Inoffensive’ female victim had a long list of enemies
The Death at the Opera edition published by Vintage Publishing
Mrs Bradley uses all her skills as a psychoanalyst to find out who is guilty of the murder of a teacher during a performance of the comic Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado at an experimental co-educational school.
Author Gladys Mitchell evokes the school setting very well, revealing what she thought of some of the work and the rituals she herself was involved in during her long career as a schoolteacher.
Eccentric sleuth Mrs Bradley is called in to investigate by the headmaster of Hillmaston School after a young arithmetic teacher is found drowned in a cloakroom before she can make her entrance during the opera production in the role of Katisha. Another teacher had to take over the part at the last minute and gave a magnificent performance.
Mrs Bradley is very clever in the way she talks to both staff and pupils and persuades them to open up to her. Gladys comes up with some believable, if eccentric characters, revealing what she must have thought about some of her teaching colleagues over the years.
The author brings back the Reverend Noel Wells, who was Mrs Bradley’s ‘Watson’ in her fourth novel, The Saltmarsh Murders. He becomes Mrs Bradley's sleuthing partner again when she travels to Bognor Regis to investigate the murder victim’s past. At one stage he puts his own life in danger to test one of her theories.
They encounter a man who has been acquitted in court of murdering his wife and Mrs Bradley, showing no fear, offers herself as bait in order to see what he is capable of. With the help of Noel, she ends up solving a different murder.
Author Gladys Mitchell keeps the reader guessing until the final pages
Death at the Opera,originally published in 1934, is written in a very elegant and witty style and Mrs Bradley is presented as a more rounded person and less of a caricature than she was in the earlier books.
The detective cleverly draws up a list of people with a motive, and a list of those with the opportunity to commit the crime. She eventually dismisses all the people with a motive and all the people who had the opportunity. She then makes a list of all the attributes the murderer must have had to commit the crime and not give themselves away. This helps her to solve the case.
Mrs Bradley also solves the offstage murder of a woman who has drowned in an ornamental pond in the grounds of a mental hospital, who had been the wife of the music teacher at the school.
Gladys keeps the reader guessing until the last pages of the book, when she produces an incredible surprise.
I would agree with a review in the Observer newspaper, which said: “Mrs Lestrange Bradley is by far the best and most vital English female detective.” I think her fifth outing in Death at the Opera shows her at her most bizarre and brilliant.
A Miss
Silver mystery with a bonus romance for the reader
The action in The Chinese Shawl takes place among guests at a country house
After
reading The Chinese Shawl, I was delighted to discover that Patricia
Wentworth’s fifth mystery to feature her series detective, Miss Silver, was her
best so far. The Chinese Shawl, which was first published in 1943, was less of
a thriller, or novel of suspense like her first four Miss Silver stories, and
more of a whodunnit.
However, the
murder victim was portrayed by the author as such an unpleasant character that
until their violent death 120 pages into the book, I was thinking more along
the lines of ‘when are they going to do it?’ or, ‘I wish they would just get on
with it and do it,’ until the murderer strikes at last.
The novel is
set against the backdrop of World War II and features a group of young people,
who are all closely connected with each other, attending a weekend house party
at an old house called the Priory. Some of the men are enjoying leave, or are
convalescing after being wounded, and a tangle of troubled relationships and
past liaisons between them and the women add to the tension.
Unusually,
for what is essentially a crime novel, there is a romance at the heart of the
book and a family feud potentially standing in its way. Although the previous Miss
Silver mysteries usually had a couple falling in love among the characters, the
romance element in this novel is far more closely tied up with the plot
The Chinese Shawl is the fifth Miss Silver mystery
Patricia
Wentworth, who was born in October 1877, 145 years ago this month, supplies the
reader with interesting details about life during World War II, such as the blackout
rules, the damage caused by air raids, the plight of evacuees and the strain
caused by the war on relationships, making the book still fresh and interesting
for new readers in 2022.
Miss Silver
has been invited in her capacity as a private detective by an old school friend
to stay at the Priory and try to solve a series of thefts that have been happening.
The lady detective gets to the bottom of the thefts quickly, but is still
staying in the house when the murder takes place.
