Customer Reviews

The Search for My Great-Uncle's Head (Library of Crime Classics)

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The author had the rare ability to write a mystery with genuine jeopardy and suspense and do it all with tongue in cheek. The title alone should demonstrate the latter. In other novels, Mr. Latimer's private detective gets himself committed to a private insane asylum to protect a client. In another work, a wealthy man on death row, five days from electrocution, decides he wants to live and hires a private detective to prove the innocence of the condemned man.

The subject novel opens with a scholarly professor arriving at a remote Michigan mansion at night during a storm. He is there at the invitation of his wealthy great-uncle, as are numerous other relatives, presumably to learn about their inheritances. Quite soon the great-uncle is found dead in his study. His head is--well--missing--along with his new will. Everyone assumes the murderer is an escaped lunatic who killed his family by decapitation. The reader knows better.

The plot is funny and ingenious, a trademark of this writer's works. The Great Depression era atmosphere is fine. The characters are somewhat standard, except for the narrator, i.e., the scholarly professor whose area of expertise is the English Restoration.

This work is highly recommended for fans of the golden age crime novel. In fact, read all of Latimer's early works. He went a little sappy later, even writing Perry Mason episodes for TV and scripts for "Topper" movies.