It was supposed to be the late-night ending of a three-day festival for charity in the Welsh district of Treve: four young people, Patricia Hands, her husband-to-be, Gerald Lansley, her brother, Martin Hands, and their friend, Barbara Carmichael, would stop by at the home of someone they really didn't know very well for a few drinks and some conversation. That's why, around midnight, the quartet was arriving at a house known as Y Bryn, currently home to a schoolteacher named Arthur Yeldham, who had sent them this late-night invitation. They expected to find their host, exchange some pleasantries, have a few more drinks, and continue the evening - or early morning - hours elsewhere. What they found at Y Bryn was what you might consider an extra uninvited guest - in the form of death. It's all part of a complicated, challenging and entertaining plot in the book And Death Came Too, a 1939 Golden Age mystery by Richard Hull. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.
Richard Hull is probably best remembered for some of his quirky and witty mysteries - books like The Murder of My Aunt, for example, or Excellent Intentions. I've reviewed a few of them on earlier podcasts. And Death Came Too is, perhaps, a more traditional puzzle-plot mystery, but it shares with them their author's sense of style and witty, pointed characterizations.
Our quartet of young people arrive at the house to which they have been invited shortly before midnight. What they discover is anything but reassuring: the front door is standing wide open and nobody appears to be around. When they walk into the dining room, they encounter a number of strange events, all rather disorienting to them. They find a man whom they assume to be Yeldham - but he says he is not Yeldham. They find a mysterious woman, who quietly slips out of the house and vanishes - and nobody knows who she was. They find a police constable who suddenly enters the room - and drinks a glass of champagne. Shortly thereafter, the police constable goes off to another room – he says, to call the police station.
Oh yes – and a murder is discovered.
I hope I haven’t overly confused the issue for you, but – to my mind at least – I found the growing sense of bewilderment, of almost surreal actions (and reactions} to the events Hull is describing, pretty well hooked me. It is a complicated plot, to be sure, with some very interesting characters – not least among them, a police detective sergeant named Scoresby and his Chief Constable, Major Flaxman, the two people who will try to determine what is going on, and, as usual, try to figure out who has done what and to whom. There is more murder to be resolved, and a couple of interesting surprises along the way to a solution. The writing is quite witty as well. And Death Came Too, by Richard Hull, is a pleasant way to spend an evening.
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