The "country house" mystery was a very recognizable sub-genre of mystery fiction during England's Golden Age of Detective fiction. So, for that matter, was the academic mystery, set in or around a prominent university. Combine the two and you might end up with the book we're reviewing today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, The Incredible Crime: A Cambridge Mystery, by Lois Austen-Leigh, originally published in 1931. It has just been republished as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, which is being published in the United States by Poisoned Pen Press, who made a copy available to me for this review.
Lois Austen-Leigh wrote four books during the Golden Age. The Incredible Crime was the first of these. It deals with an investigation into drug smuggling that may involve senior professors, administrators and staff members at Prince’s College, Cambridge, on the one hand and, on the other, the aristocratic members of a distinguished and ancient family. The central character, Prudence Pinsent, is the daughter of the Master of Prince's College; she is also the cousin of the very aristocratic Lord Wellende, whom Prudence is visiting for a few days' hunting. (Be forewarned: a great deal of time is spent describing the traditional British fox hunt in glowing terms.) On her way to Lord Wellende's family home, Prudence meets a young coast guard officer, Captain Studde, who is trying to track down the source of a very powerful illicit drug. As he explains to Prudence:
“I can’t really tell you, Prudence,…what an awful thing this drug is; they tell me its power is simply superhuman; taken in one way, it gives the most lovely sensations of peace and well-being, it stimulates the brain to an incredible extent, and then when after a short time he can’t give it up, it degrades a man into nothing more than a low, criminal beast. It ought never to exist.”
“It sounds awful; I never somehow thought such things really could exist.”
“They not only exist, they are among us; and I think, Prudence…friends of yours are handling that stuff.”
So Prudence finds herself deeply involved – rather against her will – in the search for the smugglers; a search which might prove to be quite dangerous, as the smugglers appear to be willing to kill, if necessary, to protect their trade.
It is an entertaining and unusual story being told here by an author with a very good sense of humor. The book begins with Prudence, who has been reading a lurid mystery, throwing her book across the room:
“What im-possible…in-credible…unutterable bilge; and that…is modern detective fiction!”
"There is nothing stranger in fiction than there is in real life," said a sententious voice.
“Rot! When you go to stay in a country-house, you don’t step on corpses or meet blood trickling down the front stairs.”
Which is certainly an interesting way to begin a mystery set, for the most part, in a country house.
Prudence, as readers will discover, is a strong-minded and strong-willed young woman. And as she becomes involved in the mystery of the smuggling business – and tries to determine whether the aristocratic members of her family or the distinguished dons of Prince’s College may be involved in a trade which is so destructive to other people – she will uncover secrets perhaps better left hidden.
The author, Lois Austen-Leigh, is said to have been the granddaughter of Jane Austen's favorite nephew; certainly she writes with wit and style. The new edition from Poisoned Pen Press includes an introduction by Kirsten T. Saxton, professor of English at Mills College in California.
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