An Oxfordshire Mystery by E.C.R. Lorac
A respected
and successful female writer, Ruth Surray, is found dead in bed at her parents’
country house with a suicide note and a box of sleeping medication on her
bedside table.
The British Library Crime Classics
edition of Post After Post-Mortem
Her family
and friends all agree that she had been finding it difficult to sleep and had
been in low spirits recently. They conclude, regretfully, that things must have
got too much for her and that she has taken
her own life.
The family
want to avoid publicity, and having Ruth’s private life discussed in court, so
they are relieved when the inquest goes off smoothly, without too much said about
her that would provide material for the newspapers. They all accept the
verdict of suicide given by the coroner.
But then
Ruth’s brother, Richard Surray, who is a distinguished psychiatrist, receives a letter
from his sister, written just before her death. It had been delivered to the
wrong address in London and wasn’t redirected to him until after the inquest.
In the letter, Ruth tells him that she is feeling much better and is now completely
refreshed after enjoying a stay with her parents. She apologises for having
worried him about her sleep problems.
This
cheerful letter makes Richard have doubts about the conclusion reached by the coroner,
and he enlists Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald to investigate his sister’s
death more fully, just to make sure the wrong verdict hasn’t been reached at
the inquest. He realises there is an alternative to suicide and that Ruth could
have been murdered by one of the other people staying in the house at the time.
However unpleasant the idea might seem, he decides Ruth’s death should be thoroughly
investigated.
The Surray
family are prolific writers with many academic books and detective novels, which
they jokingly refer to as ‘defectives’, to their names. Ruth’s death had
occurred during a weekend when the family had been hosting among their guests, a publisher and some fellow writers, at their Oxfordshire mansion, one of whom she has named as
her literary executor in the event of her death.
I found Post
After Post-Mortem, which was published in 1936 by Collins, to be a beautifully
written story by E C R Lorac, one of the pen names used by the author Edith
Caroline Rivett.
She wrote
under the pseudonyms E C R Lorac, Carol Carnac and Mary Le Bourne during the
Golden Age of Detective fiction.
She chose E C R Lorac because Lorac was the name Carol, which was part of her own name, spelt
backwards. Her first detective novel, Murder on the Burrows, which introduced
Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald, was published in 1931 when she was 37, but
sadly, it is now out of print and original copies are difficult to find. 
E C R Lorac was a pseudonym
of Edith Caroline Rivett
She wrote 48
mysteries as E C R Lorac, and 23 as Carol Carnac, along with other novels,
short stories, and radio and stage plays, before her death on 2 July 1958.
Thankfully,
Post After Post-Mortem, which is her 11th Robert Macdonald novel, has now been
reprinted as part of the British Library Crime Classics series.
It is a fast-moving story with some
of the events occurring in London and Scotland as well as in Oxfordshire. Macdonald
and his assistant, Detective Reeves, both face danger during the investigation
and many attempts are made to point them in the wrong direction.
E C R Lorac serves up a satisfying
solution at the end of the story but skilfully keeps the reader guessing until
the final pages.
