcoholic who is starting to feel restless in her gratitude to her husband for supporting her & worried about her son, Andy, who has dropped out of university & is back home, silent & uncommunicative. Jane's husband, Kevin, works hard but is unsettled by something or someone. Local councilor, solicitor Tom Rogerson seems successful but some of his decisions on the Council have upset locals & his family - wife Mavis & daughter Kathryn, the local schoolteacher - seem unaware of the rumours about his womanising.

I read Cold Earth so fast that, as usual, I had no idea about the identity of the murderer, even as Jimmy & Willow were racing towards the solution. I love a police procedural where all the steps of the investigation are laid out. There are flashes of intuition but most of the work is a hard slog, often frustrating but with enough clues to keep the detectives hoping & the readers reading along at a breakneck pace. I'm assuming that there will be a final novel in this second quartet with Fire in the title & I can't wait!

Close Quarters - Michael Gilbert

My first choice for the 1947 Club is Michael Gilbert's first novel, Close Quarters. It's an atmospheric murder mystery set in a cathedral close in the years before the Second World War.

The Dean of Melchester Cathedral is concerned about a campaign of anonymous letters targeting the senior verger, Daniel Appledown. Appledown is an elderly man who has held the post for many  years. The letters accuse him of being unfit for the job & of unspecified illicit activities with the wife of a fellow verger. When the incidents become more public - leaflets in the choristers'  music scores & accusations painted on the garden wall, the Dean decides that he needs to consult an expert. The earlier death of Canon Whyte, who fell from the Cathedral Tower a year earlier, is also playing on the Dean's mind. His nephew, Bobby Pollock, is a Detective Sergeant at Scotland Yard & the Dean decides to invite him down for a few days to look into the matter.

When Pollock arrives, the Dean fills him in & describes the residents of the Close. Canons Residentiary, Vicars Choral, Verger & the Choirmaster as well as the Dean, their wives, daughters & servants as well as a black cat called Benjamin Disraeli. There's also Sergeant Brumfit, constable of the Close, who looks after the main gate assisted by his wife & seven children. Pollock begins his investigations, interviewing the other residents & discovering quite a bit about the rivalries & alliances of the inhabitants. Then, Appledown is found dead, murdered by a blow to the head, & Pollock calls in his boss, Inspector Hazlerigg, to assist the local police with the investigation.

The crucial time is around 8pm on the night before Appledown's body is found. Everyone in the Close had a regular routine of Church services & duties with the Choir but there are some interesting anomalies on the night in question. Nosy Mrs Judd (widow of a former resident who has stayed on despite all attempts to move her out) sees everyone who comes & goes through one of the entrances to the Close but even she has to leave her vantage point to eat dinner. Rev Prynne was at the cinema; Rev Malthus was supposed to be visiting his ill sister but he couldn't have caught the train back to Melchester that he claims to have caught; Choirmaster Mickie arrives home & tells his wife that he's just seen a ghost; Appledown's disreputable brother, who lived with him, was out with his Lodge on a regular outing & finished off the evening in the pub. Several members of the community claim to have been in the pub or working alone in their study or only have wives & daughters to give them an alibi. Hazlerigg & Pollock believe that the writer of the anonymous letters is also the murderer but what could be the motive?

"There's a mind behind this business, make no mistake about that. a very fine brain, cool, calculating, and deadly careful. every step, every single step, has been thought out beforehand. I have felt that once - twice - three times already today. ... the calm and clever thoughts of a man confident in his own ability. ... "Not madness but sanity - a sort of terrible sanity. Wne we discover the truth we shall find it as something simple and obvious. Its simplicity will be its strength. No elaboration - no frills - nothing to catch hold of."

I enjoyed Close Quarters very much & it's made me keen to read more of Gilbert's work. This was his first novel & while there may be too many characters to comfortably keep track of (fifty people living in the Close alone although we don't meet all of them), this is an exciting story with multiple red herrings & possible explanations. There are some great set pieces, especially a long chase by train & cab through London by Pollock following one character who, in turn, is following someone else & a long conversation between Hazlerigg & Pollock that lasts into the early hours of the morning as they work through the movements of their suspects. Gilbert's style has plenty of humour & wit,

"Good gracious me, you don't have to be invited. It's a regular Thursday afternoon 'do'. The Chapter take it in turns, and everyone in the Close rolls up and eats sandwiches and lacerates each other's characters, and all in the most Christian way imaginable. You'll regret it all your life if you miss it."

There are definite echoes of Dorothy L Sayers in this mystery, from the elaborate working out of a crossword puzzle to the closed circle of suspects not unlike the similar setting of Gaudy Night. Actually it made me want to immediately reread Gaudy Night & I mean that as a compliment. This is a true mystery of the Golden Age, complete with maps of the Close & a handy list of the main characters. I have a couple of Gilbert's other books on the tbr shelf (one in paper, Blood and Judgement, & the other, The Black Seraphim, an eBook I bought when Christine Poulson recommended Gilbert last year & again it in this great list of books set in Cathedrals). I'm very glad that the 1947 Club inspired me to get this book off the tbr shelves, it was a great mystery & a very enjoyable read. Thank you Simon & Karen.

One Under - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

I seem to be regaining my interest in detective fiction. I used to read a lot of series but I seem to have cut back to only a few favourites. It would be easier to keep up if I could stop myself becoming interested in new subjects. Ancient history is my latest interest. I read Mary Beard's wonderful account of Roman history, SPQR, earlier this year & I've become fascinated by a period I know very little about. However, I've just finished watching Series 9 of Lewis & that reminded me that I hadn't read the latest book in Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Bill Slider series.

Two deaths, seemingly unconnected. Jim Atherton is called to a death at an Underground station, known as a "one under". It seems to be an uncomplicated suicide. CCTV shows the man jumping in front of the train. There's no one near him, he wasn't pushed, he didn't trip. George Peloponnos was in his late forties, living with his elderly mother, & working for the North Kensington Regeneration Trust. There seemed to be no reason for him to kill himself. On the same day, DI Bill Slider & the rest of his team are at the funeral of another suicide, their colleague, Colin Hollis. The atmosphere of misery at the funeral suits Slider's mood, the guilt he feels at not being able to help Hollis & also the unresolved feelings he has about the loss of the baby his wife, Joanna, was carrying. The baby would have been due around this time.

Slider goes to the scene of another death, on the patch of another station, because the dead girl, Kaylee Adams, lived on a housing estate in Shepherds Bush. Kaylee was found in a ditch by the side of a country road, apparently the victim of a hit & run driver. However, forensic pathologist Freddie Cameron isn't happy with her injuries & doesn't think she was hit by a car. Then there's the absence of Kaylee's bag & phone & why were her knickers on inside out & her shoes found some distance away? Kaylee lived with her younger sister & her mother, who was more concerned with her boyfriends & her next drink than caring for her daughters. When Slider discovers that Kaylee had known another girl, Tyler Vance, who was found drowned, he is determined to find out what happened to her & prevent her death becoming just another statistic.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Bill Slider series are terrific police procedurals. I love the way the reader follows the investigation step by step & makes the discoveries along with the investigating team. This is a long running series (no 19, Old Bones, is published early next year) & Slider's team have become old friends. The painstaking investigation, with flashes of intuition & the odd hunch, draws me in & never lets go. The first death, the suicide of George Peloponnos, seems to be straightforward, but, as a seasoned reader of police procedurals, I knew there had to be a connection. When it was revealed, it was shocking but also incredibly sad. Slider is a decent man, caught between the dictates of his conscience & the struggle to justify a seemingly hopeless investigation when the powers that be control the funding. Even when he is explicitly warned off the investigation, he keeps plugging away, finding other ways to pursue the threads of the story, determined not to give up.

The other aspect of the series that I love is the humour & wit. The chapter headings are often puns & Slider's boss, Porson, can't open his mouth without uttering a malapropism. Slider's personal life is as important as his work. His musician wife, Joanna, still recovering emotionally from the miscarriage but back at work & enjoying it. His father, living next door with his second wife & a willing babysitter for young George, his namesake. There was less emphasis on the personal in this book but I think Harrod-Eagles strikes the right balance. There's even a further instalment of Atherton's fraught love life as he tries to keep up the playboy facade after the departure of Emily, his most serious girlfriend. I read One Under in a weekend & I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. Now that I'm back on the mystery bandwagon, I wonder what will be next?

