FIVE RED HERRINGS - Dorothy L.Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey could imagine the artist stepping back, the stagger, the fall, down to where the pointed rocks grinned like teeth.

But was it an accident- or murder?  Six member of the close knit Galloway artists' colony do not regret Campbell's death.

Five of them are red herrings.

This is a proper mystery story, all the information is laid out for the reader to follow the logic in solving the crime (to a pedantic extent sometimes) , you will need to take notes but if you do you should arrive at the correct conclusion the same time as the books characters.

The book has been deliberately written in this fashion and as such can be repetitive and lags.  There is also this supremely annoying inclusion on page 21.

(Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant what he was to look for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details himself, they are omitted from this page).

The direct appeal to the vanity of the reader is , I think ,a bit unnecessary.

So this is a bit slow with Wimsey is a lot more serious in this book than others in the series but if you like jigsaw puzzles it will have an appeal.

THE DAUGHTER OF TIME - Josephine Tey

Alan Grant, Scotland Yard Inspector is feeling bored while confined in hospital with a broken leg.  Marta Halland, an actress friend of his, suggests he should amuse himself by researching a historical mystery.  She brings him some pictures of historical characters, aware of Grants interest in human faces.  he becomes intrigued by a portrait of King Richard III.  He prides himself on being able to read a persons character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle and kind and wise man.  Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer?

With the help of  other friends and acquaintances, Grant investigates Richard's life and the case of the Princes in the Tower, testing out his theories on the doctor and nurses who attend to him.  Grant spends the weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of  Brent Carradine, a likable young American researcher working at the British Museum.  Using his detectives logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback.

Wikipedia.

This is very clever, the mystery is solved by research using contemporary documents available to Grant working on the case 400 years after the event.

It never falters , potentially it could with the entire novel being set in one room in a hospital, but the flow of information is so constant and interesting you get to the end of the book without realizing.  It is very easy to understand that this is rated one of the best mystery stories.

The bad news is Tey only wrote seven novels before her premature death and there is only one remaining for me to read.

MYSTERY MILE - Margery Allingham

Judge Crowdy Lobbett is a man of justice, an upstanding pillar of American society.  And now he is in deadly peril, tailed across the Atlantic by the ruthless Simister gang.

Luckily for Judge Lobbett, however, he makes the acquaintance of one Albert Campion during his voyage to England.  The enigmatic amateur sleuth bundles the Judge off to the country house of Mystery Mile, where its a race against time...

This is more of a caper than a mystery, which was originally published in 1929.  It has lots of action and humour, a light John Buchan or very similar to a 'Bulldog Drummond'.  Either way its great entertainment.

Allingham manages to write different books in different styles while keeping her same core characters.  This is a light adventure but others in the her Campion series are very dark  mysteries.  Again, either way she is in my top three or four mystery writers.  Never disappointing and comes highly recommended.

These English country houses are just dangerous places, never a quiet moment.

NO CLOAK, NO DAGGER - Benjamin Cowburn

First published in 1960, No Cloak, No Dagger tells the story of four missions undertaken by Cowburn in France between September 1941 and July 1944 for the Special Operations Executive. The purpose of that organization was to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines, to ' set Europe ablaze' as Churchill ordered on its formation.  It was a clandestine group of whose existence very few were aware.  Some of the books action takes place in Vichy France, somewhere very much the subject of Cowburn's spleen - "truly the comic opera setting of officialdom wallowing in mediocrity" with the rest in the Occupied Zone and. briefly, Spain and Portugal.

What amazes me reading this is the understatement of Cowburn  , "jumped out of airplane at 500 feet and got on with it."  Even though Cowburn grew up in France the risks taken were unbelievable, while the attrition rate of his fellow agents was approximately 50%.  Attrition here means captured and executed.

The biggest risk to the networks set up was infiltration by collaborators who then betrayed everyone.

This is not a James Bond book, its all very matter of fact.  This however does not detract from the tension the author and his fellow agents lived under.

Amazing stuff.

TO LOVE AND BE WISE - Josephine Tey

It was rumoured that Hollywood stars would go to any lengths for the privilege of being photographed by the good looking . brilliantly talented and ultra-fashionable portrait photographer Leslie Searle.

But what was this gifted creature doing in such an English village backwater as Salcott St Mary's And why - and how- did he disappear?  If a crime had been committed , was it murder... or fraud.. or simply some macabre p[practical joke?

This mystery features Tey's detective, Alan Grant attempting to solve the disappearance of Searle.

This is very good, with the reader able to solve the riddle as all the information is available but close attention has to be paid.  Tey only got to write seven novels prior to her untimely death which was a shame as she gets better and better with each outing.

A HERO IN FRANCE - Alan Furst

Spring, 1941.  Britain is losing the war.

Paris is occupied by the Nazi's, dark and silent at night.  But when the clouds part, and moonlight floods the city,a Resistance leader called Mathieu steps out to begin work.

The fighters of the French Resistance are determined not to give up.  These courageous men and women- young and old, aristocrats and night club owners, teachers and students - help downed British airmen reach the border with Spain.

But as the military police heightens surveillance, Mathieu and his team face a new threat, dispatched from the Reich to destroy them all.

This is the fourth book of Furst's I've read out of  fourteen.  These books are that good I am rationing them because it would be a shame to race through them.

Furst has the ability to ratchet up the tension from the start while writing of the extraordinary courage that so many displayed during the time of the German atrocities in Europe.

The writing is minimalist, the story goes from event to event detailing success's and failures. Unfortunately the failures are catastrophic with no second chances.

Sensational and can't be recommended highly enough.

THE UNPLEASANTNESS AT THE BELLONA CLUB - Dorothy L. Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey bent down over General Fentiman and drew the "Morning Post"  gently away from the gnarled old hands. Then, with a quick jerk, he lifted the quiet figure.  It came up all of a piece, stiff as a wooden doll...

But who killed the general?

Sayers is the master from the 'golden age' of crime writing.  This is another thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery with the trade mark humour and  great banter between the characters.

This was published in 1928 and many of the characters here are suffering scars from the Great War which Sayers handles with great sympathy.

This is an excellent read and like all her books is recommended.