Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs

A murky tale of murder with an eccentric cast of suspects 

Death of a Busybody is the third
Inspector Littlejohn mystery

The writer of Death of a Busybody, George Bellairs, was bank manager Harold Blundell  by day. 

Blundell must have been a keen student of human nature while working at his bank in Manchester because many of the characters he depicts in this story display unusual quirks and idiosyncrasies.

The busybody referred to in the title of the book is Miss Ethel Tither, who has made herself deeply unpopular in the quaint English village of Hilary Magna, by going out of her way to snoop on people and interfere with their lives.

When Miss Tither is found floating in the vicar’s cesspool, having been bludgeoned by an attacker before being left to drown in the drainage water, the local police quickly feel they are out of their depth and call in Scotland Yard.

Inspector Thomas Littlejohn, the author’s series detective, arrives by train and finds there is no shortage of suspects in the case. He must piece together the clues quickly in order to find out who was responsible for the murder of the busybody and restore order and calm in the village.

This is the third Littlejohn novel by George Bellairs, who was born Harold Blundell in 1902 near Rochdale in Lancashire. He wrote more than 50 novels, most of them featuring Littlejohn, starting with Littlejohn on Leave, published in 1941 and finishing with An Old Man Dies, published just before his own death in 1982.

Death of a Busybody was published in 1942. While he was writing it, Bellairs was working in a bank during the day and acting as an air raid warden at night, having been exempted from military service because he was blind in one eye. He had discovered that writing a detective novel helped to pass the time during the blackout.

Bellairs was bank manager
Harold Blundell in his day job

Bellairs wrote amusing stories that gave his readers welcome light relief during the war years and in the difficult decades that followed. For example, in Death of a Busybody, one of the detectives assisting Littlejohn goes to interview a retired accountant whose hobby is bird watching and who writes about his ornithological studies. The two becomes friends and the detective also becomes a bird enthusiast. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that they have subsequently published a joint treatise about birds and have presented a copy to Inspector Littlejohn. This is an example of the author’s mischievous sense of humour revealing itself in what is essentially a classic mystery novel.

Another delightful aspect of the novel is the way Bellairs depicts rural life at the beginning of the 1940s. He reveals some of the eccentricities of the local population with great humour, in a similar way to Gladys Mitchell in her Mrs Bradley mystery, The Devil at Saxon Wall, which was published in 1935.

Although his books were also published in the US and translated into other languages, Bellairs regarded crime writing as a hobby and he continued to write for pleasure rather than profit. After his death, his books became largely forgotten by the wider public, which was a great pity

First editions in dust jackets of early books by Bellairs are now quite rare and therefore collectable and fetch high prices. But now some of his books are available to new readers thanks to the British Library Crime Classics series, enabling 21st century detective story fans to enjoy his mysteries and find pleasure once again in his gentle humour.

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The Devil at Saxon Wall by Gladys Mitchell

Madness and witchcraft in a village that seems to be living in the Middle Ages

The Devil at Saxon Wall is
the sixth Mrs Bradley mystery

Probably the most bizarre Mrs Bradley mystery yet, The Devil at Saxon Wall, the sixth novel about the eccentric psychoanalyst and amateur detective, published in 1935, is the first of a number of Gladys Mitchell’s books to feature the theme of witchcraft.

The story was inspired after Gladys heard a lecture on witchcraft by her friend, the detective fiction writer Helen Simpson, and she dedicated this book to her.

Mrs Bradley has advised her best-selling novelist friend, Hannibal Jones, who has had a breakdown and is suffering from writer’s block, to retreat to a quiet, rustic village to find rest and inspiration for his work. 

Although the village of Saxon Wall might seem the perfect rural escape to begin with, Jones soon finds himself intrigued by the odd characters among the villagers and their pagan beliefs.

He also finds himself compelled to try to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Neot House, a place where a young couple died soon after the birth of their first child.

It is a hot summer and the villagers are desperate for rain because they are short of water. They decide the local vicar is to blame for the lack of water and Jones has to step in to defend him when their anger drives them to march on the vicarage armed with weapons.

Gladys Mitchell tells the story with
the skill that was her hallmark

Jones makes some enquiries to try to sort out what happened to two babies who he thinks may have been swapped at birth, but when a man from the village is found bludgeoned to death, he decides he must call in Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley to help him.

The strangely dressed old lady with her hideous cackle is more than a match for the angry villagers and she proceeds to root out the devil at Saxon Wall using her own unique and unorthodox methods.

At the end of the novel, Mrs Bradley expresses the opinion that the inhabitants of Saxon Wall are incapable of making straightforward statements. She thinks that this peculiarity dates back to the days of the Norman conquest when the Saxons of those parts, too cunning to tell direct lies to their overlords, resorted to maddening half statements and obscure pronouncements, which made them difficult to understand.

Although the characters and situations are bizarre, the novel presents an intriguing mystery which Mrs Bradley skilfully unravels and the story is well told by Gladys, who helpfully provides ‘End Papers’ to clarify issues for the reader.

I found The Devil at Saxon Wall entertaining and enjoyable and well worth reading.  

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