Classic Mysteries

"It Walks By Night"

There is something inherently terrifying about the so-called "impossible" crime - that mystery sub-genre which, during most of the 20th century, was dominated by the great author, John Dickson Carr. Most of his books dealt with one of two English detectives, either Dr. Gideon Fell or Sir Henry Merrivale. But before either of those characters was invented by Carr, he had another protagonist who solved the same kind of mysteries. His name was Henri Bencolin, a French police investigator. Bencolin turned in quite a performance in It Walks By Night (1930). That book is the subject of my audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

It Walks By Night is narrated by a young American named Jeff Marle. Jeff is a friend of Bencolin, who is in Paris, visiting the detective.

I had come up from Nice in response to a wire from Bencolin saying merely that there was danger ahead and was I interested? – to which I wired back “Yes,” without knowing what he meant. As yet I knew nothing about the man who was to murder the Duc de Saligny and to walk through our dreams with his sly and grisly smile.

The man being pursued by Bencolin is Alexandre Laurent. Shortly after Laurent’s marriage, he tried to murder his wife. He was committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. He has now escaped from that asylum, committing some gruesome murders along the way. His now-former wife  is about to marry a nobleman, the Duc de Saligny – and Laurent has threatened to murder the Duc in such a way that it will appear to have been impossible.

And that evening, as Bencolin and Jeff Marle watch the door of a room in a Parisian salon into which the Duc has entered…there is a murder in that room…but when the locked door is broken open, the only person in the room is the victim – who has been beheaded. There is no sign of Laurent – or anyone else, for that matter. Only the victim's body is there..

Here is how Bencolin sums up the situation:

“In short, there are no secret entrances; the murderer was not hiding anywhere in the room; he did not go out by the window, he did not go out the salon door under my watching nor the hall door…but he was not there when we entered. Yet a murderer had beheaded his victim there; we know in this case above all others that the dead man did not kill himself.”

And as later events proved, Bencolin spoke the absolute truth.

The Italics are the author's. If you're looking for impossibilities, you have just been challenged.

: It Walks By Night is currently available as an entry in the British Library Crime Classics series (though Carr was an American writer).It boasts an excellent introduction to Carr and to Bencolin by mystery historian and author Martin Edwards. You’ll also find a very rare short story which featured the first appearance of Bencolin. The story is called “The Shadow of the Goat,” originally published anonymously in 1926 – four years before It Walks By Night – in a publication at Haverford University, where John Dickson Carr was a student. It Walks By Night is a worthy addition to your collection.

From the Vault: "They Found Him Dead"

One of my favorite Golden Age authors really isn't that well known for her mysteries. Georgette Heyer (pronounced "hair") has a solid and well-deserved reputation as an author of historical romance novels. But she also wrote a dozen or so mysteries that are very enjoyable Golden Age mysteries, including They Found Him Dead, originally published in 1937. I reviewed it several years ago for the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that audio review, lightly edited as usual.

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“Found dead.”

That was pretty much the official verdict in the case of the death of Silas Kane. He had celebrated his sixtieth birthday at his English country home with his relatives. But, late at night, in the mist and fog, he had gone out for a walk and – apparently – had gotten disoriented on a cliff path, slipped and fell to his death. There was no question of foul play, even though there was plenty of sniping and bickering among those relatives. No, it was clearly death by misadventure. Or at least that was the verdict until Silas’s heir also died – by a gunshot wound. Perhaps it was time for a closer look…

It happens in They Found Him Dead, a Golden Age English country house mystery written in 1937 by Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer wrote more than fifty books in the course of her career. Most are romance novels, some with historical backgrounds. But among her books, she also wrote a dozen classic mysteries that are as thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as you could wish for in an English country home mystery. You know the type: they are set in and around the country estate of some local landowner, usually the patriarch of a mostly dysfunctional family. There is sure to be a murder. There may be an amateur detective or – more likely, with Heyer – a clever professional. There may or may not be some romance. The better ones will also have a touch of humor. And the best of them will cleverly misdirect the reader into jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

Georgette Heyer excelled in all these areas. Having read several of her books, I must say that They Found Him Dead is one of the best that I have read by her.

The book begins with that birthday celebration for Silas Kane at his country estate. His relatives are gathered around. There are plenty of family disagreements – mostly over matters of business – but certainly nothing that would suggest dark deeds lurking around the fringes of the estate.