Murder of a Lady - Anthony Wynne

The murder of Mary Gregor shocks everyone who knew her. By all accounts she was a kind, gentle elderly lady, sister of the local Laird, Duchlan, & devoted to his son, her nephew, Eoghan.The circumstances of Mary's death are also peculiar. She was found kneeling by her bed in a room with  door & windows locked. There seemed no way for the murderer to have left the room & there's no murder weapon to be seen, just a jagged wound near her neck. The only clue is a silver herring scale found near the fatal wound. There was also the scar of a long-healed wound on the victim's chest. How could Miss Gregor have inspired murderous rage not once but twice in her life?

While waiting for the arrival of the local police, the Procurator Fiscal, Mr McLeod, calls in Dr Eustace Hailey, a well-known amateur detective who happens to be staying nearby. Dr Hailey examines the murder scene & talks to Duchlan who speaks of his sister in glowing terms, of the devotion of her personal maid, Christina, & the piper, Angus, who performed some of the duties of a butler. His daughter-in-law, Oonagh, was also in the house but had retired early. Oonagh's husband, Eoghan, arrived by motor boat that same evening from Ayrshire where his regiment was stationed. When Inspector Dundas arrives, he immediatly takes charge of the investigation & rejects Dr Hailey's offer of help.

It soon becomes clear that Mary Gregor was a deceptively mild character. In reality, she ruled Duchlan Castle with an iron will & brooked no opposition from anyone. Her insinuating ways left her victims with no concrete action or word to complain of but the results of her poisonous tongue were very real. Oonagh had quarreled with her aunt about the care of her son & she had given Eoghan an ultimatum - give me a home of our own or I will leave you. Eoghan was on his way to Duchlan that night to ask his aunt for a loan to pay his gambling debts, a loan that his aunt was likely to refuse as her high moral standards disapproved of gambling. However, Eoghan would benefit greatly from Mary's will as she was the only one of the family with money. Oonagh had become friends with the local doctor, MacDonald, & Mary Gregor believed they were having an affair. She had threatened to tell Eoghan about it, as she had continually sowed discord between Oonagh & Eoghan & interfered with the upbringing of their young son Hamish. As Dr MacDonald was in the house that night, attending Hamish who was prone to fits, he joins Inspector Dundas's list of suspects.

However, the locked room & lack of a weapon baffle the Inspector & he eventually has to climb down & ask for Dr Hailey's help with the investigation. Then, another murder takes place with a similar method to the first & the uncanny circumstances, including the discovery of more fish scales at the scene, lead to whispers about the strange creatures from nearby Loch Fyne that the fishermen believe bring bad luck & evil. Could the answer be supernatural after all?

Murder of a Lady is an ingeniously plotted locked room mystery in an atmospheric Highland setting. I love books set in Scotland & this one has everything - a castle by a loch with tales of a seal-like creature lurking in the depths; a respectable woman who rules her family with insinuating cruelty; a young woman at the end of her tether & an old man who turns his face from the truth & is completely under the sway of a stronger character. The murders are very puzzling & the fish scales (the book was originally published in 1931 as The Silver Scale Mystery) add a distinctive oddness to the investigation. I enjoyed the character of Dr Hailey. He's kind, sympathetic, but determined to pursue the truth, no matter how much sympathy he may feel for the suspects. He prevents several crimes in the course of his investigation, including a suicide, but can't stop the murderer striking again as he desperately tries to put together the clues.

Murder of a Lady is one of the very successful British Library Crime Classics series. I have lots of them on the tbr shelves (& there are more to be published later this year). It's fascinating to have a chance to read these long-forgotten authors. I'd like to read more Anthony Wynne so I hope they choose another of his books to reprint in the future.

Knock, Murderer, Knock! - Harriet Rutland

Presteignton Hydro is not a fashionable, top class resort. The twenty or so permanent residents are retired people of the professional middle classes - widows, spinsters, military men. Run by Dr Williams & his staff, the Hydro caters for those with small private incomes & an infectious love of gossip & scandal. Like any closed community in a Golden Age murder mystery, the residents encompass many different but familiar types. Miss Astill, the sheltered spinster with religious leanings; Miss Brendon, the elderly invalid losing her sight but kept informed by her devoted companion, Miss Rogers; Mrs Napier, who pretends that she has lost the use of her legs although no one really believes this; snobbish Lady Warme, a widow who flaunts her love of opera on the strength of one visit to La Scala but whose husband made his money in groceries; Mrs Marston, who is at the Hydro with her irritable invalid husband & two young daughters & my favourite character, would-be detective novelist Mrs Dawson, who is trying to become a writer to make enough money for her son, Bobby's education.

The male residents are less inclined to gossip but are just as eccentric. Admiral Unwin, who loves crosswords & Colonel Simcox, always needing help with his knitting. The Admiral is being pursued, if you believe the gossip, by Nurse Hawkins & the colonel is besotted with a newcomer, a beautiful young woman, Antonia Blake. Another new resident, Sir Humphrey Chervil, is also interested in Miss Blake & the gossips are enthralled by the potentialities of this love triangle. After a concert, organised by Lady Warme, where Miss Blake obligingly steps in at the last moment as accompanist, she & Sir Humphrey are observed lingering in the lounge. Next morning, Miss Blake is discovered in the lounge by the housemaid. She's dead, with a steel knitting needle plunged into the back of her head.

Inspector Palk & Sergeant Jago take up the investigation & soon arrest Sir Humphrey when Miss Blake's jewel box is found on the top of his wardrobe. However, when a second murder occurs, with the same modus operandi, the Inspector has to consider the possibility of a second murderer imitating the first or could he have arrested the wrong man? The investigation is very entertaining as almost every person he interviews accuses someone of the crime. The atmosphere of gossip & suspicion is very well observed & the claustrophobia that the Hydro induces, especially as the residents are forbidden to leave, creates tension. A new resident, Mr Winkley, who fancies himself as an amateur detective, upsets the residents with his blundering questions but the police seem to be no nearer a satisfactory solution. There are so many unanswered questions - why was Miss Blake at the Hydro at all when she never took any treatment? What connection could Miss Blake's murder have with the second murder? If they were committed by the same person, then Sir Humphrey must be innocent & the murderer must still be at the Hydro but Inspector Palk believes the evidence against Sir Humphrey to be strong.

Mrs Dawson unfortunately seems to have plotted out Miss Blake's murder in her notebook before it happened but she is more concerned about plotting the second & third murder for her novel because, of course, there must be more than one murder in a detective novel, the public expect it. Mrs Napier may just be a nutty old lady looking for sympathy or she may be cleverer than we think. Nurse Hawkins was left alone with the victim of the second murderer & seems to have something to hide. Inspector Palk approves of the doctor's attractive secretary, Miss Lewis, but is she just a bit too clever? It proves difficult to discover the murder weapon when nearly all the women & the Colonel knit & there are knitting needles in every room in the place. The murder method demanded a certain amount of medical knowledge but as Dr Williams' medical books lie scattered in every room, it would be easy enough for anyone to discover the vital information. Harriet Rutland manages to keep all her characters distinct in the reader's mind which isn't easy to do with a cast as big as this. Inspector Palk is a dogged detective who nevertheless needs a little help in coming to a solution but it's all very satisfyingly wrapped up in the end.

This is an excellent mystery with a lot of humour & a satisfyingly convoluted plot. I also enjoyed the acute social commentary, that the retired middle classes tend to take people on trust & believe that they are who they say they are as they're too polite to make enquiries. I was reminded of Agatha Christie's similar point in her 1950 novel, A Murder is Announced, that no one produces letters of introduction anymore so how do you know who they really are? This is very convenient, of course, for a writer of mysteries & I was interested that, far from being a post-war phenomenon, it could be just as true in the late 1930s.

I was sent a review copy of Knock, Murderer, Knock! by Dean Street Press. As well as Knock, Murderer, Knock!, which was published in 1938 & therefore perfect reading for the 1938 Club, they've also published Rutland's two other novels, Bleeding Hooks & Blue Murder.

The Woman in Blue - Elly Griffiths

Cathbad is house sitting for a friend, Justin, who lives in a house next to St Simeon's in Walsingham. As well as the house, Cathbad is also looking after Justin's cat, a defiant black tom called Chesterton. When Chesterton escapes one night, Cathbad follows him through the churchyard & sees a woman, dressed in white & wearing a blue cloak, standing next to a tombstone. As Walsingham has been a site of pilgrimage for worshippers of the Virgin Mary for centuries, & Cathbad is a druid, unfazed by spiritual experiences of any kind, Cathbad is not afraid but interested. Next morning, though, the body of a young woman, Chloe Jenkins, dressed in a white nightdress & blue dressing gown, is found carefully laid out in a nearby ditch with a rosary on her chest. Cathbad's vision was all too real.

