A good old mystery

 Set in England in the post world war 2 period and on the lines of Agatha Christie but far more cerebral, An English Murder by Cyril Hare is an absorbing book. It uses her favourite plot: characters gather together for a special occasion and then start falling dead one by one. Who is the killer and what is the motive?

The occasion here is Christmas. Relatives and friends, five in all, of Viscount Warbeck gather at his country estate. One of them, Sir Julius Warbeck, Chancellor of the Exchequer comes with a police+ sergeant tasked to keep him safe. There are two ladies and there is a historian, Prof. Bottwink who is a Hungarian and a Jew. He helps to shed light on the mystery. There is no sleuth.

The style of speech and writing is very didactic and much is made of 'Englishness'. The long winded sentences put me to sleep several times because I read it as an audio book. Nonetheless, it is an interesting book.

Its tone is intellectual because its author was an English barrister and judge. He was Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark (1900 - 1958) who used the pseudonym Cyril Hare for his writings. His Tragedy at law, 1937 is better known than the present book published in 1951. Tragedy at Law is often described as the best mystery novel with a legal background and it is also reputed to have never gone out of print so far.

Cyril Hare has created two famous detectives: Inspector Mallett and Francis Pettigrew. He wrote non- detective short stories some of which have been acclaimed and a collection of his detective stories, Best detective stories of Cyril Hare is available.

A Russian film, A very English murder was made in 1974 based on An English Murder.

I know that there are some fans of detective stories and novels among my readers. They could certainly give the book a once over.