The
detection element mainly consists of the police superintendent, Randal March,
listening patiently to Miss Silver’s theories about the case, which are based
on her instincts and judgment of character. The reason for his forbearance is
that Miss Silver used to be his governess. Miss Silver produces a large
quantity of pale pink and pale blue knitted matinee jackets and bootees while
she is discussing the case with him throughout the story.
The plot is
as intricately constructed as the baby clothes and, right at the centre of it,
is the Chinese shawl of the title, a colourful garment worn by one of the main
characters.
The murderer
is not revealed until the end of the book, after the author has skilfully
misdirected the reader during the last few chapters, while playing completely within
the rules.
I enjoyed
the first four Miss Silver mysteries but thought The Chinese Shawl was even
better. I would recommend the novel to detective fiction readers who like a bit
of romance on the side and enjoy a well-defined period setting.
Novelist
draws on her love for New Zealand and the theatre
Vintage Murder begins as Roderick Alleyn makes a train journey across New Zealand
Ngaio Marsh
transports her upper class, English sleuth, Roderick Alleyn, to her native New
Zealand in Vintage Murder, her fifth novel to feature the Scotland Yard
detective.
Alleyn is on
holiday while recovering from an operation and the story begins as he makes a
long journey by train across New Zealand. On the train, he encounters a
travelling theatrical troupe and among them is Susan Max, a character actress he
had met in Enter a Murderer, Ngaio’s second novel. The detective had encountered
the actress while he was investigating a murder that occurred on stage during the
performance of a play at a West End theatre.
He gets talking
to different members of the troupe, which is run by Incorporated Playhouses,
and it is not far into the story when Alfred Meyer, the owner of Incorporated
Playhouses, who is married to the leading lady, Carolyn Dacres, reveals to Alleyn
that someone has tried to push him off the train.
After the
train has arrived at its destination, Carolyn invites Alleyn to see the first
night of the play and to her birthday celebrations with the rest of the company
on the stage afterwards. At the party, as a surprise for his wife, Meyer has
arranged for a jeroboam of champagne to descend gently on to the dinner table from
above, but something goes horribly wrong and the theatrical manager is killed.
The latest HarperCollins edition of Ngaio Marsh's Vintage Murder
It soon
becomes obvious that the mechanism set up for the stunt has been tampered with
and Alleyn is invited by the local police to sit in on their investigation. He sets
aside his holiday plans to try to help them catch the murderer.
Vintage
Murder, which was published in 1937, enables Ngaio Marsh to describe the
scenery of her homeland as seen through Alleyn’s eyes. He meets a Māori doctor,
Rangi Te Pokiha, and buys a Māori fertility pendant, a ‘tiki’, which plays an
important part in the plot.
Vintage
Murder was one of four Alleyn novels adapted for New Zealand television in
1977, when the role of Alleyn was played by the actor George Baker.
Ngaio’s
inspiration for the travelling theatrical troupe was the Alan Wilkie Company,
which she was once a part of, so it is not surprising that the characters and
their behaviour come across as so real in the story.
The story
does consist of a long series of interviews conducted by Alleyn along with the
New Zealand police officers, which many on line reviewers have complained about,
but I still think it is a well written novel that presents a good mystery for
the armchair detective to try to solve, and I would recommend it.
Academic created a series detective who went on to have a 50-year career
The cover of the Agora Books edition of the first Appleby novel
Michael Innes, who has entertained millions of crime fiction fans with his novels and short stories featuring Scotland Yard Detective Inspector John Appleby, was also a distinguished academic who was well known for his works of literary criticism.
Innes, who was born in 1906 in Edinburgh, 116 years ago today, was, in fact, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, who became a university professor and published more than 20 contemporary novels and volumes of short stories under his real name.
Between 1936 and 1986, Stewart, writing under the pseudonym, Michael Innes, also published nearly 50 crime novels and short stories.
The author had attended Edinburgh Academy and went on to study English Literature at Oriel College, Oxford. He went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis and on his return became a lecturer in English at the University of Leeds.
He became Jury Professor in English at the University of Adelaide in South Australia and then a lecturer in English at the Queen’s University of Belfast.
In 1949, he became a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a position that was the equivalent of being a Fellow at other Oxford colleges. He was a professor of the university by the time of his retirement from academia in 1973.