Chloe was a patient at The Sanctuary, a clinic for people with addictions. She was a beautiful, blonde young woman, a model who had become involved with drugs & spent several periods in clinics trying to overcome her problem. DCI Harry Nelson & his team soon discover that security at The Sanctuary wasn't particularly rigorous & Chloe wasn't the only patient who had slipped out that night. Harry is also disconcerted by the resemblance of Chloe to his wife, Michelle, & their daughters. Harry's marriage had been shaky for a while when Michelle discovered that Harry had had a brief affair with archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway & that he was the father of her daughter, Kate. Harry wants to be part of Kate's life & Michelle agrees that he should but her own unhappiness has become more apparent, especially as she has become emotionally involved with Tim Heathfield, one of Harry's team.

Ruth is surprised to be contacted by Hilary Smithson, who she knew when they were both post-graduate archaeology students at Southampton. Hilary's career has changed course & she is now a priest. She's going to be in Walsingham at a course for women priests with ambitions to become bishops. Hilary has been receiving disturbing anonymous letters, addressing her as Jezebel & abusing her & all women priests as unnatural. Ruth convinces Hilary to show the letters to Nelson & soon there appears to be a link with the murder of Chloe Jenkins when one of the women on the course, Paula Moncrieff, is also murdered. Both Chloe & Paula were blonde & attractive, both killed in Walsingham. Could there be more of a connection? Could the same killer be responsible? There seems to be a religious theme - the rosary left on Chloe's body & the fact that Paula was a priest. Nelson & his team find clues in the past & in the connection of both women to Walsingham. The action spans the weeks from early spring, when the snowdrops cover the ground in the ruins of Walsingham Abbey to the performance of the Passion Play on Good Friday when everything becomes clear.

I love this series. The relationship between Ruth & Nelson is just wonderful. Ruth has had several inconclusive relationships since Kate was born but she really seems to be in limbo, unable to forget Nelson, despite the tenuousness of their relationship. Nelson is also torn between Michelle & Ruth, wanting to do the right thing & not hurt anyone but continually wrong footed & mostly making himself miserable. Nelson discovers that Michelle has been seeing Tim in a very dramatic scene that results in a reconciliation of sorts with Michelle. Ruth's life as a working mother isn't easy. Her boss, Phil, is still irritating & she feels inadequate as a mother, although Kate is happy, healthy & has lots of friends. Cathbad & his partner, Judy, now have two children & are very content, although Judy is anxious to get back to work in Nelson's team as soon as her maternity leave is over.

It's so lovely to find out what's been happening with Ruth, Nelson, Cathbad & their families. Nelson's Sergeant, Dave Clough, is as enthusiastic & as clumsy as ever & there's a new member of the team, Tanya Fuller, who tries a bit too hard & gets on Nelson's nerves because she isn't as empathetic as Judy. The suspects are a reliably creepy lot with potential motives all over the place. As in the best mysteries, hardly anyone is quite what they seem & everyone has secrets. The religious & historical themes are also fascinating & there's even an archaeological angle as Ruth investigates the results & the finds from a couple of digs that took place at the abbey in the past, looking for the site of the holy house where pilgrims came to worship a phial containing the Virgin's breast milk.

My only problem with this series is that I read them so fast (less than two days for this one) & then have to wait a year for the next book. I couldn't even wait for my library copies to arrive & bought the eBook on the day it was published. It's the mark of a great mystery if I read it that fast so I'll just have to sit tight & wait for the next instalment.

The Religious Body - Catherine Aird

Sister Anne, of the Convent of St Anselm, has been found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps. The back of her head has been shattered by a heavy blow but there's a curious absence of blood at the scene. What was meant to look like an accident is soon revealed to be murder. Inspector C D Sloan of Calleshire CID arrives, accompanied by his very raw constable, William Crosby. A convent is foreign territory to Sloan & his investigation isn't helped by the unhelpfulness of witnesses who practice custody of the eyes & make a virtue of being unobservant. Sister Anne was seen at Vespers on the night of her death but, when forensic surgeon Dr Dabbe determines that she must have been dead at least two hours earlier, who was it who sat in her stall in Chapel? And where were Sister Anne's glasses when she couldn't see very far without them?

Before she entered the convent, Sister Anne had been Josephine Cartwright, a member of a wealthy family, who disowned her when she became a nun. That wealth was made in munitions during the Great War & Sister Anne is due to inherit a substantial amount of money which her disapproving family can't prevent. She wants to use the money to build a cloister for the convent & to further the order's work in the mission field but this plan would not please her cousin, Harold, the Managing Director of the firm which is just about to be listed as a public company.Why should Harold Cartwright have suddenly decided to visit his cousin after twenty years, on the very day she's murdered? Could one of Sister Anne's fellow nuns murdered her for the sake of the inheritance? Sloan must try to penetrate the bland courtesy & unvarying routines of the nuns to discover if any of the Sisters had a secret in their past that could have led to murder.

The investigation takes another turn when the students at the nearby Agricultural Institute dress their Bonfire Night Guy in a nun's habit. After an anonymous tip off, Sloan arrives just in time to rescue the guy from the flames & discovers that it's also wearing Sister Anne's glasses. Three students confess to stealing the old habit from the convent on the night of the murder but deny knowing anything about the glasses. When one of the students is found dead, strangled in the Convent shrubbery, it seems that he must have seen something that was dangerous to the murderer, whether he realised it or not.

The Religious Body was the first of Catherine Aird's Inspector Sloan mysteries, published in 1966. I must have discovered them in the 1980s & I've read them all. I can't resist a convent mystery (having recently reread Antonia Fraser's Quiet as a Nun) & it's been so many years since I read this that it was like reading a new novel. Open Road Media have released many of the Sloan series as eBooks & we've bought some for our eBook collection at work so I plan to read a few more of the early books. Reading The Religious Body reminded me of Catherine Aird's only non-series mystery novel, A Most Contagious Game, which I've linked to in my featured post this week. I do like her writing style, her cool, dry humour & she has a real sense of atmosphere. Inspector Sloan is an engaging detective who has much to put up with the very inexperienced Crosby & his tetchy boss, Superintendent Leeyes.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake? - Annie Haynes

Beautiful American actress Charmian Karslake has been a big success at the Golden Theatre in London. Unlike most famous actors, she doesn't spend her time attending parties & social events. She's something of a mystery. So, it's surprising when she agrees to attend a ball given by Sir Arthur & Lady Penn-Moreton at Hepton Abbey. She has only just met Lady Penn-Moreton who is surprised & quite gratified when Miss Karslake accepts her invitation. However, on the morning after the ball, Charmian Karslake is discovered dead, shot through the heart & flung across her bed. Nothing appears to have been stolen apart from the beautiful sapphire ball that she called her mascot & wore all the time. Was robbery the motive for the the murder or could there have been a more personal reason?

The house party at the Abbey are the main suspects for the murder. Sir Arthur's younger half-brother Richard, known as Dicky, has recently returned to England with his young American wife, Sadie, daughter of millionaire Silas P Juggs. Their return was the occasion for the ball. Barrister John Larpent, an old friend of Sir Charles, was there too with his fiancée, Paula Galbraith. It soon becomes clear that Charmian Karslake may not have been the stranger to England she seemed to be. She may not have been American at all. Several people recognized Charmian at the ball but said nothing & she may have had her own reasons for accepting the invitation that had nothing to do with dancing.

Inspector Stoddart & his assistant, Harbord, arrive at the Abbey under some pressure to clear the mystery up as quickly as possible. Charmian's French maid, Celeste, says that she saw a man creeping along the corridor & enter her mistress's room but she couldn't see his face & wouldn't have recognized him if she had. Further investigations reveal that a family called Carslake had once lived in the area so could Charmian have changed the spelling of her name & could she have connections in Hepton? Charmian was heard to address an unseen man as Peter Hailsham but the only man of that name was an old rag-and-bone man who lived by the canal & died years before. The mascot she always wore, the sapphire ball, was said to be cursed & had been owned by several unfortunate women including the Princesse de Lamballe & Queen Draga of Serbia, both murdered. Stoddart & Harbord determine that Charmian wasn't killed on the bed but moved there afterwards but what could be the reason for that when every moment that the murderer spent in that room could lead to discovery? The investigations into Charmian's past are interrupted by a vicious attack on another member of the house party & Stoddart's suspicions have to be reassessed.

