Classic Mysteries

"Murder in Married Life"

We're going to leave the Golden Age again this week and take another look at Anne Morice, an author who began writing mysteries in 1970 - traditional mysteries, just a bit harder around the edges than you might find in Golden Age novels, but firmly in the pattern of the traditional, plot-based mysteries you might find there. Last week, we took a closer look at Morice's first mystery, called Murder in the Grand Manor; this week, let's look at the novel which followed that one, a combination of high comedy and a twisting plot. Murder in Married Life (1971) is among the group of Anne Morice novels being re-published this month by Dean Street Press, and they're a good way to meet her amateur detective, actress Tessa Crichton, and the rest of her interesting characters and complex stories; the publisher has sent me an electronic edition for this review, and you can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

(SPOILER ALERT - mild spoiler, but you may want to jump to the next paragraph)

Death in the Grand Manor ends with Tessa and local police detective Robin Price contemplating marriage; by the start of Murder in Married Life, they are indeed married more-or-less happily - and Robin has found that his wife has a deep-rooted interest in some of her husband's murder cases. This is likely to prove a dangerous hobby,

(END SPOILER ALERT - we return you to your regular blog post)

Murder in Married Life opens with Tessa Crichton enjoying an unusual period of relative indolence: a film company has given her a three-year contract. So far, that would appear to mean no work necessary on her part and plenty of time to inquire into some peculiar and disturbing events going on around her. Robin Price is investigating what appears to be an extremely lucrative blackmail case, and it will quickly become evident to Tessa that some acquaintances of hers may be involved in the case – apparently as potential blackmail victims. And where blackmail lurks, in classic mystery stories, you may be pretty certain that murder will follow. It is both fair and un-spoiler like to say that Tessa may find herself in fairly deep and dangerous waters.

Murder in Married Life, by Anne Morice, is written with style and wit, rather after the fashion of a high comedy with sudden drops into tightly-plotted twists with unexpected turns. I think it’s well worth your while.

From the Vault: "The Big Midget Murders"

The question of the proper place (if any) for humor in a murder mystery is one that I see debated with some regularity in the social media forums where I participate. Many people dislike the idea. Others - and I'm in this group - think that humor, properly sprinkled through a good mystery, can enhance its effectiveness. And while the humor certainly can be grim, it can relieve tension and add immeasurably to my enjoyment of a good author. 

Consider the case of Craig Rice, author of more than a dozen books about Chicago lawyer John J. Malone and his good friends Jake and Helene Justus. Her books, mostly from the 1940s and 50s, are good examples of the kind of books I'm talking about. Consider, for example, The Big Midget Murders, a 1942 mystery with - to be honest - something to offend just about everyone. And yet it's very funny - to me, at any rate. I did an audio review of The Big Midget Murders for the Classic Mysteries podcast some years back, and I offer you the transcript below, which has been slightly edited:

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His name was Jay Otto. He stood not quite three feet tall. He was a professional entertainer, performing under the headline, “The Big Midget.” And he was – to put it politely – not a very nice person at all. His act consisted of imitations, described by one observer as cruel, hateful, even brutal. But audiences loved him. Chicago lawyer John J. Malone did not – in fact, he found himself frightened of the little man. And it turned out that just about anyone who had any dealings with Jay Otto found himself – or especially herself – with very good reason to hate him. So it didn’t come as much of a surprise when Otto was murdered in his dressing room at the casino owned by Malone’s close friends, Jake Justus and his wife Helene. And that was just the beginning of a remarkable – and, for readers, surprisingly funny – chain of events. You’ll find the details in The Big Midget Murders, by Craig Rice.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the screwball comedy-mysteries of Craig Rice were enormously popular with readers. She was the first mystery writer ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine – that was in 1946. Many of her mysteries featured the antics (and detective work) of Chicago lawyer John J. Malone and his good friends, Jake and Helene Justus. Malone was a defense lawyer who specialized in getting acquittals for generally guilty clients. Jake was a press agent when he married socialite Helene Brand and decided to try his hand at running a casino – which is where we find the trio at the beginning of The Big Midget Murders. Yes, the term “midget” is, of course, not politically correct – but the book was first published in 1942, and, frankly, the titular midget, Jay Otto, had so little to recommend him that few readers are likely to care how he is referenced in the book.

