Customer Reviews

Murder by Matchlight

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Edith Caroline Rivett, aka ECR Lorac (Lorac is Carol spelled backwards in case you didn't notice) takes us on a journey to London in November 1944. Air raids are common and it is during a late night blackout that murder most foul occurs in a London park. A stranger walking along stops to light a cigarette and in the illumination of his match, another stranger standing behind him appears and it's curtains for the cigarette smoker (see....all those doctors were right, smoking can kill you!). The dead fellow is one John Ward, a mysterious chap whose real name may or may not be Timothy O'Farrel. Enter Inspector McDonald ( a fixture in the numerous mysteries written by Ms Lorac) who sifts through the clues, and of course gives us the solution. This is a brief novel, coming in at under 200 pages, making it a quick read. However, the trade off is the lack of any character development and some very skimpy background information that would help understand the suspects as well as the investigators. The solution is simple, but somewhat surprising. I would not necessarily classify this as a "fair play" mystery because the reader does not have all the information to formulate a solution, some of that is held back and revealed after the murderer is "unmasked" (you'll understand why I have that in quotes after you've read the book). This is a pretty good, satisfying book written during the Golden Age of mystery writing by a prolific writer whose many books are somewhat difficult to obtain these days.