cimorene

Continuing to look for further golden age mysteries to read, I came across an imprint called British Library Crime Classics! So far I can report:

6 started, 5 finished, 1 to eagerly seek out more of, 1 pretty good, 1 funny but not very good as a murder mystery, 2 finished with serious demerits for offputting features.

Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon was a very memorable ride. It starts with a train that gets stuck in the snow before Christmas, and the coincidental acquaintances in it decide to walk to the next station, but get lost in a blizzard and, seeking shelter, stumble on an inviting house with the door open and all the lights and the fire lit, and tea laid out on the table and uneaten. So they take shelter there, but are shortly joined by a sexual harassing old dude who is menacing the girl with the sprained ankle and a suspicous character who turns out to have just murdered his copassenger in the next traincar down and fled. They also find a locked room in the house with someone in it, who later disappears so is stalking around somewhere?, pieces of letters in the garbage that start to explain why the house was empty, and then also a corpse outside in the snow. Eventually they rescue the rightful owners of the house, whose car had broken down, and help solve a twenty-year-old murder with the aid of the... spiritualist?... dude who happens to be in the group. It's a weird sort of thriller that doesn't actually feel much like a murder mystery, all in all, and also it depends on the supernatural. But this guy definitely gets points for a genuinely absorbing plot. I mean, it's nowhere near as bonkers as Ethel Lina White's The Man Who Loved Lions, which is still the prizewinner in that category.

The Santa Claus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay: skipped because I wasn't in the mood for Christmas stories, but it's now been eliminated because I decided not to read any of this author on the basis of #4

The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude - a pretty decent classic murder mystery, with a guy being mysteriously shot through the window of his house and a lot of fuss about footprints and trajectories and so on. Readable and enjoyable, with a reasonably novel twist, but the way it switched POVs and the classist bullshit inadvertently included during the investigation irritated me. It's possible I may read one of his other novels though.

Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay: a universally reviled old lady strangled with her dog's leash at a station of the London Underground, but I was put off completely by the... well... the writing and the dialogue I guess, within a couple of chapters, and wrote off the writer.

The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude: skipping the rest of this author's work for now.

Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon: The title is intriguing, but I've disqualified this writer for now on the basis of his use of the supernatural.

Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries, ed. Martin Edwards: skipping for now in favor of novels.

Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts: This early inverted mystery (which follows the entire crime from the murderer's POV) by one of the founders of the crime club that included Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers is quite competently written, but I'm generally not a fan of the inverted mystery type; and it also loses some of its steam in the last third or so of the story compared with the beginning, getting less interesting and also less sympathetic. Also this is the one with an extremely pathetic and rather horrifying zoo director. And then it finishes with an incredibly sudden revelation that the murderer found religion and also converted his estranged wife... like, in the last couple of paragraphs of the last chapter. I would consider this ending highly suspect on its own, but throwing it in like this as a last moment twist is absolutely fucking insane and completely unacceptable. Blackballing this writer for all time on its basis.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley: this reminds me of my favorite Miss Marple story collection, the one where a group of friends sit around recounting unsolved mysteries they've run into and Miss Marple solves them all; but in this story, a crime club made up of enthusiasts (rather than novelists) who meet to discuss crime instead are given an unsolved murder and they investigate independently, then take turns presenting their theories to each other. So we get a collection of separate stories and completely different theories of the crime, but all about the same murder, which is really fun to read. Big bonus points for the twist too. Will definitely go out of my way to read more of this writer.

Quick Curtain by Alan Melville: according to the introduction, this novel was a pretty divisive and iconic object because it's so unique - it's actually a satirical comedy about musical theater for the most part, with the murder just there as a sort of device. The comedy is great, and apparently this book is rather beloved for that reason. The murder mystery part is not taken seriously by anyone including the writer, and apparently that quite upset Dorothy Sayers because that's not how police investigations work - which I can sympathize with. I was prepared because of the intro, though, and just sort of read it relaxedly with one eye closed. It is worth a read, and I did laugh at the ending as well, but for the most part the beginning of the book is by far the funniest.