E C R Lorac - Two-Way Murder

Despite Martin Edwards' best efforts it would be fair to say I have not read much classic crime fiction other than that by Agatha Christie, and a few by D L Sayers. However like a very large ship I am slowly turning in the right direction.

Last year I reviewed Anthony Gilbert's Death in Fancy Dress and earlier this year I listened to the Shedunnit podcast featuring E C R Lorac. I believe I chose this particular episode to download as author Sarah Ward featured on it. Sarah gave a talk at 'Bodies in the Library 2019' about E C R Lorac, a prolific author but of whom little is now known. 

You can read the transcript of the episode or listen to it at Shedunnit.

Fortunately the British Library has published several of Lorac's books as well as Crossed Skis which was released under her pseudonym of Carol Carnac.

I rootled round my library's catalogue and saw that they had several books including from 2021, Two-Way Murder, which I promptly reserved. I was surprised to find out in the introduction by Martin Edwards that this is its first publication, having been written shortly before the author's death in 1958.

I enjoyed Two-Way Murder very much. Initially I was worried that I'd chosen something very similar to Death in Fancy Dress as both seemed to feature a significant Ball and a young lady every man wanted to marry. Fortunately that wasn't the case.

Two-Way Murder revolves around the discovery of a body in the road, a road that was clear only a few hours earlier and a road very lightly used. The police struggle to even identify the body let alone how he came to be in the road.  All the main characters have alibis for the estimated time of death and the local police are stumped until Inspector Waring from CID is brought in and he has a brainwave.

The story is narrated from several points of view but even so they are quite cagey with the reader so even if the 'who' is guessable/deducible then I don't think the "why" is. This does not detract from an atmospheric whodunnit, set in a chilly, misty January on the English south coast. 

I shall be seeking out more by this author.

Review: Death in Fancy Dress by Anthony Gilbert

I recently posted my review of DEATH IN FANCY DRESS by Anthony Gilbert on my library's Facebook page:

DEATH IN FANCY DRESS was first published in 1933 and is one of the latest ‘golden era’ crime novels to be reissued by British Library Publishing and comes with an introduction by Martin Edwards and two short stories from 1939 featuring an Inspector Field.

The main story is a non-series novel narrated by one Tony Keith, a lawyer, who along with his carefree adventuring friend Jeremy - is summoned first to the Secret Service and then to Tony’s old Manor house home to track down the mastermind behind a blackmail ring which has resulted in many deaths. Jeremy is all set on marrying the daughter of the house but trickily she is already engaged to their secret service contact and it’s not long before she has announced her intention of marrying a third party, a dastardly cousin who seems to have got away with murder in the past.

The suspense builds as many people announce that she will not marry her cousin and of course the title comes true, a body is discovered after the fancy dress party…

With the party not taking part until towards the end of the book there is little sleuthing done by our two young men at first and chance plays a hand in revealing a vital clue. Tony, however, makes for an amusing narrator and the resolution is satisfying and one that makes you revisit earlier events in your mind. Despite being written by a woman – real name Lucy Malleson – women don’t come out of this too well and there are some outdated attitudes of the time to contend with. Nonetheless this is an enjoyable classic country house mystery.

As well as, as Anthony Gilbert, the author also wrote as Anne Meredith and her ‘Portrait of a Murder’ has also been published by the British Library.

Favourite Discoveries 2013 (I)

As usual I have asked my fellow Euro Crime reviewers to come up with their top 5 reads of 2013 - these will be collated and announced in early January. Like the previous two years, I have also asked them what their favourite crime fiction discovery of the past year - be it book, film or tv series - has been.

The first entry comes from Rich Westwood who has chosen a publisher.

Rich Westwood's Favourite Discovery of 2013

My favourite discovery of 2013 isn't an author, a book, or a TV show, but a publisher.

The British Library began publishing crime fiction taken from its archives last year, and has really gone for it this year, with a few choice selections. Both the texts and their production values are high quality. The books have excellent covers (THE SANTA KLAUS MURDER is possibly the most striking), and also feel much nicer than most publishers' paperbacks - dense yet flexible.

Charles Warren Adams' THE NOTTING HILL MYSTERY is usually regarded as the first detective novel - it was published in 1862. Its narrator, the perplexed detective Ralph Henderson, is forced to blame a mesmerist for an impossible crime, even though he refuses to believe in mesmerism.

They have also unearthed the earliest female protagonists in crime fiction.

William Stephens Hayward's REVELATIONS OF A LADY DETECTIVE was one of my books of the year - a wildly Victorian romp full of disguises and moustache-twirling villains.

Andrew Forrester's THE FEMALE DETECTIVE feels like a more serious contender for a place in the canon. Miss Gladden, our heroine (Gladden’s not her real name, and her friends think she is a dressmaker) shares a collection of tales from different stages of her career as a detective.

MR BAZALGETTE'S AGENT is an easy-to-read Victorian novel, although difficult to categorise as crime fiction (it's actually more like chick lit). Leonard Merrick was a respected Victorian novelist who hated, this, his first book, to the extent that he would buy up and destroy copies. I liked it a lot.

And to cap it all, back in January the Library also staged a lovely little exhibition of crime fiction. Amongst other treasures I saw Conan Doyle’s original manuscript of ‘The Adventure of the Retired Colourman’ (extremely neat writing), Walter Eberhart’s 1933 THE JIG-SAW PUZZLE MURDER (complete with jigsaw), and a 'crime dossier’ created by Dennis ‘The Devil Rides Out’ Wheatley. This featured included real clues, including a lock of human hair, used ticket stubs, and fag ends in little cellophane pockets.

Rich Westwood