Now here's a fine example of the Golden Age mystery - a little late, perhaps, to be included on the basis of its 1951 publication date. But Cyril Hare's An English Murder touches so many points dear to the hearts and minds of Golden Age fans that it would be uncharitable at best to be a stickler over dates. It's a country house murder, with a crime scene isolated by a massive snowstorm. There are tensions between the servants and members of the house party. And, to be sure, there's a murder. What makes it a uniquely English, murder, you ask? That would be telling! In any case, I reviewed An English Murder several years ago for the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a slightly edited transcript for your enjoyment:
- 0 -
It was the perfect setting for a murder – well, at least it was the kind of scene we rather expect to find in classic English mysteries. The occasion: a family Christmas gathering at the country manor of a British nobleman. The players: a family whose members quite clearly do not always love each other. An enigmatic family servant – and his daughter, who may have a secret. A couple of additional upper-class English guests. A definitely-foreign-born historian and scholar. A police detective, assigned to protect one of the guests. Oh, and a snowstorm, that leaves the people in that country manor completely cut off from the outside world. Could there be a better setting for An English Murder?
Cyril Hare was the pen name of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, a British jurist. As Hare, he wrote a number of mysteries, a couple of them with series detectives. But An English Murder, first published in 1951, is a stand-alone mystery – one which reflects rather nicely the tremendous political turmoil of post-world-war-two Britain.
An English Murder takes place at Warbeck Hall, the oldest inhabited house in the fictional county of Markshire. The master of the house is Lord Warbeck himself, but he is a very sick and very old man; nobody – including Lord Warbeck – expects him to survive for long. He has called other members of his family and a couple of friends to join him at Warbeck Hall for what everyone presumes will be the Lord’s final Christmas celebration.
And so the family and friends gather. In that gathering, we find a most potent mix of political philosophies. Lord Warbeck himself is the classic British aristocrat – the type whose wealth and power were diminishing rapidly in post-war Britain. In fact, Lord Warbeck’s brother himself, Sir Julius Warbeck, Britain’s powerful Chancellor of the Exchequer, is largely responsible for the fact that – on Lord Warbeck’s death – there won’t be enough money in the family for them to continue to own Warbeck Hall, although Lord Warbeck’s title will be passed down to his son, Robert. As for Robert, who is also on hand for Christmas, he is the leader of a neo-Fascist group called the League of Liberty and Justice, a group that appears to have learned nothing from the lessons of World War II and is every bit as intolerant and bigoted as you might expect.
So, in this very English family, we have the family patriarch – a conservative nobleman, his brother, the socialist chancellor, and his son, the fascist. And they get along together about as well as you might expect from those conflicting beliefs.
There are also two women on hand for the gathering – Camilla Prendergast, who has long been considered a family member and who appears very interested in young Robert Warbeck, and a Mrs. Carstairs, the wife of Sir Julius Warbeck’s right-hand man.
There is the butler, Briggs, of course. No upper-class English household would be complete without a butler.
And there are two other people who will play important roles in the story. There is a visiting historian who is going through the Warbeck family papers, at Lord Warbeck’s request. Dr. Bottwink is very much UN-English, if I may put it that way – with a background as a Jewish war refugee from central Europe – which, of course, makes him a target of scorn for the neo-fascist Robert Warbeck. And there is a detective named Rogers, sent along by the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, as a bodyguard and protector for Sir Julian Warbeck.
And then there is a massive snowstorm – and the English country house finds itself completely cut off from any communication with the rest of the world…
And, naturally, there is a murder. More than one, in fact. And it will fall to the two outsiders – Doctor Bottwink and Sergeant Rogers – to solve the mystery and find a solution to this very English murder.
An English Murder is remarkably well-plotted and filled with the things that we would expect from an English Golden Age country house mystery (even if it was written after the end of that Golden Age). The strains among the different classes – and between the very English members of the house party and the very foreign Doctor Bottwink – are remarkably well defined. I don’t want to say much more about the plot – though I do have to add that Robert, the Fascist member of the family, is as thoroughly unpleasant as you might expect. As for the author, Cyril Hare is another of those fine British authors of the period who has been sadly neglected.
You can listen to the original podcast review by clicking here.
Next: The Black Camel, by Earl Derr Biggers.