Innes was able to use his knowledge of university life as the setting for his first Appleby novel, Death at the President’s Lodging, which features a murder at a fictitious college belonging to a fictitious university.
The reader first sees Appleby being driven out of Scotland Yard in ‘a great yellow Bentley’ to the crime scene in the President’s Lodging at St Anthony’s College, which purports to be at a university situated in the vicinity of Bletchley, about halfway between Oxford and Cambridge. A useful line-drawing of a map showing the layout of St Anthony’s had been provided for the reader at the beginning of the book.
John Innes Mackintosh Stewart - alias Michael Innes - pictured in 1973
In the first paragraph on the first page, Innes announces that the President of St Anthony’s College, Josiah Umpleby, has been found murdered in his lodging. Appleby has been quickly dispatched on the orders of the Home Secretary to take over from the local Inspector and handle the investigation.
Inspector Dodd, who is an old friend of Appleby’s, explains that the college is locked up at the same time every night and only a small, select group have their own keys and would have been able to access the President’s Lodging. He shows Appleby the dead body, still lying in the President’s library, with its head swathed in a black, academic gown, next to a skull and a scattering of human bones.
By the end of the first chapter, Appleby has realised he is up against an ingenious and somewhat whimsical murderer. The scene has been set and the hunt is on, with the reader able to sit back and enjoy the rest of the novel.
The story is told in an entertaining writing style and Innes allows his own interest in the genre of detective stories to shine through in conversations Appleby has with the dons while staying in their college as a guest.
Death at the President's Lodging is available from or
Author
departs from tradition by letting her detective fall in love
Strong Poison is the fifth of Dorothy L Sayers's Wimsey novels
Dorothy L
Sayers allows her noble sleuth to have a love interest in Strong Poison, the
fifth novel she wrote featuring the exploits of amateur detective Lord Peter
Wimsey.
The author
introduces the character of Harriet Vane, a crime novelist, who, like Wimsey,
is Oxford educated and has had an unhappy time romantically.
When Wimsey
sees Harriet Vane for the first time, she is in the dock, accused of the murder
of her ex-lover, the poet Philip Boyes.
Strong
Poison, which was published in 1930, is considered to be a major departure for a
Golden Age mystery as it shows the detective falling in love with a woman
accused of the murder that is central to the plot.
Dorothy L
Sayers fans have speculated that the writer modelled Harriet Vane on herself. The
writer had suffered a romantic disappointment and by creating the long-drawn-out
romance between Harriet Vane and Wimsey, which was to run through four novels,
it allowed her to have a vicarious affair with the detective herself, far-fetched
though this might seem now.
Dorothy had
been very impressed with the novel Trent’s Last Case by E C Bentley, published
in 1913. In the story, the detective, Philip Trent, falls in love with the wife
of the murder victim.
Right until the end of the novel the reader does not know
for certain that the wife is not the murderer. E C Bentley’s novel was intended
as a send up of the classic crime story and it also involves the hero detective
identifying the wrong person as the murderer close to the end of the story,
completely at odds with the conventions of the genre. But Dorothy, along with
many other readers, really liked the novel and went on record as saying that
Bentley’s novel ‘holds a very special place in the history of detective fiction.’
In Strong
Poison, the victim, Harriet’s ex-lover Philip Boyes, has died from arsenic poisoning.
He has attempted to engineer a reconciliation with Harriet on the night of his
death and she has given him a cup of coffee while listening to what he had to
say. She is accused of the murder because she is found to have bought poison
under an assumed name. She has claimed this was to test one of the plot points
in the crime novel she is currently writing.
Sayers herself had suffered a romantic disappointment
Fortunately,
the trial results in a hung jury and the judge has to order a retrial. With no
time to lose, Wimsey visits Harriet in prison to tell her he is convinced of
her innocence and is determined to catch the real murderer. He also asks her to
marry him, but she turns him down politely.
The jury has
failed to return a unanimous verdict because one person sitting on it could not
bring herself to believe in Harriet’s guilt. This is Miss Katharine Climpson, a
spinster who, coincidentally, sometimes works for Wimsey by carrying out
inquiries and undercover work because she has to live in difficult financial circumstances
and needs to earn some money.