But then Silas goes out after the party for a walk along the cliff – and never returns. There was a good deal of fog, after all, and death by misadventure seems a perfectly reasonable verdict.

But then Silas’s heir – who has also been involved in those disagreeable business discussions – is shot to death. And although plenty of people heard the shot, nobody appears to have seen anything – or anyone – useful in the area.

And then a third man – Jim Kane – who turns out to be the heir of the heir, so to speak – finds himself on the receiving end of a number of murderous attacks. It begins to seem that his death may be just a matter of time.

Into the midst of all this, Georgette Heyer brings her detectives, Superintendent Hannasyde and his assistant, Sergeant Hemingway. As they sift through the evidence, it tends to point to one particular member of the family. But Hannasyde isn’t satisfied…and, the more he looks into the mystery, the more he is puzzled by this jigsaw puzzle of a case in which no two pieces really seem to fit together.

Through all this, Heyer manages to maintain our interest in the members of Kane’s family and his business partners. She comes up with quite an assortment of memorable characters. Dorothy L. Sayers is quoted as saying of Georgette Heyer, “her characters and dialogue are an abiding delight to me…I have seldom met people to whom I have taken so violent a fancy from the word ‘Go’.” I agree. Heyer writes about her characters with wit, humor and charm, and she has put them into a fine mystery with more than a few surprises in store for her readers. I would recommend They Found Him Dead very highly.

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You can listen to the original recorded audio review by clicking here.

Next: A Case of Spirits, by Peter Lovesey.

"The Case of the Leaning Man"

Christopher Bush wrote 63 mysteries featuring the gifted polymath and amateur sleuth Ludovic Travers and his Scotland Yard friend, colleague and {occasional} sparring partner Superintendent George Wharton. The U.K. publisher Dean Street Press is in the midst of a project to publish or re-publish all of those books. That’s particularly welcome, since I believe relatively few of these Golden Age Classics were ever published in the United States before now. That’s a pity. When Bush is good – and he usually is – he can be very good indeed. Consider, for example, The Case of the Leaning Man, a tantalizing puzzle of a mystery written by Bush  in 1938. That book is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You're welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

It begins as three separate problems for Ludo Travers. One involves the murder of a maharajah in his hotel suite. Mix in the story of an unknown man found leaning against a London shop window as he was dying of atropine poisoning. And you’ll need to know at least some of the facts behind a bitter – and VERY private – family feud which threatened to tear a theatrical family apart. All three of those events came to the attention of Ludovic Travers at roughly the same time, but it took even Ludo some time to figure out the who, why and how of it.

The Case of the Leaning Man begins with the trouble facing the theatrical professionals of the Haire family – that grand old-school actor, Sir Jerome Haire, and his two daughters, the dancer Bernice Haire and her younger sister Joy. Joy and Bernice had just returned from a triumphant Australasian tour together, and were expected to leave London immediately for a tour of the United States and Canada. And then, very suddenly, plans changed. The two sisters, it appeared, were no longer on speaking terms – to the consternation of their friends (not to mention their agent). What had gone wrong – and could it be fixed?

Ludo Travers was trying to make sense of that feud when he became involved in the investigation of two mysterious deaths. The first incident happened while Travers was walking home. He noticed a man leaning up against a shop window, obviously unwell. Ludo helped police load the unknown man into an ambulance, but he died at the hospital. And shortly thereafter, Ludo Travers was called into the case of that Indian maharajah apparently stabbed to death in his London hotel room.

Three separate cases to be solved? Not really, for it quickly became apparent that the murders – and the feuding Haire family – were all somehow connected. And it would be up to Ludo – as a friend of the Haires but also in his role as a consultant for Scotland Yard – to try to find a solution to a remarkably sticky problem.

