Start with the murder of a suspected witch in England three centuries ago. Add a family curse that still seems to be terribly effective. Now bring in a group of British film makers, who see in that story a possibly great (if horrifying) movie. That is what rising movie director Stephen Latimer and his trusted friend and assistant director, Evan Hughes, were looking to find for their next project. As Latimer described it :
“I want drama with a touch of the macabre…to get back to what some directors were trying to do when talkies came in and shifted the interest…I’m going down to Somerset to-morrow. A chap I met has asked me down to his place. It seems there’s an incident in his family history that I might be able to use.”
The story which George Condamine wants to persuade Stephen Latimer to film refers back some three centuries to a horrifying incident in Somerset involving Condamine family ancestors, where a young woman was hunted down and drowned as a witch by a howling mob. Three hundred years later, this nightmare of witchcraft and murder sounds like the perfect property for Latimer’s next film project. But of course, that was before the modern-day murders occurred in the Condamines’ decrepit (but historic) manor house.
And there you have The Condamine Case, a 1947 mystery by Moray Dalton. It is the subject of my audio review today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.
The Condamine Case has a great deal to recommend it – an excellent (and sufficiently convoluted) plot, memorable characters (some quite sympathetic; others…well, not so much); a reasonable field of suspects; a chilling atmosphere and the tragedy of a young woman's murder; and a team of investigating police officers. who are, again, quite sympathetic but who are anything but perfect and who make mistakes – sometimes costly ones...
Through it all, the writing remains crisp and witty. Mystery historian Curtis Evans contributes a new introduction to this Dean Street Press edition of Moray Dalton’s The Condamine Case. It’s very much worth your while.
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