Wimsey deploys
her to gather evidence for his inquiry and, in one hilarious scene, she is
obliged to pose as a medium and hold a séance to obtain the information he
needs. Miss Climpson first appeared doing undercover work for Wimsey in the
novel, Unnatural Death, two years before Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, also a
spinster with a talent for detection, was introduced on the crime fiction
scene.
As well as being
an intriguing mystery, Strong Poison explores some of the issues of the time,
such as sex before marriage and the double standards that were applied to the
behaviour of men and women. The novel is intricately plotted and written in a
very entertaining style and I would highly recommend that you read it.
A detective
novelist who brilliantly describes backstage life
Ngaio Marsh, who
was one of the leading female detective novelists of her time, died on this day
– 18 February – in 1982 in her native New Zealand.
Ngaio began
writing detective novels in 1931 after moving to London to start up an interior
decorating business. Stuck in her
basement flat on a very wet Saturday afternoon she decided to have a go at
writing a detective story and came up with the idea for her sleuth, Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective.
Ngaio Marsh came to be seen as one of the Queens of Crime
She sat down
to write what was to be the first of a series of 32 crime novels featuring Alleyn,
who she named after an Elizabethan actor, Edward Alleyn. Her detective was to work
for the Metropolitan Police in London, even though he is the younger brother of
a baronet.
Her second
novel, Enter a Murderer, published in 1935, and several others, are set in the
world of the theatre, which Ngaio knew well as she was also an actress,
director and playwright at times during her life.
After leaving
school she had studied painting before joining a touring theatre company. She
became a member of an art association in New Zealand and continued to exhibit
her paintings with them from the 1920s onwards.
Ngaio allows her
detective, Alleyn, to meet and fall in love with an artist, Agatha Troy, in her 1938 novel, Artists in Crime.
She directed
many productions of Shakespeare’s plays in New Zealand and Australia and the
430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand is
named in her honour.
In her 1946
short story, I Can Find My Way Out, which features Alleyn, Ngaio once again
uses the theatre as her setting. A new playwright, Anthony Gill, is waiting
nervously for the premiere of his first play at The Jupiter Theatre in London.
The female
lead, Coralie Bourne, has been kind to him and advised him on his play, but the
male lead, Canning Cumberland, is known to have a drinking problem and can be
unpredictable, which worries Gill. Two of the other actors also resent Cumberland,
one because he was given the best part and the other because he was given the
best dressing room.
Meanwhile,
Roderick Alleyn and his now wife Troy are entertaining a friend, Lord Michael
Lamprey, for dinner. He is keen to join the police but his conversation with Alleyn
is constantly interrupted by phone calls that are actually meant for a delivery
firm. When one of the callers asks if they can deliver a suitcase to playwright Anthony Gill at the Jupiter Theatre, Lord Michael thinks it would be fun to
take the job as he has been unable to get a ticket to see the play.
Sophie Hannah's collection of stories is published by Apollo
Before he
reaches the theatre, the case falls open and he discovers a false ginger beard
and moustache, a black hat, a black overcoat with a fur collar and a pair of
black gloves.
On an impulse
Lord Michael puts the whole outfit on and insists on being allowed to deliver
the case in person to the playwright backstage.
As Coralie makes
one of her exits from the stage, she sees him standing in the wings wearing the
beard and black clothes and faints. The male lead, Cumberland, also reacts with
horror when he sees him and locks himself in his dressing room.
Lord Michael
continues to watch the play from the wings with fascination, although he becomes
increasingly aware of the smell of gas. Eventually, he traces the smell to one
of the dressing rooms, gains access and drags out the unconscious occupant, but
sadly it is too late to save him.
He rings
Alleyn and the detective arrives at the theatre with his men, where it does not
take him long to discover that one of the actors has been murdered.
In just 18
pages, Ngaio sets up the story, establishes the characters and their
relationships, brilliantly describes the dressing rooms, equipment and
atmosphere backstage, drawing on her experience of the theatre, and allows
Alleyn to solve the crime.
Along with
her fellow Queens of Crime, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L
Sayers, Ngaio was to dominate the genre of crime fiction from the 1930s onwards
with her novels, short stories and plays.