From the Vault: "And So to Murder"

I could not begin to tell you how often, in this space, I have declared my enjoyment of the mysteries by John Dickson Carr, both the ones he wrote under his own name and the ones he wrote as "Carter Dickson." For our regular visit to the Classic Mysteries vault this week, I'd like to call your attention to one, first published in 1941, called And So to Murder. It's one of the Carter Dickson books, starring Sir Henry Merrivale, in a somewhat more subdued role than fans of these books might expect. It's also a light romp through some of the unexpected hazards of both moviemaking and romance. It was the subject several years ago of my audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and I offer you the transcript of that review for what I hope will be your enjoyment. As usual, it has been slightly updated, primarily to add information about the book's availability:

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For Monica Stanton, the new job seemed at first like a dream come true. The young woman, who had written a sizzling best-selling romance novel, found herself hired as a screenwriter by an English movie company. She was eager to get started. But then she found out that she wasn’t going to rewrite her own book for the movies. No, the all-powerful producers wanted her to rewrite a best-selling mystery instead – and Bill Cartwright, the author of that best-selling mystery, would rewrite Monica’s own novel. Oh, and he’d also teach her something about the craft of screenwriting. It didn’t take long before Monica was furious with the movie executives…and she hated Bill Cartwright. And all that happened before somebody attacked Monica and nearly killed her. Things were certainly getting out of hand in And So to Murder, by John Dickson Carr writing as Carter Dickson.

It is a matter of record that John Dickson Carr went to work for a British movie company, London Films, a subsidiary of Korda Films, in 1938 – and that he did not have a good time. Carr’s biographer, Douglas G. Greene, quotes Carr’s wife as saying that John hated “with complete loathing” the time he spent at the studio. And Carr himself described the whole project as “thrice-accursed.”

It’s impossible not to draw some conclusions from that fact when we read And So to Murder, which was published in 1941, not that long after Carr’s unhappy experience with the movies. He certainly skewers the industry and many of its executives. But the story really centers on Monica Stanton, her relationship with Bill Cartwright and the other people with whom she works at the studio.

Shortly after coming to the studio, Monica is lured to a movie set, in a room with a speaking tube that connects the upper and lower floors of the set. Somebody whistles down the tube, Monica answers it…and narrowly escapes when somebody pours oil of vitriol…sulfuric acid…down the tube. That turns out to be the first in a series of attacks, accompanied by frightening anonymous letters.

Fortunately for Monica, Bill Cartwright is nearby (and, yes, she manages to overcome her initial loathing of him) – and he is able to bring the attacks to the attention of the police and also to Sir Henry Merrivale, whom readers will recognize as the undisputed star of the Carter Dickson novels.

Now this all happens just after the start of World War II. There is still a great deal of talk about spies who may be lurking on the movie set. Sir Henry – who is more sedate in this novel than he is in many of the other books by Carter Dickson – apparently is in charge of British intelligence, and he has had his eye on that movie studio for a while. And he will eventually unravel the mysterious events and attacks that have taken place. Sir Henry doesn’t appear until about halfway through the novel, and he’s offstage – or, I suppose, off-screen – for most of the case. There’s humor in his irascibility, but little of the buffoonish behavior which lessens my enjoyment of some of these books.

There’s also humor in some of the trappings of movie-making – not surprising, perhaps, given Carr’s own unhappy movie-making experiences. There is, for example, a Mr. Aaronson, a short, fat producer who is producing a movie biography of that great British war hero, the Duke of Wellington. Mr. Aaronson is making what he considers improvements in the movie’s script, such as adding a couple of songs the night before the battle, or arranging it so that the Duke can’t get to the battle but instead imagines his troops are fighting it. All intended to make it the movie more popular, of course; as Bill Cartwright points out, if that movie ever does get produced, it’s going to be a joy and a delight...

But the murderous attacks are at the center of the plot, together with suspicions of espionage. And I do have a complaint that I suspect you may share if you read the book. John Dickson Carr was the master of the impossible crime and also of playing what he called the grandest game with the reader. He sets up certain rules for himself and expects the reader to play by those same rules. All I can say – without spoilers – is that I think he violates one of those cardinal rules at a critical point in the book. There’s a great deal of entertainment here, and a good solid mystery – but something also happens which I think violates that understanding between the author and the reader.

Still, for the characters, for the film industry byplay, and for the plot, you will most likely enjoy And So to Murder, written by John Dickson Carr as Carter Dickson. At the moment, I think, it’s out of print, but there is an e-book edition available and I recommend it to you.

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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.

Next: They Found Him Dead, by Georgette Heyer.

"It Might Lead Anywhere"

There's no question about it: the murder of a seemingly inoffensive little man named Alf Brown was going to be a headache for Bobby Owen. I beg your pardon: Deputy Chief Constable, Acting Chief Constable, Wychshire County Police Robert Owen. A title which, according to author E.R. Punshon, made him "too dignified now to be referred to as Bobby, except when he wasn't there or by a wife little impressed by high-sounding titles bestowed on one who to her still seemed most of the time a rather troublesome charge and responsibility".