It begins with Malone, Jake and Helene watching Jay Otto’s act in Jake’s casino – and disliking it intensely. But when they go backstage later, they discover that somebody has murdered the midget by hanging him from a most peculiar noose made up of eleven unmatched silk stockings.

Now we all know the first thing one is supposed to do on discovering a murder scene is call the police – and never to touch the body or disturb the crime scene. That rule is pretty well ignored by Malone, Jake and Helene, who don’t want a dead body discovered in their casino. So they put the body into a case designed for a big bass fiddle – I told you this was a screwball comedy mystery – and go outside to discuss what to do next. When they go back inside, they discover that the fiddle case – and the body – have disappeared.

And of course that’s just the beginning. We are going to find ourselves involved with quite a cast of characters, including chorus girls, musicians, gangsters, socialites, singers. There will be more killings. And we will learn more than we really want to know about Jay Otto and his peculiarities. It is fair to say that Otto resented – in fact, hated – just about everyone, and managed to put himself in a position where he could inflict that hatred and pain on just about everyone. As Helene observes, quote, “Even now that he was dead, he seemed to have left some mark on the world, dark, frightening, and curiously evil.”

There’s a great deal that is very funny in The Big Midget Murders but there’s also a serious undercurrent. Rice doesn’t try to soften the impact of the murders. Even Malone feels it. Here’s a description of Malone shortly after the murder of Otto is discovered:

“Perhaps if he kept very still and pretended the tiny corpse of Jay Otto wasn’t concealed in the bass fiddle case, the whole horror would go away of its own accord, as though it had never been there at all. It wasn’t just that a man had been murdered. He’d encountered murders before. Nor that Jake and Helene might be in a devilishly tight spot. They’d get out of it, as they always had in the past…No, it went deeper than any of those things. It was just that the little lawyer felt that all of them were skirting the edge of something strange and dark and terrible, something he couldn’t describe or explain, but that he knew was there.”

Craig Rice – and her characters – are aware of the incongruities involved here. And it’s to her credit that she maintains the black comedy while providing an interesting and complex plot and a fair number of memorable characters. The Big Midget Murders appears to be out of print, but it is available now in various e-book formats. I think you would enjoy it.

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

"Death in the Grand Manor"

The name of English author Anne Morice is virtually unknown today. She wrote more than two dozen light, cleverly plotted and downright funny mysteries, beginning in 1970 with Death in the Grand Manor, most of which featured an engaging young heroine, an actress names Tessa Crichton. That date puts Morice outside the Golden Age, but the wit and humor in her books, I think, put her quite firmly in what is frequently called the Silver Age of Detective Fiction. Now, the English publisher Dean Street Press, is bringing back some of Morice's books. In April, they will begin re-publishing her first ten novels, and the publisher has sent me some of these books for this review, including Death in the Grand Manor. That book is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to that audio review by clicking here.

Most of Ann Morice’s mysteries feature Tessa Crichton, a young actress, as their central character, principal detective and narrator. In Death in the Grand Manor, she is staying at the home where her playwright cousin Toby Crichton, his (mostly) estranged wife, Matilda Spragge and his eleven-year-old daughter, Ellen, all live in a couple of the houses along Roakes Common. There is distinctly a problem in that small enclave. The rather awful couple who live in the local country manor, Douglas and Bronwen Cornford, along with their highly disagreeable children, have managed to alienate just about everyone in town. They are prime suspects, for example, in the death of Ellen’s dog. Both of the Cornfords apparently have hair-trigger tempers and a loathing for the rest of their neighbors that seems both outlandish and dangerous, although quite clearly reciprocated by those neighbors. Oh, and complicating things somewhat for Tessa is the presence of a young man living nearby named Robin Price whom Tessa meets in one of the local pubs – a presence that she finds strongly attractive even after learning that he is a police officer.

If this is all beginning to sound like a very good recipe for murder…why yes, yes it is. As we will see in Death in the Grand Manor, by Anne Morice. This new edition of Morice's books features an introduction and afterword by mystery historian Curtis Evans with more information about her life and her work. 