I've been enjoying the Inspector Stoddart novels by Annie Haynes very much. This is the fourth I've read, all reprinted by Dean Street Press. As much as the mystery plots, I enjoy the minor characters that Haynes brings to life in just a short scene. I especially enjoyed Dr Brett who is rumoured to have been on intimate terms with at least one of his patients; Mrs Sparrow, the cleaner at a London church that proves crucial to the mystery & music hall artiste Miss Villiers, who knew Charmian Karslake before she was a star. Silas P Juggs, the canned soup magnate, reminded me a little of Silas Lapham, another self-made man.These minor characters are more interesting that the Penn-Moretons & their friends or even than Charmian herself. We never meet her alive as the discovery of her body begins the book & we only get to know her through the recollections of others.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake? is an intriguing mystery & it's reassuring to know that Stoddart & Harbord will doggedly get to the solution. The Introductions to the Haynes novels by Curt Evans are also interesting & reassuringly spoiler-free. It was Curt who rediscovered Annie Haynes & did allot of research into her life & the reasons for her novels being almost completely forgotten since her death in 1929.

Dean Street Press kindly sent me a copy of Who Killed Charmian Karslake? for review.

The Crime at Tattenham Corner - Annie Haynes

It seems appropriate to be reviewing a murder mystery with a link to the racing world on Melbourne Cup Day. The racing link isn't as prominent in The Crime at Tattenham Corner as it was in another of Annie Haynes' novels, The Crystal Beads Murder, which I reviewed last month, but the murder of a racehorse owner does seem to have thrown up a possible motive in this briskly-written Golden Age mystery.

When the body of Sir John Burslem is found in a ditch in Hughlin's Wood on the morning of Derby Day, the fortunes of his horse, Peep o' Day, are of almost as much interest as the discovery of his killer. Peep o' Day was the favourite for the Derby & the horse's only rival was Perlyon, owned by Sir Charles Stanyard. The two men had been seen arguing at their club about the merits of their horses but they also had more personal reasons for disliking each other. Sir Charles had been engaged to Sophie Carlford but the engagement was broken off when Sophie decided to marry Sir John, a very rich, older man. Sir John has been shot, rolled into the ditch & his car dumped some way off. Sir Charles's cigarette case is discovered in Sir John's car & he has no explanation for its presence. Detective Inspector Stoddart & Sergeant Harbord question Sir Charles but are none the wiser at the end of the conversation,

"What do you think of that young man, Harbord?"
"I really don't know." Harbord hesitated. "I thought he was all quite straight and above-board at first; but I didn't quite like his manner over the cigarette case. He wasn't quite frank about that, I am certain. But he doesn't look like a murderer."
"Murderers never do. If they did they wouldn't get the chance to murder anybody." the inspector observed sententiously.

However, what seems to be an open and shut case for Stoddart & Harbord soon becomes much more complicated. On the night of his death, Sir Charles & his wife went to the stables for a last look at Peep o' Day. When they returned home, Sir Charles suddenly decided to write a new will & it was signed in the presence of two of his servants, including his valet, Ellerby. Sir John then left to drive his car to the garage & was murdered. The will left his entire fortune to his wife, disinheriting his grown-up daughter, Pamela, who loathes her stepmother & who immediately accuses Sir Charles of murdering her father with the help of her stepmother. Sophie's behaviour is a mixture of grieving widow & very frightened woman as she tries to carry on her husband's business while also acting so strangely that her maid's suspicions are aroused. Then, the valet, Ellerby, disappears in the middle of the night & another line of enquiry has to be pursued.

Sir John's only other relative, his brother, James, is an explorer, currently trekking in Tibet. James's brash wife, Kitty, has been given an allowance by Sir John as James's investments never do very well & she arrives at the Burslem residence to tell Sophie of messages from Sir John that she has received at a seance conducted by the American medium, Winifred Margetson.

He (Sir Charles) knew a little of Mrs James Burslem's reputation, and also knew that her husband was popularly supposed to have deliberately chosen ruin hunting in Tibet to the lady's society. He had gathered too from the gossip of the day, which of late had greatly concerned itself with the Burslems and their affairs, that Sir John Burslem and his wife had had little to do with Mrs Jimmy. It was distinctly a surprise therefore to meet Pamela in the society of, and apparently on such intimate terms with, her aunt.

Kitty insinuates herself into the lives of both Sophie & Pamela but is she really concerned for them or is she more concerned for her allowance? What exactly does she know or suspect about Sir John's murder?

I enjoyed The Crime at Tattenham Corner very much. I've enjoyed all Annie Haynes' books so far & look forward to reading more of them. Her style is brisk & witty. She can pinpoint a character in just a few lines. I loved her description of three women attending Miss Margetson's seance, "All three were well dressed and evidently belonged to the moneyed class, but none of them looked particularly intelligent; their chins by one consent appeared to be absent." Her books are just the right length for a murder mystery (around 200pp) & so full of plot that it's hard to keep everything straight. I did guess the central idea of the plot but not the way it was worked out. I was concerned at some of the methods used by Stoddart & Harbord in gathering their evidence. Both of them mislead women to get information out of them but would any of that evidence have been admissible in court? I'm sure it wouldn't have been. It's an oddity in Haynes' books that her detectives are allowed to ignore proper procedure although most of the time they seem to follow the rules.

Annie Haynes is a definite discovery of the Golden Age & I'm very pleased that Dean Street Press have reprinted her books. The publisher kindly sent me a review copy of The Crime at Tattenham Corner.

The Man with the Dark Beard - Annie Haynes

Dr John Bastow is an unlikely murder victim (especially if you believe my theory that it's the unpleasant characters who are marked for murder in Golden Age novels). He is a respected doctor, a widower with two children & seemingly no enemies. So, when he's found murdered, the motive seems elusive. Just before his death, however, he had a conversation with his old friend, barrister Sir Felix Skrine, where he hinted that he had knowledge of a crime that had gone undetected. Sir Felix advises him to go straight to the police & advises Dr Bastow to take a holiday as he's obviously overworked. There are other potential motives lurking under the surface of the doctor's seemingly placid life. Dr Bastow's daughter, Hilary, has fallen in love with her father's assistant, Basil Wilton, but the doctor doesn't approve of the relationship. Dr Bastow forbids the relationship & sacks Basil. Also in the household are Hilary's disabled brother, Felix, named after his godfather (usually known as Fee), the Doctor's secretary, Iris Houlton, & Aunt Lavinia, an outspoken, eccentrically dressed woman who lives with the Bastows in between her travels to exotic parts of the world. She struck me as a cross between Mary Kingsley & Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Aunt Lavinia disapproves of Basil & is also suspicious of the Bastows' new housemaid, Mary Ann, who she suspects of planning to entice the doctor into marriage or worse.

That same evening, the doctor is in his consulting room but doesn't respond to the parlourmaid or Basil knocking on the door. Even Aunt Lavinia can't rouse him. The maid goes goes into the garden, looks through the consulting room window & sees the doctor slumped at his desk. When the household break in, they find him dead, shot through the head at close range. Inspector Stoddart of Scotland Yard is called in & examines the scene of the crime. He finds a half-written letter to Sir Felix, about the subject of their earlier conversation, & a scrap of paper with the words, "It was the Man with the Dark Beard". A Chinese box with the proofs of that other suspected crime has also been stolen. A colleague of Dr Bastow's, Dr Sanford Morris, has a dark beard & when he shaves it off soon after the crime, & confesses that he had an appointment with Dr Bastow on the night of the murder which he says he didn't keep, he becomes one of the main suspects. Adding to the puzzle is the disappearance of the mysterious parlourmaid, Mary Ann Taylor, & the sudden transformation of Iris Houlton, who seems to have inherited money. When a second murder occurs, it seems too much of a coincidence that the same person could be involved with both victims & not be the murderer. Inspector Stoddart & his assistant, Harbord (is he a Sergeant? I assumed he was but I don't think his rank is ever mentioned) have their work cut out for them.