Which leads us to the quandary facing Bobby Owen – there are a lot of suspects in the murder of Brown, but each time a new fact is uncovered by the investigators, it seems that the new information merely broadens the scope of the puzzle. As Bobby says, it’s a case that might lead anywhere. And It Might Lead Anywhere is a very apt title for the 1946 book which is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The British publisher Dean Street Press recently sent invitations to its readers to download (for free) several of E. R. Punshon’s Bobby Owens mysteries. I enjoy Punshon's mysteries - I've reviewed several of his books already - but some of the ones sent out by the publisher were new to me. Among the ones I hadn’t read yet, It Might Lead Anywhere was the first on my list.

It was only after Bobby Owen began working on the case that he began to discover some very interesting facts about Alf Brown. The trouble was, none of the facts seemed to fit properly with each other. They seemed to take the investigation into different directions. And even when Bobby had become certain that he knew who committed the murder – and could answer that all-important question of “why” – it certainly looked as if it was going to be very difficult to get enough proof to convince a British jury.

For the reader, it all adds up to an enjoyable search for that information, complete with some thriller overtones. The complex plot and quiet humor make E.R. Punshon's It Might Lead Anywhere a pleasant and often pointed read. Mystery historian Curtis Evans has contributed an excellent introduction to this edition with more information about Punshon and about his books.

From the Vault: "Whose Body?"

I think it's fair to say that it's the kind of thing that can really ruin your day. I mean, coming home one day to find the naked body of an unknown man lying in your bathtub? Not a pleasant surprise. On the other hand, it's also something that can make a fine starting point for a determined sleuth - which is exactly what draws Lord Peter Wimsey into the case of Whose Body?, first published in 1923. It was Dorothy L. Sayers's first (of eleven) novels about her aristocratic sleuth. I first reviewed it nearly a decade ago with an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that review, lightly edited (mostly to update on the formats in which the book remains available, nearly a century after it was written):

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You really could not blame Mr. Thipps for being upset. When a person walks into his bathroom, he certainly doesn’t expect to find in his bathtub the naked body of an unknown person wearing only a pair of golden pince-nez glasses. The police, in the person of the impetuous and not particularly bright Inspector Sugg, immediately arrest Mr. Thipps – but they have absolutely no idea whose body it is. There really are no clues to its identity.

It should be explained that all this takes place in Battersea, a not-particularly-thriving area of London. Meanwhile, across the River Thames, along fashionable Park Lane, a distinguished British financier has disappeared without a trace from his home.

Police aren’t at all sure whether there is a connection between these two events – that unknown body is clearly not that of the British financier. It is up to Lord Peter Wimsey to discover the true relationship between these events – and he does so in Whose Body?, the 1923 book by Dorothy L. Sayers that introduced Lord Peter to the world.

Dorothy L. Sayers is rightly considered one of the great British Crime Queens of the Golden Age of English Detective Fiction during the years between the two world wars. Her detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, is surely the prime model for the aristocratic amateur, the nobly-born sleuth who takes up helping the police solve difficult crimes, whether out of a sense of responsibility or – as is often the case – as a hobby.

In Whose Body?, first published in 1923, Lord Peter tackles two curious cases that may be related. In one case, someone has disappeared – the British financier, Sir Reuben Levy, who has vanished from his house without a trace. The other case is that of the mysterious body which has appeared in Mr. Thipps’s bathtub – a man who quite clearly is not Sir Reuben, by the way, but whose appearance in that flat in Battersea is totally unexplained – and again, there are few clues to his true identity.

That’s all I’m going to say about the plot, because this book – as with many of Sayers’ fine Lord Peter mysteries – is less about whodunit than it is about why and howdunit. The culprit, to my mind, sort of sticks out early on and, in fact, is revealed and confirmed about two-thirds of the way through the book. What remains, however, is the entirely horrifying – and rather brilliant – way in which the crime was plotted and carried out. What also remains, of course, is Sayers’ writing, which is wonderful. There is wit and humor here along with the nightmarish details, and all the characters – from Lord Peter and his marvelous manservant-assistant Bunter, and his intelligent police detective friend, Charles Parker, to the people caught up in these seemingly unrelated mysteries – and yes that includes the murderer.