(Not) Waiting for Lefty

Usually, around this time of year, the Left Coast Crime conference would be meeting, celebrating, and presenting the Lefty Awards to deserving winners. Usually. Things being how they are, a few changes had to be made this year, and the awarding of the 2021 Leftys were presented this evening to a Zoom Webcast broadcast to many of the people who would have been at this year's conference and still managed to nominate and vote for their favorites. And it was quite a group, too. 

So here are the award winners and the runners-up winners of the 2021 Leftys - for it is said with both confidence and truth that anyone nominated for this award is on the list of winners as well. The award winner leads off the list(s) of nominees below. May I have a fanfare or two and a drum roll?

Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel

• ***David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts
• Daisy Bateman, Murder Goes to Market
• Mary Kelliikoa, Derailed
• Erica Ruth Neubauer, Murder at the Mena House
• Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club
• Halley Sutton, The Lady Upstairs

Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

• ***Ellen Byron, Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
• Jennifer J. Chow, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue
• Carl Hiaasen, Squeeze Me
• Cynthia Kuhn, The Study of Secrets
• J. Michael Orenduff, The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing
• Sung J. Woo, Skin Deep

Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial) for books covering events before 1970

• ***Catriona McPherson, The Turning Tide
• Susanna Calkins, The Fate of a Flapper
• Dianne Freeman, A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Murder
• Laurie R. King, Riviera Gold
• Ann Parker, Mortal Music
• James W. Ziskin, Turn to Stone

Lefty Award for Best Mystery Novel

• ***Louise Penny, All the Devils Are Here
• Tracy Clark, What You Don't See
• S. A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland
• Matt Coyle, Blind Vigil
• Rachel Howzell Hall, And Now She's Gone

As LCC explains it, "The 2021 Lefty Award Nominees have been selected by registrants for the last in-person convention in San Diego and the next one scheduled for Albuquerque in April 2022."The awards were voted on virtually and presented April 10."

From the Vault: "Death in a White Tie"

I must admit that, when it comes to a question of who is (and who is NOT) a Golden Age author, I tend to be flexible. Some of the best authors who began writing in the heart of the 1930s, say, continued to write all the way up into the 1980s, which is certainly after most authors would agree that the Golden Age had ended long ago. Consider the case of Ngaio Marsh. The first of her 32 mysteries was published in 1934, her last in 1982. Her books, featuring Scotland Yard's Roderick Alleyn, continue to entertain readers with the kind of Golden Age mystery plots made popular by so many authors. I suspect most readers would not hesitate to include her on a list of the most influential (and widely read) authors of the period. If you're not familiar with her work, may I recommend Death in a White Tie, a 1938 classic. I did an audio review of that book several years ago on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that review, slightly edited:

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In London, it was time for that annual ordeal, the social season – a time when aristocratic young ladies made their first public appearances as debutantes at coming-out parties. In the mid-1930s, among the British upper classes, the season was a time for arranging suitable marriages, and the social events were carefully organized and choreographed – not to mention chaperoned.

And into the gaiety – sometimes forced gaiety, it is true – into that gaiety, something ugly had intruded itself.

“It’s the devil…And of all the filthy crimes, this to my mind is the filthiest.”

Those are the words of Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. And he is speaking of blackmail. But it wouldn’t be long before that crime was followed by murder. It happens in Death in a White Tie, by Ngaio Marsh.

Marsh is generally regarded as one of the so-called English “crime queens” who wrote during the golden age of detective fiction, generally defined as the period between the first and second world wars. (The others were Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham.) Marsh did continue writing all the way into the 1980s, although many of her best books come out of that Golden Age period.

Among those books, I’d have to include Death in a White Tie, which was first published in 1938. It was the seventh of her books to feature Roderick Alleyn as the detective. By the time of this book, Alleyn had become a Chief Detective Inspector.

Alleyn becomes aware of an apparent blackmail scheme that appears to be aimed against some socially prominent women – people who are “bringing out” their daughters (or other young women) during the annual social season. One of his friends, in fact, comes to Alleyn to tell him about the blackmail, and he agrees to work with the police in trying to uncover the blackmailer.

And then there is a murder. And Alleyn must carry out an investigation in which he will have very deep personal stakes as he tries to track down what would appear to be a blackmailer turned killer.