This is the first of four detective novels by Annie Haynes featuring Inspector Stoddart. As with The Crystal Beads Murder, I enjoyed Stoddart's investigation of the crime, with its red herrings & false trails. However, I don't think this book is as good as the later one. The villain is fairly obvious from the start although I didn't work out how the murders were done. There's also a touch too much melodrama for me in several scenes. Some aspects of the plot were more Wilkie Collins than Agatha Christie. I did enjoy some of the characterizations. Hilary's brother, Fee, has been indulged because of his disability & is peevish & demanding because of it. My favourite character was Aunt Lavinia. I enjoy characters who call a spade a spade, even though they may be completely wrong. I can't believe that she ever actually left the house in an outfit like this,

Today she wore a coat and skirt of grey tweed with the waist-line and leg-of-mutton sleeves of the Victorian era, while the length and extreme skimpiness of the skirt were essentially modern, as were her low-necked blouse, which allowed a liberal expanse of chest to be seen, and the grey silk stockings with the grey suede shoes. Her hair was shingled, of course, and had been permanently waved, but the permanent waves had belied their name, and the dyed, stubbly hair betrayed a tendency to stand on end.

I also didn't believe the end of Lavinia's story for one moment. However, The Man with the Dark Beard is a suitably convoluted mystery. Once the second murder is committed, I couldn't stop reading. I'm looking forward to reading more Annie Haynes & luckily, Dean Street Press are reprinting all her novels & kindly sent me this one for review.

The Crystal Beads Murder - Annie Haynes

It struck me while I was reading this book that one of the differences between the Golden Age murder mystery & a lot of modern detective novels or thrillers is the status of the victim. In the Golden Age novel (& some modern police procedurals), the victim is hardly regretted. They are introduced only in order to show the reader how repulsive they are & then they're mercifully bumped off. In modern thrillers, particularly those with serial killers, the victims are portrayed as innocents, invariably in the wrong place at the wrong time. They usually don't know their killer so they can't have done anything to "justify" their death. The plot of the Golden Age novel was generally more concerned with the puzzle of the mystery & to have a reasonable number of suspects, the victim had to have made a certain number of enemies. I know this is a terrible generalisation but there it is, for what it's worth. The unlikeable victim is one of the characteristics of the Golden Age puzzle mystery & as I enjoy a good puzzle as much as the next reader, I loved The Crystal Beads Murder by Annie Haynes, another neglected writer rediscovered by Dean Street Press.

When the body of Robert Saunderson is found in the summer house of Lord Medchester's country house, Holford Hall, in Loamshire, there are several people who are glad that he's dead. Saunderson was a man of mysterious antecedents. Rich & connected to the racing set, he had been invited to Lord Medchester's house for a weekend mostly because of those racing connections. There are also rumours that Minnie, Lady Medchester, is having an affair with Saunderson. Saunderson had also become acquainted with Lord Medchester's cousins, Harold & Anne Courtenay. Harold is a weak young man, trying to gamble his way out of financial difficulties & failing. He's running around with a vulgar crowd that includes Maurice & Sybil Stainer, a couple of chancers who have battened on to Harold & are leading him astray. Anne dislikes Saunderson & is repelled by his obvious interest in herself. She is engaged to Michael Burford, the trainer at Lord Medchester's stables. Harold has put himself into Saunderson's power & the only way for him to avoid disgrace is if Anne agrees to marry Saunderson. She is horrified by this but is also afraid of scandal & afraid of upsetting their elderly grandfather.

Some weeks after the weekend house party at Holford House, Saunderson writes to Anne, asking to meet her in the summer house to discuss her future. The scandal over Harold's misdemeanor is about to break & Saunderson is pressuring Anne to marry him. The house is full of guests but Anne goes to her room after dinner & prepares to meet Saunderson. Someone hiding in the shrubbery watches Anne as she enters the summer house & as she leaves with a look of horror on her face. Next morning, the body of a man in evening dress is discovered in the summer house. He has been shot in the heart. Robbery doesn't seem to be the motive but there are three crystal beads found in his pocket. Beads that were not there when the local policeman, Superintendent Meyer, first examined the body.

Inspector Stoddart & Sergeant Harbord of Scotland Yard arrive to lead the investigation into Saunderson's murder. They soon discover that there are almost too many suspects. Saunderson owned a money-lending business & dabbled in blackmail on the side. There are the rumours of his affair with Lady Medchester & the evasiveness of Anne & Harold Courtenay. What was Saunderson doing at Holford Hall when he wasn't a member of the house party? It seems likely that the murderer must have been among the household or guests at the Hall but then a figure from Saunderson's past makes a surprise appearance & sends the investigation in another direction entirely. The significance of the crystal beads continues to be elusive & it takes a visit to the dentist to provide a vital clue.

I thought this was a terrific mystery, I read it in just a couple of days. The pace is brisk & I really liked Stoddart & Harbord. I love a good police procedural & I enjoyed the way that Stoddart works his way through the different scenarios that present themselves. The characters of Anne Courtenay & Lady Medchester are particularly well-done as they are both caught in traps partly of their own making & we watch as they thrash around trying to extricate themselves. The minor characters are individuals, not just stock characters, from Mrs Meyer, wife of the local policeman to Mrs Yates, keeper of the lodge at the Hall & the tramp who becomes a vital witness. The Crystal Beads Murder was published in 1930 & was Annie Haynes's final mystery. In fact, she died leaving it unfinished & another writer completed the manuscript. I couldn't see the join but then, I was reading so fast that I'm not surprised I failed to notice.

Dean Street Press are republishing all twelve of Haynes's mystery novels which she wrote in the 1920s. She was well-regarded in her time, one of only two women mystery writers published by The Bodley Head (the other was Agatha Christie). I'm not sure how relevant that is as Agatha left The Bodley Head for Collins as soon as she was able to get out of her contract, but they did give her a start. Curtis Evans has written the Introduction to all the Haynes reprints & he's done considerable research into her life & career. Born in 1865, she was the daughter of an ironmonger, who lived with her mother & grandparents after her father left the family. Her grandfather was the gardener at Coleorton Hall in Leicestershire. In later life, Haynes lived in London with Ada Heather-Biggs, a prominent feminist & social reformer. Haynes published her first novel, The Bungalow Mystery, in 1923, although she had written newspaper serials. Her novels were admired by critics who enjoyed the crafting of her plots & characterization as much as the twists & turns of the puzzle. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for the last 15 years of her life & it's remarkable that she was able to continue working. Her novels were out of print only a few years after her death & were forgotten until this rediscovery.

Dean Street Press kindly sent me a review copy of The Crystal Beads Murder.

Star Fall - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

I love this series. Bill Slider is one of my favourite detectives & this entry (number 17) in the long-running series is as good as any of them.

Rowland Egerton is an expert on Antiques Galore!, a TV program that sounds very similar to the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. The program visits various locations, experts appraise objects brought along by members of the public who are amazed or horrified by the valuations. Egerton is one of the stars of the show; handsome, debonair, charming. One afternoon, Egerton is found dead in his home, stabbed in the throat. His business partner & friend, John Lavender, who discovered the body, is shocked & distraught. Slider & his bagman, Jim Atherton, are quickly on the scene & realise that this is no random burglary gone wrong. There was no sign of forced entry & only two objects, out of the vast array of antiques on display, are missing. A green malachite Fabergé box & a painting by Berthe Morisot. Neither object was fabulously expensive so there must have been a reason why the killer only stole those two pieces.

As Slider's team begins to investigate, Egerton's public persona as the charming expert is dented quite a bit. He'd changed his name, left his wife & daughter & had many affairs. His colleagues also accused him of pinching the most promising objects to feature on the show & of buying the best objects from their flattered, star-struck owners after the show. Egerton & Lavender owned an antiques shop which was mostly bankrolled by Egerton although it was Lavender who had the real knowledge of antiques that propped up Egerton's role as an expert. It soon becomes clear that there were several people with a motive to kill Egerton. Politics, forgery & the television business all have a role to play in solving the murder of Rowland Egerton.

Apart from the puzzle element of this series, I really enjoy catching up with the characters. Bill's wife, Joanna, is a musician & they have a son, George. Joanna suffered a miscarriage at the end of the previous book & they're both still coming to terms with it. Jim Atherton is a ladies man who looked as though he was finally ready to settle down with Emily until his inability to stay faithful doomed the relationship. The rest of the team are just as individual & I enjoy the procedural element of the book. No flashes of brilliant deduction, just dogged police work - interviewing potential witnesses, looking at CCTV footage & asking lots of questions. My favourite character is Slider's boss, Porson. His speech is full of malapropisms. I always like to quote a few of Porson's most beautifully mangled sentences,

Porson went on, "Well, keep me informed. The instant you've got something. And don't go plunging in irregardless, like a bowl in a china shop."
"No, sir."
"I want all your ducks in a row before I go in to bat. This is a whole new kettle of worms you're opening up."
"I know, sir," said Slider. It was never a good sign when Porson's imagery started to fracture.

