“He felt cold suddenly, as though at the chill breath of some unknown horror. It was as though he groped in a mist where things vague and dreadful lurked, things threatening and unknown, evil things whereof yet he could obtain no clear knowledge, that might indeed, for all the proof he had to show, become compounded only of imagination and coincidence. Yet it was no imagination that three men had died, died alone with nothing to show how or why.”
That's the dilemma facing Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen in E.R. Punshon's first-rate mystery/thriller, Four Strange Women, first published in 1940. 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.
Bobby Owen finds himself investigating the strange deaths of some young men, mostly upper class and most quite wealthy, each of whom disappeared and then eventually turned up dead in remote and lonely settings leaving no clue as to how - or why - they had died. But lurking somewhere in the darkness surrounding the mystery of these deaths, there are reports of an unidentified woman sometimes seen arriving or departing from these men’s homes. Nobody knew who she was. But each of the men had told friends of being engaged, planning to marry, and of being rapturously happy – yet none would name the woman to whom they were engaged. As Bobby Owen probes further, he becomes convinced that these deaths are linked - and that unless he can discover the why and how of these murders, the killer will almost certainly kill again.
I’m not going to say more about the plot, which is remarkably dark for a Golden Age author. If you enjoy reading works by authors who can build a terrifying background for the worlds their writing creates, you will certainly enjoy Four Strange Women, by E.R. Punshon. Once again, Dean Street Press has brought back another winner – a powerful thriller with plenty of twists and turns, leading up to an unforgettable climax. This new edition of Four Strange Women comes with an introduction by mystery historian Curtis Evans, who provides fascinating background information about this book and its author. I recommend it to you most highly.
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