And I think it’s worth mentioning that Lord Peter is very much a flawed hero, not at all comfortable with his self-appointed role. “If it was all on paper I’d enjoy every bit of it,” he tells Parker. “I love the beginning of a job – when one doesn’t know any of the people and it’s just exciting and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there doesn’t seem as if there was any excuse for me buttin’ in, since I don’t have to make my livin’ by it.” We see this attitude in Wimsey in just about all of the eleven Sayers novels in which he appears.

HarperCollins has republished Whose Body? under its Bourbon Street Books imprint, and they have added an Afterword by classic mystery scholar John Curran who examines Sayers’ stories and novels and puts them into perspective for the modern reader.

Whose Body? is not my favorite Sayers, but it is quite good, even if some of Wimsey’s mannerisms (oh, those dropped “g”s!) can be annoyin’. The story is fascinating and occasionally horrifying, the characters are memorable, and the writing is both careful and beautiful. If you enjoy the traditional British mystery, you will enjoy this one.

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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Next: And So to Murder, by John Dickson Carr, writing as Carter Dickson

"Crossed Skis"

It is holiday time, and a group of sixteen young people, 8 men and 8 women,  have gotten together for a joint holiday in the Austrian Alps at the resort of Lech am Alberg. They really don't know each other very well, but (at their age) who cares? Some are expert skiers, others are rank beginners, but all are looking forward to a thoroughly enjoyable vacation.

At the same time, in London's Bloomsbury, there is a fire in a rundown house which not only destroys much of the building. It also leaves the body of a man, found dead in the fire. Chief Inspector Julian Rivers and Inspector Brook quickly become convinced that it is not an accident - it is  murder. And a curious piece of evidence suggests that the murderer may be a skier. And that will lead to a most interesting - and dangerous - chase across half of Europe. You'll find the full story in Crossed Skis, a 1952 novel by Carol Carnac. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

This is the first book I’ve read by “Carol Carnac,” but not the first by that author using another pen name. Edith Caroline Rivett wrote a long series of mysteries beginning in the heart of the Golden Age, using the pen name “E.C.R. Lorac,” and I’ve had the pleasure of reading several of those titles. But she also wrote another popular series as “Carol Carnac” which starred Chief Detective Inspector Rivers. Long out of print, it is being reprinted now as part of the British Library’s Crime Classics series, which is published in the United States by Poisoned Pen Press. The publisher has sent me a copy for this review.

It’s a skillfully constructed mystery. The viewpoint shifts back and forth between the two halves of the story – first following the young English skiers on their holiday in Austria, then switching back periodically to the murder investigation in London. Carnac keeps the action moving, and the plot really takes off when it begins to be clear to both the police and the skiers that it is quite possible – even likely – that one among their group of sixteen vacationers may be a killer.

Once again, mystery historian Martin Edwards has provided a critical introduction to this new British Library edition that shares information about the author, Edith Caroline Rivett, and her long career writing as both E.C.R. Lorac and Carol Carnac. If you’re looking for a good mystery to get you through a long winter’s night or two, try Crossed Skis, by Carol Carnac.

From the Vault: "The Wrong Way Down"

Out of the collection of earlier reviews which we revisit for these "From the Vault" reports, we have a return visit this week from another of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Daly. Various reports suggest that I'm in good company on that, as Daly was said to be among Agatha Christie's favorites too. Her stories are set in the New York City of the 1940s and feature the detective work of Henry Gamadge, a bibliophile and an expert on books and printed art - which is the way Gamadge got involved in this story. You'll understand when you read this lightly-edited transcript of my original audio review of The Wrong Way Down. Enjoy:

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There was something wrong with the picture. It was an engraving, really, and according to the lettering on the picture, it was an engraved eighteenth century portrait of the Lady Audley, copied and etched from the original by Hans Holbein. It hung on the wall of a house in New York City. It was not particularly valuable. But there was something wrong with it – the lettering on the engraving had never been there before during all the years it had hung on the wall. The lettering had only appeared some 24 hours ago. And – perhaps not surprisingly – the woman living in the house was a bit frightened by it. Not that it was likely to be supernatural…but what could it mean? So she showed it to a visiting friend, book expert Henry Gamadge, who was able to explain the lettering – and how it apparently materialized overnight on the engraving. What Gamadge couldn’t foresee, however, was the way that oddity turned into a murder. It happens in The Wrong Way Down, by Elizabeth Daly.