The atmosphere of this book is a little more downbeat, in tune with Bill's worry about Joanna. The wintry weather is also very much in tune with Bill's melancholy & the depressing dead ends of the investigation. I picked up Star Fall when I was reading several big books & needed a change. It's been a while since I read a contemporary detective novel & I read this in just a few days. Bill & his team are reliably entertaining & I'm looking forward to the next Slider mystery, One Under, which is published in November.

The Ghost Fields - Elly Griffiths

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is excavating a possible Bronze Age cemetery when she's called to a nearby field to examine the remains of a WWII plane. The pilot's body is still in the cockpit but Ruth soon realises that he hasn't been there since the 1940s.  DNA testing reveals that the pilot was related to local landowners, the Blackstock family. The family knew that Fred Blackstock had been killed in a plane crash during the war but thought he had crashed at sea. His body was never recovered. So, where has Fred's body been for the last 70 years & why is there a bullet hole in his forehead?

DCI Harry Nelson & DS Dave Clough investigate Fred's death & meet the present day members of the Blackstock family, still living at the lonely family farm near the crash site. Fred's brother, Old George, is still alive & living with his son, Young George & Young George's wife, Sally. George & Sally's son, Chaz, has started a pig farm on some of the family land, & their daughter, Cassandra, is an actress, recently returned home. The land where the plane was found belonged to the Blackstocks but has recently been sold to a developer. The construction work on the new estate uncovered the plane.Old George is the only member of his generation left. His older brother Lewis disappeared after the war & Fred had moved to the United States before the war & was thought to have been killed in a plane crash after joining the US Air Force. The Blackstocks seem to be an unlucky family. Old George's mother said the land was cursed & that the sea would reclaim it one day, before drowning herself & Old George himself has become quite odd in his old age, his "funny turns" only whispered about by the family.

Further complications arise when a TV company wants to use Fred's story as the focus of an episode of their new series The History Men, looking at historical events through the personal stories of those involved. Fred left a wife & daughter in the States when he was killed & his daughter, Nell, travels to Norfolk for his funeral & to meet the family she barely knows. She's also agreed to appear in the TV program. At the funeral, a mysterious man with long grey hair appears & soon after, Cassandra is attacked in the churchyard. The investigations into Fred's death lead Nelson to suspect that one of the Blackstocks was responsible for moving Fred's body from its original burial place to the cockpit of the buried plane. He also suspects that one of the family was responsible for Fred's murder.

I love this series. It's an absorbing combination of archaeology, history & police procedural but, above all, it's the characters that make the series so compelling. Ruth & Nelson had a brief relationship that resulted in their daughter, Kate. Nelson has stayed married to Michelle, the mother of his two daughters, although he feels a protective concern for Ruth & Kate. Ruth has had half-hearted relationships with a couple of men (Frank Barker, the American historian Ruth met in the last book, returns to Norfolk with the film crew in this one) but she loves Nelson, even though she knows he won't leave Michelle. Nelson's team - Dave Clough, DS Judy Johnson & newcomer Tim Heathfield - all play an important role in the story although it's their personal connection & loyalty to the team that is paramount. Clough is the rough diamond of the team, rescuing Cassandra Blackstock from her attacker, & surprised by his own involvement in the Blackstock story. Judy Johnson is now living with Cathbad, Ruth's Druid friend, & very pregnant with her second child. Tim is a good policemen but there's something reserved in his manner that hints at a secret that prevents him bonding with his colleagues completely.

I enjoyed all the personal subplots, especially the fact that Cathbad's predictions about future events, usually foolproof, prove to be way off the mark on a couple of crucial points. Ruth is such an appealing character. She is always doubting her abilities as a single mother & dithering about her relationship with Frank; resenting Nelson's picky comments & over-protectiveness, yet wanting him to be part of Kate's life, & her own. The Norfolk landscape is the other attraction. The loneliness of the marshes where Ruth lives & the coastal areas is described so evocatively. The Ghost Fields is a very satisfying mystery & although I had an inkling about one of the characters, there were still plenty of surprises a second murder & two attempted murders to keep me occupied until the last page. My only problem with Elly Griffiths' books is that I read them too quickly & now I have another year to wait for the next installment.

The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude

One of the most exciting recent publishing ventures for lovers of the Golden Age of crime fiction has been the British Library Crime Classics series of reprints.It's been so popular that titles are being published ahead of schedule. My copy of John Bude's Sussex Downs Mystery arrived last week although it wasn't due to be published until early next year. If I were being frivolous, I'd say it was the beautifully nostalgic cover art that's selling the series but that wouldn't be enough on its own. On the strength of the books I've read so far, it has just as much to do with the content which is a real treat for anyone who's looking for a new Golden Age mystery author.

The Cornish Coast Murder was the first of 30 books by John Bude (the pseudonym of Ernest Carpenter Elmore). It's a traditionally plotted mystery enhanced by the evocative setting & the mix of amateur & professional detectives. The story begins with the Reverend Dodd, Vicar of St Michael's-on-the-cliff, Boscawen, sitting by the fire waiting for his friend, Doctor Pendrill, to arrive for their traditional weekly dinner. Every Monday night, the two friends divide the contents of a box of library books, every one of them mysteries. On this evening, though, a phone call for Doctor Pendrill interrupts the evening. Julius Tregarthan has been found shot dead in his study.

Tregarthan's house, Greylings, is only a short distance away & the doctor & Reverend Dodd arrive on the scene to find Tregarthen's niece, Ruth, who found the body, shocked & upset. Mr & Mrs Cowper, housekeeper & odd job man, are the only servants. None of them seem to have heard anything but a thunderstorm overhead may have masked the sound of the shot or shots as three bullets have been fired, as it seems, from the cliff path outside the study window. Local constable Grouch arrives soon after followed by Inspector Bigswell from the County Police. Tregarthan seemed to have no enemies although he was a secretive man. He didn't get on well with his niece as it seemed he disapproved of her friendship with local writer & war veteran, Ronald Hardy. On the night of the murder, they had quarrelled at dinner & Ruth had left the house, returning some time later to find her uncle dead. Ruth's behaviour since the murder is evasive & suspicious but is she trying to hide something that incriminates herself or is she trying to protect someone else? When Ronald Hardy & his revolver go missing on the very same night & it emerges that Tregarthan had just confronted him about his relationship with Ruth, he becomes the number one suspect. Then there's Ned Salter, local "black sheep", who was seen arguing with Tregarthen on the day of the murder about the eviction of his family while he was in jail.

The Inspector whistled. He couldn't see the wood for the trees. Ruth Tregarthen? Ronald Hardy? Ned Salter? Which? they were all under suspicion. They all had a motive for the murder. They had all quarrelled with Tregarthan a few hours before his death. The puzzle was assuming gargantuan proportions. No sooner had the Inspector assembled a few bits to his satisfaction, when the puzzle altered shape, with all the startling inconsequence of a landscape in Alice in Wonderland.

I loved The Cornish Coast Murder. The Cornish village setting is beautifully drawn &, as it turns out, integral to the solution of the mystery. Reverend Dodd is a clever, intuitive detective who comes up with some vital insights with his practical knowledge as well as his insights into the hearts of his parishioners. I'm not sure a Police Inspector would have taken a parish priest into his confidence quite as readily as Inspector Bigswell does here but it's very well done & he certainly wouldn't have come up with the solution without him. There's plenty of routine police work too which I always enjoy reading about.

Martin Edwards has written an informative Introduction for this edition which gives some background on the writer. A series of mysteries set in the English countryside was very unusual for the 1930s when London was the setting used by most writers. We're used to mysteries set in cities, towns & villages all over the United Kingdom from Ann Cleeves' Shetlands to Edwards's own Lake District series &, of course, the murder capital of England, Midsomer, but it wasn't so common during the Golden Age. I'm so pleased to have had a chance to read John Bude & I have two more of his books on the tbr shelves.

Thin Air - Ann Cleeves

Three women who have been friends since university travel to Unst in Shetland when one of them, Caroline, marries Lowrie Malcolmson, a Shetlander. The wedding has already taken place but the traditional Shetland welcome for the married couple, the hamefarin', is a chance for the locals to have a party. Polly Gilmour has invited her new partner, Marcus Wentworth, & Eleanor Longstaff & her husband Ian, make up the group. Eleanor has been depressed after suffering two miscarriages & is resentful that Ian seems to be lacking in sympathy. She's a television producer with a small company & is currently researching ghost stories for a program about the phenomenon of practical people believing they've seen something supernatural. Polly is the quiet one of the three friends, always following where the others lead. She's a librarian, working at a special library dedicated to folklore. Caroline is a decisive woman who set her sights on Lowrie from their university days & now has what she's always wanted. She's even considering moving to Unst permanently.

