Customer Reviews

An English Murder (Dales Mystery)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An English Mystery (1951) is one of those remarkably good English mysteries that remains as fascinating and enjoyable today as it was decades ago. Inexplicably, the author Cyril Hare (pseudonym for A. A. Gordon Clark, a distinguished English judge) is not well-known, and yet his stories are uniformly excellent. Fortunately, many of his mysteries have been reissued by Dover, Harper-Perennial, and most recently by House of Stratus.

An English Mystery offers everything that might be expected in an English mystery. Relatives and guests gathered together for the Christmas holidays find themselves snowbound in a remote country manor. Their host is an aged peer, still aristocratic, although his family has suffered gradual decline, even impoverishment. And, of course, there is the faithful butler.

In Cyril Hare's hands, these traditional elements are melded into an exceptionally good story, notable for its fascinating characterizations, it decidedly intelligent plot, and for its surprising, and satisfying, deductive solution.

An English Mystery makes a great introduction to the literate, intelligent, and yet completely enjoyable stories by Cyril Hare. I also highly recommend three other mysteries by Cyril Hare: Untimely Death, The Wind Blows Death, and Suicide Excepted.

This 1951 novel is easily the best I've read by Cyril Hare. It begins in a seemingly traditional setting, as the aging, feeble Lord Warbeck invites several guests to his country estate for Christmas. Among them is the peer's neo-fascist son, who does not endear himself to the other guests (including two people connected with England's ultra-liberal government and a Jewish historian doing research on the estate's past). The son is poisoned during a champagne toast at midnight on Christmas, and a raging blizzard has cut off the house's inhabitants from the rest of the world...

The mystery in this novel is especially good--despite a relatively small amount of suspects, I was completely surprised by the murderer's identity, but this was well foreshadowed throughout the story, as was the motive. Hare also provides some heavy satire of English life in the early fifties (notably the "socialist" politician who still clings to antequated British customs). The detective is the Czech refugee Dr. Bottwink, who provides ironic commentary on English cultural life throughout the book. And the title is quite accurate, by the way--this really is a crime which could occur only in England, as the motive for the murder involves a particular legal point which is unique to that country (the author was a lawyer who often included this sort of thing in his stories).

I purchased this book in a used book store because it looked like it might be a good mystery and I have been reading a lot of mystery writers of the 30s and 40s and earlier. The previous review pretty much says it all without giving away the mystery. I am in the process of reading all of his books. TENANT FOR DEATH is a good mystery with a somewhat surprising twist and DEATH IS NO SPORTSMAN is interesting also for a picture of the British "system" of stream fishing rights and of fly fishing.

Cyril Hare takes the classic ingredients of the English Manor House Mystery and makes them his own.

Family and intimate friends are invited to the hall for Christmas by the dying laird. As the politics of the times would have it, he will be the last to hold the title in the established tradition. This is causing strife of various kinds within the family and their close associates. The players assemble for a grim, dysfunctional Christmas with a stiff upper lip. As Christmas is rung in one of the family is murdered before the astonished eyes of family, guests and servants alike. A blizzard and blinding fog have isolated the manor and the telephone lines are cut. One of their party is a murderer, but which one? As the bodies keep piling up, this question becomes ever more relevant.

This mystery is set in the 1950's when death duties and higher taxes were taking a huge bite out of the aristocracy, already leaner from the sacrifices of the war. The aristocratic, middle class and working class characters are all pitch perfect for their period of overwhelming social change in the face of tradition. The clues to the mystery are present but subtle and the writing style and plotting style are a wonderful blend of cozy and procedural with the focus on the cozy. A sargeant from Scotland Yard is present, but the historian saves the day, with the help of William Pitt.

Classic English mystery from the end of the Golden Age and highly recommended. I will be seeking out more of Cyril Hare's books, the highest compliment of all.