Customer Reviews

When Last I Died (Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries)

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Both Philip Larkin and Patricia Craig considered this to be one of the best Gladys Mitchells, dealing as it does with old newspaper reports and a haunted house.

The supernatural elements come in from the beginning, when the reptilian psychologist (and witch?) Mrs. Bradley finds the diary of an acquitted murderess who later committed suicide in a pond - accused of pushing her cousin from the window of a haunted house.

The plot is one of Mitchell's best, involving one of the best uses of a haunted house in detective fiction (Mitchell uses the M. R. James approach), missing juvenile delinquents, an old woman choked to death on grated carrot. Mrs. Bradley untangles a convoluted maze of impersonation and insanity in her own inimicable fashion - "Mrs. Bradley is a far better detective than some who have achieved world-wide fame," said the Times Literary Supplement.

In short, one of Mitchell's best books, with a first-class setting, one of her best plots, and probably the nastiest murderer in the canon.

This is one of Mitchell's best, I think, combining what appear to be two of her favourite themes, children and weirdness. I'm only sorry she didn't throw in a few nuns, too, which would have enhanced the weirdness factor almost to the point it reached in _St. Peter's Finger_. This novel never ceased to intrigue and fascinate me, and it has one of her ghastlier and more surprising denouments, as well. Well worth an evening's read.

Gladys Mitchell is known as one of the "Big Three" English women mystery writers, along with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Her output was prestigious, with 67 books featuring Mrs. Bradley, some of which have been converted to television with Diana Riggs starring as Mrs. Bradley. WHEN LAST I DIED was inspired by the Borley Rectory, which was rumored to be one of the most haunted houses in England.

Considered one of the most educated women in England, Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley boasts a medical degree; is a psychiatrist; works with the Home Office; and is a private sleuth with a chauffeur named George. Her looks are somewhat alarming, even repulsive, but she has a sweet voice and is so persuasive as to exact the answers from the mouths of murderers.

When a diary is found in a house of a woman tried for the murder of a professional ghost hunter, Mrs. Bradley decides to investigate. Did Bella Foxley murder her aunt to receive an inheritance, followed by the murder of her cousin and finally herself? She is found innocent of her cousin's murder and there is not enough evidence to warrant an arrest for her aunt's death. But is there more than meets the eye? And is the house she rented really haunted?

"Mrs. Bradley was silent for about a minute. Then she said: 'It seems to me that Bella Foxley was arrested on insufficient evidence.' 'Not if you read what the wife said at the inquest. She practically accused Bella Foxley of the murder, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict accordingly. She let out--only, of course, it had to be suppressed--that she believed the real motive was that Tom knew Bella had murdered the ancient aunt. He was murdered to shut his mouth and to put an end to the blackmail.'"

Gladys Mitchell, as part of England's Detection Club, vowed to play fair with clues; never to use a sinister Chinaman; not to 'borrow' other writer's plots; and to keep their feet off the table during dinner. WHEN LAST I DIED is considered her best book.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

After seeing the Mrs. Bradley series by PBS/BBC The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries - Series 1 (Speedy Death / The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries), I was intrigued enough to seek out the author of the character. While the name Gladys Mitchell sounded vaguely familiar to me, I could not recall the character from any of my previous exposure to the classic murder mysteries of the 1920s-1950s.

"When Last I Died," written in 1941, reveals Ms Mitchell's definite flare for grabbing the reader's attention through a catchy title. Certainly in reviewing the titles under her name on the Amazon site, I have to say most of them are well chosen. The title certainly sets up the reader for a tale of the macabre, and they are not disappointed.

In this book the author seems to have fyully gained her stride as far as narrative goes. She has created a fascinating venue for her heroine to search for clues, a haunted house, and manages to capture its peculiar characteristics vividly for the reader. Even when one realizes that the spooky manifestations are a fraud--and the author really makes no attempt to disguise the fact--the intriguing method of creating them keeps the reader's attention.

There are not quite so many individuals in this book as in, for instance, Death at the Opera: (Death in the Wet), but the author makes the most of them. Here she throws up a screen, not so much by virtue of what she says about them, as by what she doesn't say and by the ways in which she distracts the attention of the reader from the significant information she has interwoven through the narrative about them. More than anything the introduction of a diary--a la Dracula, one of my favorite narrative constructs--makes this apparent. Instead of having too little to go on, the author has purposely provided the reader with too much to go on and furthermore the difficult task of deciding which of the sources about individuals are reliable and to what extent.

Excellently crafted.

This is exactly the writing I like. To the point.
No excess filling with descriptions and all kinds of extraneous fillers.

Gladys Mitchell's novels seem to elicit hackneyed phrases. But what can you do when, for a change, they're actually true? It's become a commonplace to claim that you couldn't put a book down; however, in the case of "When Last I Died," it's literally true! I stayed up until 3 a.m. to finish this Mrs. Bradley novel, which doesn't give away the murderer -- or even who the real murder victims are -- until the last few chapters. Forgive me for using yet another cliché, but "When Last I Died" really does keep you guessing until the very end. I never saw the resolution coming.

How can these novels be so neglected? Although popular in Miss Mitchell's lifetime, these novels featuring the sly, wizened, and intimidating Beatrice Lestrange Bradley aren't nearly as well known as the detective novels of Ngaio Marsh, Patricia Wentworth, or Dorothy L. Sayers, even though Miss Mitchell's novels surpass those of Marsh, Wentworth, and Sayers. Why Mrs. Bradley even gives Miss Marple a run for her money!

Miss Mitchell truly lives up to her billing by the English poet Philip Larkin as "the Great Gladys." This is the second novel Mrs. Bradley I've read; it was much better than the first, The Saltmarsh Murders, which itself was very good. Thankfully, Miss Mitchell was quite prolific, and she wrote more than 60 Mrs. Bradley novels -- enough to keep me happy for years!

This is a very well constructed whodunit, especially pleasing to readers who enjoy stories in which the sleuth puts together clues about a past crime by interviewing surviving participants, reading diaries, and cross-checking facts.

The supernatural subtext of the story isn't the main focus, but an important part of the reason behind the crimes, as a supposedly haunted house is the scene of the crimes.

Fictional account trying to explain the mysteries behind Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. Originally published in 1941, two years after the rectory burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.