In general terms, one of Marsh’s strengths in her best novels comes in her ability to sketch characters for the reader – to make us care what happens to the characters. That’s certainly true here; among her suspects, her victim, and her supporting characters, we are given a fascinating variety of people, from the aristocratic families involved in the social functions to some of the seedier hangers-on who may know more than they are willing to tell, particularly about the blackmailing business.

Marsh has a real gift for telling us about her characters with a brief line which will reveal a great deal in very few words. For instance, speaking about one of those hangers-on, she tells us:

“Withers was the sort of man who breathes vulgarity into good clothes.”

About another character, a social secretary, we are told:

“She was steeped in nonentity.”

Marsh is also unrelenting in her portrait of the social scene; most of the action takes place during and immediately after a glittering formal dance. We see not only the bright young people, who are enjoying the party, we also see other young women who are uncomfortable – sometimes painfully so – and who do not fit in easily in these surroundings. And this too plays a significant part in the mystery.

What we have in Death in a White Tie – as is so often the case with Ngaio Marsh’s best novels – is something of a grand comedy of manners mixed with a murder investigation and a touch of blackmail. It is a potent mix. Death in a White Tie has been reprinted by the Felony and Mayhem Press, and I do recommend it to you.

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

 

Next: The Big Midget Murders, by Craig Rice.

 

 

"The Lost Gallows"

Do you enjoy a great "impossible crime story? Love John Dickson Carr's books and stories? Is the name "Henri Bencolin" familiar to you?

A lot of people might answer "yes" to the first two questions and wind up scratching their heads at the third. Henri Bencolin was the name of the first series detective created by John Dickson Carr. His first published novel, It Walks By Night, which appeared in 1930, featured Bencolin (and was reviewed here late last year). Now, Carr's second novel about Bencolin, The Lost Gallows (1931) is being released during the first week of April. It's being re-published by Poisoned Pen Press as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, and the publisher has provided me with a copy for this review. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that complete review by clicking here.

The scene is set in London, on a foggy night. In the course of that terrifying night:

• Our detective, Henri Bencolin, and his friend Jeff Marle (who is also our narrator) are nearly run down in the busy streets of London by a limousine apparently being driven by a dead man whose throat has been cut;
• An apparently invisible joker keeps moving a small and rather gruesome toy – a model of a hangman’s gibbet - from place to place, and nobody can see who is doing it – or how;
• That murderer taunts the police – and his victims – by claiming as his own the name “Jack Ketch,” a name once used to hide the identity of a notorious English executioner of the seventeenth century;
• And this Jack Ketch advises police (and others) that he will hang his chosen (and kidnapped) victims on a gallows situated on "Ruination Street"…and that is, apparently, the one lost street that cannot be found on any map of London.

Bencolin is different from Carr's  better-known series detectives, Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale. All three specialize - as a general rule - in solving "impossible" crimes. Carr creates an eerie atmosphere of nightmare in almost all his books. But there is more relief to be found in the humor displayed in the Merrivale or Fell mysteries. Bencolin is more somber - and, perhaps, more terrifying. If you don't know Bencolin yet, this is a splendid opportunity to meet him.

"Monday the Rabbi Took Off"

This week, Jews around the world are celebrating the Jewish festival called Pesach - in English, usually, "Passover," the celebration of the biblical Exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. It seems to me as if this would be a good time to consider the merits of one fictional American rabbi who became the protagonist and detective in a very fine series of mysteries in the second half of the twentieth century. Rabbi David Small was the central character in more than a dozen books; I've already reviewed three of them on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Today, I want to look at the fourth book in the series, Monday, the Rabbi Took Off, written in 1972. You are welcome to listen to the complete original audio review by clicking here.

Rabbi Small is the spiritual leader of a small, Conservative (in the religious sense of the term, not political!) synagogue in Massachusetts. Right from the start, he shows himself to be a very good detective, often using precepts of Jewish law to find ways to resolve mysteries - including murder. However, he also finds himself up against some of the lay leaders of the congregation on many issues. 

By the time of Monday the Rabbi Took Off, these irritants had become a major problem for him. As a partial solution, the rabbi decided to ask the synagogue’s board of directors for an unpaid leave of absence. And when the board agreed to give him what he asked for, Rabbi Small decided to travel to Israel for his sabbatical leave, along with his wife and their small son.

