Here is an observation, nurtured by many years of reading a certain type of traditional mystery story: if you are a very rich, thoroughly unpleasant and miserly person, living in an English country house, surrounded by grasping relatives...well, if I were an insurance company, I probably wouldn't offer you much in the way of life insurance.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a better example of the kind of thing I'm talking about than in "The Castleford Conundrum
In Connington's "Castleford Conundrum" (try saying THAT several times quickly!), we meet Winifred Castleford, a very rich and appallingly selfish and malevolent woman. She lives with a collection of sponging in-laws, plus her second husband, Philip Castleford, and her stepdaughter, Hillary Castleford. Others in the household (either as residents or visitors) include her own half-sister and the two brothers of her first husband, along with the truly awful, sadistic teen-aged son of one of those brothers-in-law.
The strained relationships are actually pretty clear - and, to nobody's surprise, there will soon be a murder. Enter the local police inspector, who is quite intelligent - and the local chief constable, Sir Clinton Driffield, who is Connington's series detective, along with Sir Clinton's good friend, Squire Wendover, who fills the Watson role.
One of the reasons I enjoy this book is because it really is a classic puzzle-type mystery, in which the reader is provided with a good many clues and invited to make what he or she can of them. Just before the final drawing-room confrontation between Sir Clinton and the suspects, he provides Squire Wendover with a list of what he says are nine key points in the case; follow those clues, he says, and the murderer will be revealed. Can you do it?
There is a new edition of "The Castleford Conundrum" which features an excellent introduction by mystery scholar Curtis Evans. He sums the book up this way: "If one desires to read a novel with a houseful of scheming, contemptible relations and a cleverly arranged murder of the one person with all the money - and what fan of classical English mystery does not - one could not do better than choose The Castleford Conundrum." I couldn't agree more.
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