In 1948 Ngaio
was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in
connection with drama and literature in New Zealand. She became a Dame
Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts in the
1966 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Ngaio’s autobiography,
Black Beech and Honeydew was published in 1965. She was inducted into the
Detection Club in 1974 and received the Grand Master Award for lifetime
achievement as a detective novelist from the Mystery Writers of America.
Her 32nd and
final Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was completed only a few weeks before her
death. The story revolves around one of her greatest theatrical passions,
Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.
Ngaio died in
her home town of Christchurch and was buried at the Church of the Holy
Innocents, Mount Peel.
The Ngaio
Marsh Award is given annually to the writer of the best New Zealand mystery,
crime or thriller novel. Her home in Christchurch is now a museum and displays her
collection of antiques. On her desk lies her fountain pen filled with green ink,
which was her preferred writing tool.
Ngaio Marsh’s
32 Roderick Alleyn crime novels and her collections of short stories are available in a variety of
formats from or
Miss Silver is at her best as she pits her wits
against a potential murderer
The latest Hodder paperback edition of Lonesome Road
The reader learns more about the background and
character of the mysterious Miss Silver in this third novel by Patricia
Wentworth to feature the elderly lady detective.
In Lonesome Road, published in 1939, heiress Rachel
Treherne is convinced her life is in danger and goes to see Miss Silver at her
office in London, after she remembers a friend mentioning the name of the
private investigator.
Miss Silver is sitting at a walnut writing desk in a
room that looks more like a Victorian parlour than an office. Rachel sees she
is a little woman in a snuff-coloured dress with ‘what appeared to be a great
deal of mousy-grey hair done up in a tight bun at the back and arranged in
front in one of those extensive curled fringes associated with the late Queen
Alexandra, the whole severely controlled by a net.’
She begins to have second thoughts about confiding in Miss
Silver, but the elderly lady encourages her to say what she is worried about
and so Rachel tells her that she thinks someone is trying to kill her.
Rachel explains that her father left her an immense
fortune that she has to administer as a trustee. She has used some of the money
to set up retirement homes for elderly people who are not very well off. The
rest of the capital is tied up. She can leave it to her relatives in her will, but
is unable to give much of it away now.
She has received an anonymous letter telling her she
has ‘had the money long enough and it is someone else’s turn now’. This has
been followed by two more letters, the third saying simply, ‘Get ready to die.’
Rachel tells Miss Silver she has had a narrow escape
from falling down the stairs. Then her curtains were discovered on fire in her bedroom
and someone tampered with her chocolates to try to poison her.
Patricia Wentworth wrote 32 Miss Silver mysteries
Several members of her family live with her in her
house and she tells Miss Silver she loves them all and can’t bear to suspect
any of them.
She arranges for Miss Silver to come and stay with her.
Miss Silver says she is to tell her family that her new guest is a retired
governess, which is, in fact, perfectly true.
It is the first time any clue about the mysterious old
lady’s background has been given to the reader by the author.
Miss Silver also quotes the poet Tennyson twice during
the meeting with Rachel and says she admires the great poet and frequently
quotes him to her clients.
But before Miss Silver even arrives at Rachel’s family
home, the heiress has had another brush with death, having fallen over the side
of a cliff. She later says she felt sure she was pushed. She manages to cling
to a bush growing out of the side of the cliff and is rescued by a friend who
has come to look for her.
Going to
stay in Rachel’s house in the guise of an impoverished retired governess gives Miss
Silver the chance to observe Rachel’s family. She points out later that they
talk to each other as though she isn’t there because they feel she is unimportant.
She quickly
realises that Rachel’s older sister, Mabel, considers herself to be an invalid
and wants Rachel to back her grown-up children financially in their various ventures.
There is one
cousin who wants Rachel to spend her money on charitable projects she is
interested in, while another cousin is clearly short of money and very anxious.
A third cousin, who is an artist, wants Rachel to marry him.
Meanwhile, the
maid, Louisa, who is devoted to her mistress, goes to desperate lengths to make
Rachel aware of the fact she is in danger from her whole family.
Thank goodness
for Miss Silver, who sees and hears everything while she sits in the background
knitting.