There is something particularly pleasant about reading one of Elizabeth Daly’s mysteries featuring Henry Gamadge. Among the advantages is the pleasure of walking with Gamadge through the streets of New York City in the 1940s, visiting the still-occupied city houses of the middle-to-upper class, many of them just east of Central Park – and a surprising number of them hiding possibly deadly secrets. Gamadge is a bibliophile and an expert in analyzing old documents and detecting forgeries.

In “The Wrong Way Down,” Gamadge is visiting a row house on Park Avenue, currently inhabited by an elderly woman, a friend of Gamadge’s wife. She is trying to close up and clean out that house, on behalf of relatives who live on the west coast. It is she who has discovered that peculiar appearance of writing on that etching, a transformation which seems to have occurred shortly after having received a visit from a self-styled spiritualistic medium. Could that transformation have been the result of some supernatural intervention? No, says Gamadge. Through his expertise, he is able to explain pretty well what must have occurred – and why.

But he is totally unprepared for the next development: a brutal murder. And Gamadge himself becomes the target (and, very nearly, the victim) of a dangerous killer with a very good reason to kill – and to kill more than once.

The Wrong Way Down is a fairly typical Elizabeth Daly mystery. Gamadge himself, as always, manages to seem imperturbable, even when he finds himself alone in the house with a suspected killer. There are clues planted quite cleverly throughout that will help lead to the killer, although I must admit I was quite surprised when the solution was revealed. Daly was said to be Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, and, in truth, Daly’s ability to misdirect the reader’s attention and drag truly amazing red herrings across the trail rivaled Christie’s skill at misdirection. I must admit that I prefer some of Daly’s other books – there are several which deal with seemingly impossible crimes and a couple with even more startling climaxes than you’ll find in The Wrong Way Down. But this book has some excellent characters, and, as I said, the New York City setting evokes a city that probably appears to be more gentle than it actually was. The Felony and Mayhem Press has been republishing Daly’s complete series of sixteen books featuring Henry Gamadge, and I do hope that you will read and enjoy them all. After all, you really should meet Henry Gamadge.

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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.

Next: Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers

"The Christmas Egg"

The scene could not have been described as being conducive to a merry holiday. Detective Chief Inspector Brett Nightingale and Detective Sergeant Jonathan Beddoes had been called to the scene of a murder in a rather shabby flat off the High Street in Islington. The victim was an elderly woman, apparently living there with her grown grandson in poverty. But there was more to the story, for the dead woman was a Russian Princess, the Princess Olga Karukhin, who had escaped from Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power. As might be expected from an Imperial Princess, Olga had a well-deserved reputation for being a bad-tempered and controlling old harridan. Still, she apparently lived for the old trunk which she kept stored underneath her bed - a trunk said to contain fanstastic treasures and priceless works of art. Only, as the police quickly discovered, the trunk was empty...

It’s going to be a challenging problem for Nightingale and Beddoes to solve. The story of their investigation is found in a mystery by Mary Kelly called The Christmas Egg, first published in 1958. It's the subject of my audio review today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here. The Christmas Egg has been republished recently. as one of the British Library Crime Classics series of mysteries, which are published in the U.S. by Poisoned Pen Press, and the publisher has sent me a copy for this review.

Could the princess have been murdered by professional thieves who went on to steal whatever "treasure" might have existed in an old woman's trunk? Could her rather loutish grandson have tired, at last, of being treated as a virtual slave of his grandmother and lashed out? What about the dealer in fine art objects, who would certainly have desired those art objects? Or was there a political motive, a murder carried out by the Bolsheviks who might finally have traced their old aristocratic enemy to her hiding place in that ugly little apartment? The deeper Nightingale and Beddoes pry into the case, the more complicated and wide-spread it becomes.

All this is told in the course of a plot that tends to move from being a police procedural investigation to a thriller. The last third of the book, roughly, is a high-end and remarkably action-filled cross-country chase. Readers will have to be on their toes to keep up with the shifting alliances in the book, and the author does an excellent job of building suspense to keep us guessing. The interplay between Nightingale and Beddoes is particularly enjoyable. In fact, all of the major characters stand out and are quite well developed. As with most of the excellent mysteries being given new life as British Library Crime Classics, Mary Kelly's The Christmas Egg has an excellent and informative introduction by mystery historian Martin Edwards, who calls the book "an unconventional Christmas crime novel by an unconventional writer." I think you would enjoy it.