"The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree"

She's back. Stuart Palmer's "meddlesome old battleaxe," Miss Hildegarde Withers, returns to print to solve an impossible murder that takes place on a plane, and it's the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast. In "The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree," Miss Withers is on vacation from her schoolteacher's job, when she gets caught up in the investigation of a murder on Catalina Island, off the California coast. The only problem is, none of the other people on the small plane saw the poisoner give the poison to the victim. Local police are quite willing to say, it couldn't have happened. But that's not Miss Withers's way.

Originally published in 1933, "The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree" is back in print, thanks to the Rue Morgue Press. As with most of the Miss Withers stories, it's both a good mystery and a very funny book, and the "impossible crime" twist is a pretty good one.

Comments

[R. T.]

Thanks for highlighting the book, The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree, and--more importantly--thanks for highlighting the publisher, Rue Morgue Press. Now I know where I can find the very best works from an era when detective fiction was at its most thoroughly entertaining.

[Les Blatt]

Glad you enjoyed it. I am a fan of the Rue Morgue Press - they have a very extensive list of Golden Age books and authors. There are other fine mystery publishers as well - Doug Greene's Crippen & Landru has an excellent series of "lost" short stories, Felony & Mayhem's "traditional" series, etc. There's a partial and, I hope, growing list on the left side of this page.