Lonesome
Road is well worth reading, if you like novels of suspense, as it maintains the
mystery well and doesn’t let the reader relax until the final page.
Barrister turned crime writer offered readers a snapshot of 1920s life
C H B Kitchin, whose skill as a writer was only one of many talents
Many people enjoy Golden Age crime stories because, along with a good mystery, they give the reader glimpses of what life was like in the early part of the last century.
Experts agree that one writer with a particular talent for evoking the era in which his stories were set is C H B Kitchin, a barrister who became wealthy from playing the stock market, and also tried his hand at detective fiction.
Born in October 1895, Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin was the son of a barrister who, after an Oxford education, became a barrister himself.
As well as being a gifted chess and bridge player and a pianist, Kitchin wrote poetry, general fiction and four highly-regarded crime novels featuring the stockbroker turned amateur sleuth, Malcolm Warren.
His first crime novel, Death of My Aunt, published in 1929, has been reprinted frequently and translated into several foreign languages. It was republished by Faber Finds in 2009, 80 years after its first appearance.
The novel introduces the young stockbroker, Malcolm Warren, who is summoned by telegram to visit his rich, old Aunt Catherine. She has recently shocked the family by marrying a muscular garage owner, who is many years her junior. She wants Warren to look at her investments and he is hopeful of being able to advise her on what to buy and to make a small profit for himself.
He hurries to her bedside, but before he can start discussing her investment book with her, his aunt asks him to pass her a new bottle of tonic that she wants to try. After taking a sip, she leans back and closes her eyes, but suddenly becomes violently ill and dies.
The Faber Finds edition of Death of My Aunt
Her fortune is divided up in her will to go to various members of her family, who would all be happy for either the young stockbroker, or the new husband, to be accused of her murder.
Therefore, Warren has to launch his own investigation in order to save himself, and his uncle by marriage, who he likes and can’t believe is guilty of the murder.
Kitchin makes his hero, Warren, a fan of detective fiction himself and he mentions that he admires the crime writers Edgar Wallace and Lynn Brock. Warren tries to emulate Lyn Brock’s methods and draws up a table of suspects and motives and allocates each of them points for being the most likely person to have committed the murder.
In a later book, Death of His Uncle, Kitchin, through his hero Warren, says: ‘A good detective story, I have found, is often a clearer mirror of ordinary life than many a novel written specially to portray it. Indeed, I think a test of its goodness is the pleasure you can derive from it even though you know who the murderer is. A historian of the future will probably turn, not to blue books or statistics, but to detective stories, if he wished to study the manners of his age.
In 2021 we can be those historians and enjoy the fascinating domestic details and descriptions of servants, houses, furniture and dinners, which Kitchin, through Warren, reveals.
The writer H R F Keating writes in his Introduction to the 2009 edition of Death of My Aunt: ‘Kitchin’s knowledge of the crevices of human nature lifts his crime fiction out of the category of puzzledom and into the realm of the detective novel. He was, in short, ahead of his day.’
I would recommend Death of My Aunt to anyone who enjoys reading classic detective stories, as it is a well-written and interesting novel of its time, which provides a satisfying, credible solution to the mystery at the end.
Aristocrat also thought to have created the first female fictional detective
Baroness Orczy was from an aristocratic family in Hungary
British novelist and playwright Baroness Orczy, who is best known for creating the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel but also wrote several collections of detective short stories, was born on September 23, 1865 in Tarnaörs, a village in central Hungary, about 100km (62 miles) from the capital, Budapest.
Emma Magdolina Rozalia Maria Jozefa Borbala Orczy de Orci was the daughter of aristocratic parents, but when she was just three years old the family had to leave their estate because of fears of a peasant revolt. They came to live in London when Emma was 14, where she later attended art school.
There she met Henry George Montagu MacLean Barstow, the son of an English clergyman, who was an illustrator. They were married in 1894 and to supplement her husband’s low earnings, Emma started working as a translator and illustrator. After their only son was born, she wrote her first novel, which was not a success. She then wrote a series of detective stories for the Royal Magazine under the name Baroness Orczy and acquired a small following.