This was a busy and restless time in the Middle East. The book was written between two major wars – one in 1968, the other in 1973 – which largely changed the dynamics of Israel’s relations with some of its Arab neighbors. Readers will want to keep that in mind, as we will see Rabbi Small become involved in an investigation of a couple of deadly bombings, an investigation which will involve both Jerusalem’s police and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal secret service. That investigation will draw Rabbi Small in, as he finds himself defending the college-student son of a friend. He also finds himself wondering if he and his family would be better off by staying in Jerusalem than by going back to the constant bickering that seemed to be a way in life at his Massachusetts synagogue.

As with the other books about Rabbi Small, Monday, the Rabbi Took Off manages to combine a good, moving mystery plot with some useful explanations about Judaism and some of the precepts involved and rituals observed. In that regard, this book is very much like the ones that preceded it in the series, and I’m looking forward to reading more of them.

"The Case of Sir Adam Braid"

Sir Adam Braid was...well, I guess "peeved" would cover it. He was also quite nasty, and the only person who bore him any good will at all in his family was his granddaughter - and now he was busily writing a letter to his solicitors telling them to cut that granddaughter, Jill Braid, out of his will.

Unfortunately - or fortunately - Sir Adam never got to finish writing that letter. Somebody stabbed the old miser to death. Police clearly believed that Jill Braid had a pretty good motive. So it was fortunate that the policeman in charge of the case, Chief Detective-Inspector Fenn, knew Jill and didn't believe that the obvious and easy solution to the mystery was to arrest the young woman for murder. No, as he would quickly learn, there were a pretty fair number of people with a reason to dislike Sir Adam Braid - more than enough to make solving the murder a real challenge.

It's the story told in The Case of Sir Adam Braid, by Molly Thynne, a fine Golden Age mystery, originally published in 1930. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

Score another "find" for Dean Street Press. "Molly Thynne" was another Golden Age authors who sank into what appears to be unwarranted obscurity once the age had ended. According to mystery historian Curtis Evans, who has contributed an excellent introduction to this new  edition of The Case of Adam Braid, Molly Thynne was a member of Britain’s upper classes. She wrote just six mystery novels in her lifetime, all between 1928 and 1933, (along with one previous novel which was not a mystery). I’ve read and enjoyed several of them that Dean Street Press has published.. After 1933, it appears that she simply stopped writing, which seems a pity. The Case of Sir Adam Braid is a solid, well-written mystery. It’s definitely worth your reading time.

 

From the Vault: "Night Walk"

I guess one of the reasons why I enjoy Elizabeth Daly's stories so much is her ability to surprise me every time I read or re-read one of her books. Daly wrote sixteen books about her biblio-expert protagonist, Henry Gamadge, and they're full of surprises that can take a reader's breath away. Her gifts at the art of misdirection were matched by few other authors - yet she generally does "play fair" with those readers. That's probably why she's frequently said to have been Agatha Christie's favorite American author. Here's one of her books which I first reviewed in an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. The book is Night Walk, first published in 1947. It's been lightly edited, mostly to update the availability of her books:

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The village of Frazer’s Mills, New York, was one of those quiet, sleepy little towns where everyone knows everyone else’s business…where most of the people still lived in the same house where they were born and would never dream of moving…the kind of place where people generally didn’t bother about locking their doors at night.

That changed after a hot August night in 1946…the night somebody walked through the village, along the back trails that ran up into the woods behind the houses. The walker stopped at the rest home, rattling Mrs. Norbury’s door – but vanished before she opened it. Next stop was at the public library, where Hattie Bluett was working late…but this time, a locked screen door kept the walker from intruding. At the Bay Horse Tavern, the walker apparently tried to get into old Mr. Compson’s room, but failed – although the stalker did take a fire axe off the wall and left it on the floor outside the room. And then this mysterious person visited the home of the Carrington’s…and this time, there was a murder. It was the kind of thing that nobody in Frazer’s Mills could have expected. And it posed a delicate and dangerous problem for Henry Gamadge, when a friend asked for his help. You can read about it in Night Walk, by Elizabeth Daly.