The hamefarin' is a big success with nearly everyone on the island there. Eleanor surprises her friends late that night by saying that she's seen the ghost of a little girl, Peerie Lizzie, who had drowned 80 years before. The Peerie Lizzie story is one of those she's researching for her program & the legend is that if a woman sees the child she will become pregnant. Polly has also seen the girl but says nothing out of fear of ridicule. Next morning, Eleanor has disappeared. The police are called in & then Polly receives a text message from Eleanor saying that there's no point looking for her as she won't be found. Has Eleanor's fragile mental health been shaken by the sight of a ghost? Has she committed suicide or just run away? When her body is found on the shore, laid out very carefully, it's clear that she's been murdered.

Detectives Jimmy Perez & Sandy Wilson arrive from Lerwick to investigate Eleanor's disappearance which soon becomes a murder inquiry. They're joined by Willow Reeves, another islander whose style of working, abrupt & very focused, contrasts with Perez's calm watchfulness. The two have a cordial working relationship but Jimmy is still recovering from the murder of his partner, Fran, & believes that Willow is on the lookout for any sign that he's not up to the job. Willow is only too aware of Jimmy but her attraction to him annoys her & makes her seem unsympathetic.

The detectives stay at an upmarket B&B run by Charles Hillier & David Gordon. Charles had been a  well-known magician but his career had dried up & his partner, David, suggested they move to Shetland. The renovation of the B&B had been expensive & there are tensions & secrets between the couple that become obvious as the investigation continues. The relationship between Eleanor, Polly & Caroline also proves to be more complex than it first seemed. Eleanor had been the leader of the group, dominating the more introverted Polly, who becomes more & more frightened as the atmosphere on the island becomes claustrophobic & her own sightings of a little girl dancing on the beach who seems to vanish into thin air.

The Shetland series is one of my favourites. I'm not reading as many police procedurals as I used to, but this is one series that I always look forward to. The atmosphere of the island is beautifully evoked. The ghost story of Peerie Lizzie adds to the feeling of otherworldliness that is intensified by the midsummer simmer dim, the time when night never really seems to fall. The arrival of the visitors recalls memories & events long past & Eleanor's research into the story of Peerie Lizzie may have stirred up more than she expected. I love the way Ann Cleeves brings in so many possibilities & creates characters with whole lives behind them. Every twist & turn of the investigation brought some new perspective to the lives of one of the suspects. She's also very good at involving the reader in the lives of her detectives. I thought I knew the identity of the murderer several times but was wrong almost to the end when I did get an inkling.

Jimmy Perez is one of the most interesting, sympathetic detectives in crime fiction. Still grieving over the loss of Fran, he's also caring for Fran's daughter, Cassie, while trying to get on with his life & his work. He's an instinctive investigator, who sometimes goes off on a tangent of his own but his knowledge of the people & the islands is invaluable. I've just watched the TV series Shetland that was based on the books. I enjoyed it, loved the scenery & the music. It didn't bother me that Douglas Henshall, who plays Jimmy, is a pale skinned redhead rather than a dark descendant of the Spanish Armada as Jimmy is described in the books. Some changes have been made to the plots of the books they used but a TV series has to be different & I thought they did a good job. I believe a third series is planned. I'm sure it's done wonders for tourism in the islands.

The Advent of Murder - Martha Ockley

Faith Morgan is the relatively new vicar at St James's, Little Worthy. Faith used to be a policewoman & some of her former colleagues, especially former boyfriend Ben Shorter, find her change of career, & her vocation, hard to accept. In the first book in the series, The Reluctant Detective, Faith found herself in the middle of a murder investigation when she'd only just arrived in Little Worthy. Now, when murder touches Faith & her congregation again, she finds it difficult to resist doing a little investigating of her own. Her police training & natural nosiness are an irresistible combination.

Advent is a busy time for Faith. She has all her usual duties plus the Christmas pageant to organise. Churchwarden Pat Montesque never lets Faith forget just how important the pageant is to the parish & Faith's immediate problem is finding a donkey to carry Mary in the procession. On her way to talk to new parishioner Oliver Markham, the Joseph in the production, Faith comes across a police team investigating the discovery of a young man's body by the river on Markham's land. Detective Inspector Ben Shorter is heading the investigation but Faith gets more information from Sergeant Peter Gray, a friend & parishioner. The boy, Lucas Bagshaw, has been hit on the head & had then fallen into the river somewhere upstream of the place where he was found.

Faith discovers that Lucas belonged to the youth choir run by junior choirmaster Jim Postlethwaite, a charismatic man who is determined to make a success of the choir even if some of the clergy at the cathedral are sceptical. Lucas had dropped out of school following the death of his mother some months earlier. His father had never been on the scene & his only relative was his mother's younger brother Adam, an ex-soldier & alcoholic. Lucas's best friends Vernon & Anna, known as V & the Dot, are shocked by his death but unwilling to give Faith or the police much information. As Faith struggles to balance her busy work life with her sister's increasingly urgent demands that they talk about their mother's health, she also becomes more involved with the investigation into Lucas's death. Everyone involved has secrets they are determined to keep but murder tends to reveal much more than just the name of the murderer & this case is no exception.

This is the first mystery & the first contemporary book I've read in a while. A mention of The Reluctant Detective on a blog somewhere reminded me that I downloaded this second book & hadn't yet read it. That's one of the disadvantages of a Kindle, it's so easy to forget what I have on it. Discovering that the third book in the series, A Saintly Killing, is due to be published next month, made me want to read this one immediately. I'm so glad I did because I enjoyed it just as much as the first book.

Faith is such a sympathetic character & her great enthusiasm for her new life & vocation is very touching. This time, we learn a little more about some of her parishioners, particularly spiky Pat Montesque & Faith also has a little flutter of romance with Jim Postlethwaite. Unfortunately taking him along for dinner with Peter Gray & his wife is a disaster when Ben Shorter turns up with his date, the pathologist working on the Lucas Bagshaw case. Jim's uneasiness & Ben's antagonism make for a very uncomfortable evening. It shows Faith how difficult it can be to separate work & friends & her previous life in the Force from her new life in the Church. I enjoyed all the details of Faith's working life & her tentative relationship with a cat she calls The Beast is also endearing if you happen to be a cat lover. We know who's going to come out on top there. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next book in the series & I'm determined that it won't get lost on my Kindle. I'm going to read it before it disappears from that first screen!

Death on the Cherwell - Mavis Doriel Hay

Published in 1935, the same year as Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers, Death on the Cherwell, & its author, Mavis Doriel Hay, have been completely forgotten until this welcome reprint by the British Library. The tradition of college crime - whether based in Oxford or Cambridge - was well-established in the Golden Age of mystery fiction & I enjoy a mystery set in an enclosed community so I was definitely interested in this reprint. Add the gorgeous cover & the fact that the fictional college is called Persephone & I couldn't wait to read it.

Four first-year students at Persephone College - Daphne, Sally, Gwyneth & Nina - meet on the roof of the boathouse near the college on a cold January afternoon. They plan to form their own society, the Lode League, & their purpose is to curse the unpleasant Bursar of the College, Miss Denning. Miss Denning, known as the Burse, is coldly efficient & very strict with the students & is therefore loathed by many. The League has barely concluded their first meeting when they see a canoe drifting down river. They're astonished & a little frightened to discover the dripping wet body of Miss Denning lying in the bottom of the canoe.

The Principal of the College, Miss Cordell, calls the police & it appears that Miss Denning had quite a few enemies & not just among the disgruntled students. She was feuding with a misogynistic local landowner, Mr Lond & a local farmer, Lidgett, over the sale of land to the College. She had also upset a Yugoslav student, Draga Czernak, by insulting her & inspiring the girl to threaten a blood feud against her. She was also very secretive about her private life. She had no family, apart from a niece, Pamela, who was studying at Cambridge. Miss Denning had been determined to keep Pamela away from Oxford but would never explain why.