In 1903, she and her husband wrote a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, who in his guise as the Scarlet Pimpernel, rescues French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. The play was accepted for production in the West End and ran for four years. It was translated and staged in other countries, generating huge success for Baroness Orczy’s subsequent novel featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Baroness Orczy wrote several other plays, collections of shorts stories, and about 50 novels. Eventually she became so financially successful she and her husband were able to buy a villa in Monte Carlo.
Elvi Hale as Lady Molly in The Woman in the Big Hat
One of her famous detective characters was Molly Robertson-Kirk, who first appeared in Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, a collection of short stories published in 1910 and probably the first book to feature a female detective as the main character. Lady Molly, like Miss Marple who was to come more than 20 years later, was a successful sleuth because she recognised domestic clues that were outside the experience of male detectives. The stories are narrated by Lady Molly’s female assistant, Mary Granard, who was perhaps the first female ‘Watson’.
I was delighted to come across a Lady Molly story from the 1910 collection recently in The Giant Book of Great Detective Stories edited by Herbert Van Thal.
In The Woman in the Big Hat, Lady Molly and her assistant, Mary, are having tea together in Lyons, when they notice a crowd of people forming outside the café on the opposite side of the road. Lady Molly is quick to join them and succeeds in gaining entrance to the café to view the cause of the commotion, which is the dead body of a customer. This is fortuitous as she soon receives a message saying Scotland Yard will require her assistance. She is told that there is a woman suspect in the case and they will ‘rely on her a great deal’.
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is available as a paperback
The police doctor says the man has been poisoned and Lady Molly questions one of the waitresses, who tells her the victim had been having tea with a woman in a big hat. Scotland Yard think they have discovered the identity of the woman and question her, but Lady Molly is present at the interview and passes a note to the chief officer telling him they have the wrong woman.
She neatly traps the person responsible for administering the poison in the café, with the help of two of the culprit’s own servants. Her faithful assistant, Mary, observes: ‘…my dear lady had been right from beginning to end.’ Lady Molly explains to Mary how she arrived at the truth, saying: ’Our fellows did not think of that because they are men.’
Lady Molly was the first in a long line of women in fiction who have been able to beat the police at their own job because they have noticed something very simple the male officers did not pick up on.
The Woman in the Big Hat was adapted for the anthology TV series, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes in 1971, with Elvi Hale starring as Lady Molly.
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is now available from or
Third Campion mystery features an ancient relic, witches, gypsies and a ruthless gang
Look to the Lady involves Campion searching for a 'monster' hiding in Suffolk woodland
Margery Allingham was well into her stride writing about her mysterious, amateur sleuth, Albert Campion, when she published her third novel about his adventures, Look to the Lady, in 1931, just two years after his first appearance in The Crime at Black Dudley.
Campion and his butler and ex-offender sidekick, Magersfonteing Lugg, rescue the son of a baronet, Val Gyrth, from violent criminals attempting to kidnap him. They offer to help him prevent the theft of a rare family heirloom, the Gyrth Chalice, but as soon as they arrive with him at his family home in Suffolk, they discover his aunt has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.
Campion sets out to solve the mystery of the aunt’s death and work out how to protect the valuable chalice, which the Gyrth family have been guarding for the nation for more than a thousand years.
To solve the mystery, Campion has to go out with an elderly professor to try to find the ‘monster’ hiding in nearby woodland that has been terrorising the local people for years.
Look to the Lady has been republished by Vintage Books
After infiltrating the headquarters of the gang plotting to steal the chalice, Campion is imprisoned by them, until a band of gypsies helps him to escape.
Then he has to ride a wild, black horse five miles across open countryside to be in time to prevent the theft of the chalice from its home high up in a tower.
Although Margery Allingham was writing during the Golden Age of detective fiction, Look to the Lady is less of a cosy, village mystery and more of a sophisticated, fast-moving novel of suspense.
Agatha Christie has been quoted as saying: ‘Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light,’ and, in her day, Margery was regarded as one of the four Queens of Crime, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.
Look to the Lady was first published in Great Britain by Jarrolds more than 90 years ago, but it has now been republished by Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group. It remains an exciting, addictive page turner and I can highly recommend it.
No 221B Baker Street, nowadays home to the Sherlock Holmes Museum
I’ve been an avid reader of detective fiction for many years, but have read the books by my favourite authors in no particular order. I have enjoyed many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but because I didn’t start with the first book, I often wondered how Holmes, the brilliant detective, came to be sharing rented rooms at No. 221B Baker Street, with the narrator of the tales, the more modest and less gifted Dr Watson.