It says a great deal about the books of Elizabeth Daly to point out that Agatha Christie considered Daly to be her favorite American mystery author. Daly’s books are set in the United States – mostly in and around New York City – and they feature the kind of misdirection and careful plotting that were also hallmarks of Christie’s best books. For those of us senior citizens, it is worth pointing out that she was more than sixty years old when her first book was published, and she went on to write fifteen more in the next dozen years. Daly’s detective was Henry Gamadge, a bibliophile and expert on books and documents, whose specialized knowledge frequently helped him discover and decipher clues that other detectives might have missed.

Night Walk was Daly’s twelfth book in the series. This time, the action takes place in that tiny village of Frazer’s Mills, when a homeowner is murdered, apparently by a prowler who had earlier tried to gain access to several homes and other buildings in the town. Is there some lunatic, perhaps hiding out in the woods that surround the town? What possible link could there be among the people living or working in the places where the night stalker had tried to enter? The entire town finds itself under a cloud of suspicion. One of the possible suspects – a young man visiting the town – asks a friend of a friend for help…and Henry Gamadge arrives in town. It doesn’t take very long for him to form some theories about the goings-on – but he may not be able to prevent a determined killer from striking again.

Henry Gamadge is one of my favorite detectives, and Elizabeth Daly’s books are fine examples of the well-crafted puzzle mystery. In addition, Daly has a good eye and ear for the places where she sets her books. She presents us with characters whom we will care about as well; we get a very good idea of what life is like for the residents of this tiny village – and we will see how difficult it is for someone to escape its confines. That’s particularly true, I think, of the first several chapters, when we follow that unknown prowler, walking through the town, frightening the villagers in a series of encounters and incidents that will ultimately end in murder.

The Felony and Mayhem Press has reprinted [all 16] of Daly’s novels. Night Walk isn’t my favorite Daly book – I’d still have to go with that marvelous novel, The Book of the Dead – but it is still remarkably fine. I think you would enjoy it.

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You are welcome to listen to the original audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast by clicking here.

Next: Death in a White Tie, by Ngaio Marsh.

"A Key to Death"

<blockquote>

Someone knocked on the office door. Bill Weigand said, "Come in, sergeant." Sergeant Mullins came in.

Mullins said, "This. In his desk."

He held "this" out. It was a key to a Yale lock. It was like any other key, except that it was made of gold.

Bill Weigand looked at it. He put it down on the desk. It glowed there in the light from the desk lamp.

"Thought you'd want to see it, captain," Mullins said. Who'd want a gold key?

Well, it turns out there was something of a history attached to that solid-gold key. And knowing that history would eventually help Lieutenant Bill Weigand - oops, I beg your pardon - , make that Acting Captain William Weigand, Homicide Squad, Manhattan West - uncover the truth about the murder of a lawyer named Forbes Ingraham. Of course, as was often the case, Bill was helped by Pam and Jerry North - or, more formally, Mr. and Mrs. North The full story may be found in A Key to Death, written in 1954 by Frances and Richard Lockridge. It was the 19th in a series of 26 novels about Mr. and Mrs. North, a wildly popular husband-and-wife team, who appeared not only in books but also on radio, in movies, and on television. As a general rule, Bill Weigand actually did most of the detecting, but the Norths - Pam in particular - played critical roles in uncovering the truth about these mysteries. A Key to Death is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you're welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The Norths always seemed to have a talent for discovering – or finding other ways to become involved in – murder cases. This time, it’s strictly accidental: the Norths have gone to see Forbes Ingraham about drawing up their wills, only to discover that he has been shot, and Bill Weigand, put in charge of solving the murder. It begins when Pam and Jerry arrive for their meeting with  Ingraham, in his office– only to discover that he has been murdered. It’s worth noting that in this novel, as in most of the books in the series, Weigand does nearly all the investigating. But Pam North, whose reliance on intuition frequently leads the police to an understanding of the killer’s peculiarities, provides some of the key clues to the solution.

There are hints about labor unrest – an area which Forbes Ingraham had been working on, much to the distaste of some union leaders. But there are also more personal motives to be found in the possible relationships among some members of the law firm. There are also a few cleverly placed observations from Pam North that will move the plot in a surprising new direction in search of a definitive clue. And that may bring us back to that key....

If you enjoy these mysteries featuring the Norths, you are more than likely to enjoy A Key to Death, by Frances and Richard Lockridge.