Miss Denning was a keen swimmer & canoeist & it wasn't unusual to find her on the river in all weathers. Inspector Wythe of the local police soon decides that her death was murder. How could she have drowned accidentally & then got herself, dripping wet, back into the canoe? If she hit her head accidentally, someone must have put her body back in the canoe & set it drifting downstream. Where were the paddles? When the doctor discovers a blow to the back of her head, it seems that murder or manslaughter are the only options. Scotland Yard, in the person of Detective Inspector Braydon, arrives to carry on the investigation, which is being helped & hindered by the meddling of the four members of the Lode League as well as some of the male students of  St Simeon's. Finding the solution of this mystery will mean delving into the past of Miss Denning & disregarding a lot of red herrings along the way.

I enjoyed Death on the Cherwell very much. The college atmosphere was evoked very successfully. I loved the fact that the students of Persephone College were just as irritated at being referred to in the Press as Undergraduettes as the students & Fellows of Sayers's Shrewsbury College. There are some very funny scenes, especially Daphne's conversation with Owen Vellaway, student of St Simeon's & newly published poet. His poem, Dust, is available in Blackwells, in a sealed package to stop people just reading it in the bookshop. What would Owen have thought about pirated books in the days of the ebook? The students are resourceful in their investigations & I do think Inspector Braydon is extraordinarily forbearing with them as they go around picking up evidence & destroying fingerprints. He's definitely in the gentleman sleuth mould of Alleyn & Campion, though, & has impeccable manners & a proper sense of the right way to go about a sensitive investigation so as not to impugn the reputation of the College.

Sally's sister, Betty & her husband, Basil Pongleton, (who made an appearance in Hay's other mystery, Murder Underground) arrive in a wonderful car & have a convenient previous acquaintance with Miss Denning & her niece. This enables them to offer to look after Pamela when she arrives in Oxford & Sally & her friends take advantage of the opportunity to further their investigations. The minor characters are all interesting, from Mr Lond's worried landlady to the absent-minded don, Mr Mort & the unhelpful Farmer Lidgett, who leads Inspector Wyeth on a muddy walk through his fields, recreating the afternoon that Miss Denning died. Death on the Cherwell is my idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon book. It's a shame that Hay only wrote three mysteries but it's lovely to have them now all back in print in this beautifully produced series of British Library Crime Classics.

The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths

At an archaeological dig at Norwich Castle, once used as a jail & site of executions, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway discovers a skeleton that she believes could belong to the notorious 19th century baby farmer, Jemima Green. Green was known as Mother Hook because she had lost a hand & wore a hook instead. The remains Ruth has found are in the right place & have a hook where a hand should be. Ruth's boss, Phil, ever avid for publicity, is keen to participate in a TV program, Women Who Kill. Jemima, Mother Hook, hanged for the murder of five children in her care, is the perfect subject for the program. Ruth is uncomfortable with the sensationalist slant of the program (& with the thought of appearing on camera) but the new director, Dani White, seems to be trying to present a more nuanced view. She's up against the relentlessly tabloid style of the show's star, Corinna Lewis.

DCI Harry Nelson is investigating a case that brings back memories of some of his most disturbing cases. A baby, David Donaldson, has been found dead in his cot. His two older siblings, Samuel & Isaac, also died young & what looked like a tragic coincidence, may be more sinister. David's mother, Liz, is now a suspect, & Nelson has to tread a fine line between investigating a possible murder & being seen as persecuting a grieving mother. Then, a child is abducted from her home & a note signed The Childminder, is found at the scene. The long ago case of Jemima Green seems to be reaching out to the present in some very disturbing ways.

I'm a fan of this series & The Outcast Dead is one of the most involving cases so far. Ruth Galloway is such a sympathetic character. She had a brief affair with Nelson, resulting in the birth of her daughter, Kate. Nelson stayed with his wife but finds himself drawn back to Ruth & wanting to be involved in Kate's life. Ruth knows that Nelson will never leave his family but can't help thinking about him. Other relationships don't stand much of a chance. She meets American historian, Frank Barker, & although they have a lot in common, there's no real spark there for Ruth.

Nelson's team also plays an important part in the series. Judy Johnson had an affair with Ruth's friend, Cathbad, & although she became pregnant, she went ahead with her wedding to Darren. Now she feels torn between her life with Darren & Michael & her love for Cathbad. Cathbad is one of my favourite characters. A Druid with a keen awareness of atmosphere & emotions that's almost psychic at times, he moved away to give Judy a chance to sort herself out but he's just as miserable as she is. Cathbad is convinced that Liz Donaldson is innocent & Ruth becomes involved in the present day case even as she learns more about Jemima Green & what really happened to the babies she cared for.

The Outcast Dead is a great example of an intelligent police procedural with the added interest of the historical & archaeological investigation. As the series progresses, the interwoven relationships of the main characters become more integral to the plots & never more so than in this story which has some moments of real anguish. I'm not very good at working out whodunit & I was misled by at least one of the red herrings but the clues are there & even the psychic consulted by the police at Cathbad's insistence contributes to the very satisfying solution to the mystery.

The Beautiful Mystery - Louise Penny

I mentioned a couple of months ago when I was reviewing Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes, that I love a mystery set in a closed community. Several people have also recommended Louise Penny's series of police procedurals set in Canada. So, instead of starting at the beginning of the series (which is what I'd normally do) I thought I'd read The Beautiful Mystery, which is set in a Gilbertine monastery in a remote wilderness.

Sûreté officers Chief Inspector Armand Gamache & Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir are called to the monastery, Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (St Gilbert among the wolves), when the body of the Prior & Choirmaster, Frère Mathieu, is found in the Abbot's private garden. Frère Mathieu had been killed by a blow from a heavy object & he was curled up, clutching a piece of parchment with Gregorian chant written on it. The abbot, Dom Philippe, & all the monks seem shocked by the murder & almost as horrified by the intrusion of the police into their sanctuary.

The monastery had been hidden, unknown for centuries, until a recording of the monks singing their Gregorian chants, found its way into the outside world & caused a sensation. Since then, the monks had almost been under siege by tourists & the media. It soon becomes obvious that the recording has brought benefits & disadvantages. The money from the recording has paid for geothermal heating & solar power but the intrusion of the outside world & the temptation to leave their enclosed order & go out into the world, giving concerts & interviews, has split the community.

The monks have been divided into Abbot's men, who don't want to leave their seclusion & the Prior's men, who want to take the opportunity to secure the community's finances & spread the word of God through their music. Gamache & Beauvoir must disentangle the possible motives of these men who follow a vow of silence which makes them extraordinarily observant of each other & of the police. As they get to know the monks - Frère Raymond, who looks after the practicalities of the geothermal plant, Frère Charles, the doctor, Frère Simon, the abbot's secretary & Frère Luc, the youngest & newest member of the congregation, who is the porter - they also begin to absorb the atmosphere of the monastery & the division of the day into periods of prayer & plainchant signalled by bells.

The arrival of Gamache's superior officer, Superintendent Francoeur, leads to increased tension as Sûreté departmental politics & old enmities are unleashed. Francoeur & Gamache are bitter enemies & Francoeur is determined to undermine Gamache's position, both by arriving to oversee the investigation & by playing on Beauvoir's insecurities. Some months before, Gamache had led a group of his agents into a situation in which several of them were killed & he & Beauvoir were severely injured. Beauvoir became addicted to painkillers & has only recently recovered. Beauvoir has also fallen in love with Gamache's daughter, Annie, & they're waiting for the right moment to tell Gamache & his wife.

The Beautiful Mystery is an absorbing mystery. I loved the setting. The monastery in the wilderness is beautifully described. I could see the corridors, the chapel, the gardens & the tiny cells where the monks slept. I also loved all the musical background that informed the plot. The beautiful mystery of the title is the name that was given to the sublime sounds of the Gregorian chants. The monks of  Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups have taken the art of the chant to sublime heights & I was as enchanted as Gamache by the experience of hearing them, even if it was only in my mind. Gamache is a very sympathetic investigator who obviously cares about his whole team & the integrity of the Sûreté as a whole.

Louise Penny does a great job of filling in new readers who haven't read the earlier books in the series. I felt I knew exactly what was going on with Gamache & Francoeur, their past relationship & the backstory to the hatred between them as well as the father-son relationship between Gamache & Beauvoir. My only quibble with the book is the length. 500pp is just too long for a police procedural.  I can't think of any mystery novel that needs to be more than 300pp. I stopped reading Elizabeth George because every novel was longer than the last & the investigative element became swamped in the minutiae of the lives of the protagonists. I enjoy following the characters from one novel to the next but sometimes the mystery is lost. However, The Beautiful Mystery is an excellent example of the closed community crime novel & there is much to enjoy in this story of monks, music & murder.