The solution to the mystery of how they first met has been hiding in plain sight all the while, as books usually do, in a slim volume entitled A Study in Scarlet, which I recently found on the shelves of the library where I work.
Written by Arthur Conan Doyle, the story was first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887 and introduced the eccentric, amateur detective Holmes and his friend and flatmate, Watson, who always seems to be a couple of steps behind the detective during investigations. They were, of course, destined to become the most famous detective duo ever to appear in fiction.
Watson, in his role of narrator, tells the story of how he first met Holmes. He had been serving as an army doctor in India, but in 1878 he received a bullet in the shoulder at the battle of Maiwand. While recovering from his wound in hospital he contracted enteric fever, from which he almost died.
Watson was sent back to England to convalesce and stays at a small hotel in London. He finds his army pension only just meets his living costs and has just resolved to look for lodgings at a more reasonable price when he encounters an old medical colleague. His former colleague tells him he knows someone in the same situation, who is also looking for modestly priced accommodation to rent in London.. His old colleague then introduces him to Sherlock Holmes, a young man who has been carrying out experiments in the laboratory at the hospital where he works.
A Study in Scarlet, which explains how Holmes and Watson met
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go to visit some lodgings at No. 221B Baker Street together and inspect what Watson describes as ‘a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a large airy sitting room.’ These lodgings are going to be the backdrop for the many adventures they are going to have together, which Watson will write up for the benefit of millions of future readers.
The title, A Study in Scarlet, is taken from a speech made by Holmes to Watson in which he describes the murder he is currently investigating as his ‘study in scarlet.’ Holmes says: ‘There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’
Holmes, in his capacity as a consulting detective, has been called in by the police to assist with an investigation into the death of a wealthy American, whose body has been found in an empty house.
He takes Dr Watson with him to view the crime scene and, drawing upon his observations, solves the crime and finds the murderer in three days. When Scotland Yard are given all the credit in the newspapers, Watson offers to write up the investigation from the notes in his journal so that the public can learn the truth. He continues to put on record his flatmate's triumphs for subsequent cases, introducing an exciting new genre to English literature.
A Study in Scarlet is believed to be the first work of detective fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an investigative tool.
Writer explored her own interests in her novels and short stories
Gladys Mitchell wrote novels alongside a career in teaching
Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1983 of Gladys Mitchell, who was once regarded as one of the top three British women detective writers.
She wrote 66 novels featuring her amateur sleuth, Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, as well as mystery novels under the pen name, Malcolm Torrie, and historical adventure novels under the pen name, Stephen Hockaby.
A teacher by profession, Gladys wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career.
She got off the mark in 1929 with Speedy Death, which introduced Mrs Bradley, and she never looked back, gradually building a large and loyal following for her eccentric, but brilliant, detective.
Gladys was an early member of the Detection Club along with Agatha Christie, G K Chesterton and Dorothy L Sayers, but frequently satirised or reversed the traditional patterns of the genre.
Gladys studied the works of Sigmund Freud and made her series detective, Mrs Bradley, a distinguished psychoanalyst. She also developed an interest in witchcraft, which features in some of her novels.
In 1961, Gladys retired from teaching but continued to write her detective novels. She received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976.
Gladys Mitchell's story, Our Pageant, is included in Serpents in Eden
The last Mrs Bradley mystery was published in 1984, the year after the author’s death in Corfe Mullen, a village in Dorset, at the age of 82.
Gladys was interested in architecture, ancient buildings, folklore and British customs, themes that were often explored in her novels and short stories.
She originally published many of her short stories in the Evening Standard, but they are now being made available to detective fiction fans again in the anthologies published by the author Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics series.
Our Pageant, a story by Gladys Mitchell first published in the Evening Standard in the 1950s, is included in Serpents in Eden, a volume of countryside crime stories published in 2016.
The story does not feature Mrs Bradley, but it reflects the author’s enthusiasm for British customs. It is very short, only four pages in total, but Gladys makes every word count and there is, of course, a twist at the end. It is well worth the read.
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