Dean Street Press continues to search the ranks of Golden Age mystery authors who have faded into undeserved obscurity. One of its latest finds is Moray Dalton, whose books, we are told, were extremely popular during her lifetime. This week, Dean Street Press will re-publish three of Moray Dalton's mysteries, and the publisher sent me an e-book version of one of them, The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, for this review. Dating from 1936, the book features Scotland Yard Inspector Hugh Collier, who serves as the central figure in many of Dalton's books. Mystery historian Curtis Evans, who provides an in-depth introduction to this new edition of The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, calls it "one of the finest detective novels from the Golden Age of mystery." It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the full review by clicking here.
As the book opens, a young woman named Amy Steer, out of work, out of money, almost out of hope, looking for a job and finding very little for which she may be qualified, finds a classified ad in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. It reads:
"Steer. – Any relative of the late Julius Horace Steer writing full particulars may hear something to their advantage."
Really? That's the name of Amy Steer's father! Of course, the newspaper adds an address to which Amy Steer may reply. Which, of course, she does.
That's when Amy meets the rather mysterious and rather coarse and crude Harriet Hall, who offers to take Amy as a house guest in her cottage near the English village of Larnwood. She even gives Amy a hundred pounds to buy some new (and badly-needed) clothes.
When Amy arrives at the cottage, however, there doesn't appear to be anybody at home to greet her. It won't take long for a murder to be discovered. Enter Inspector Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, who is called in by the local police. He’s empathetic, unwilling to be rushed by the boorish and snobbish local Chief Constable into taking that investigation in the wrong direction, and he is a thoroughly capable individual. He must sort out the relationship between Amy Steer and members of the Dene family, who live on the same estate as Harriet Hall’s cottage, and who were thought to be among the mysterious woman's few friends. And he must figure out the mysterious and shocking truth about Harriet Hall for the coarse, grasping and uncouth woman seems so different from the very respectable Dene family who have been acceding to all of Harriet’s wishes. Inspector Collier will get some remarkably surprising shocks in the course of his investigation – including some which, I must admit, really did surprise me. It's not a happy story, but it most certainly is an intriguing and very well written one, and I recommend it to you.
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