Murder After Christmas
by Rupert Latimer (Macdonald & Co., 1944)
audiobook read by Kris Dyer (Soundings, 2021)
A murder mystery most notable for obfuscating events behind a blanket barrage of affability. All the suspects have blithely joked about doing in Uncle Willie. Latimer plays endlessly with motive and opportunity, meandering up false trails until it all becomes quite tedious.
There’s Trouble Brewing
by Nicholas Blake (Collins Crime Club, 1937)
audiobook read by Kris Dyer (Bolinda, 2016)
The mystery is skilfully put together. Nigel Strangeways has personality (especially as voiced in Dyer’s audiobook reading), yet never really stuns with his deductions. Meantimes, he adds a jarring, rather artificial note by soliloquising at length over possible interpretations of the evidence.
Till Death Do Us Part
by John Dickson Carr (Hamish Hamilton, 1944)
audiobook read by Kris Dyer (Soundings, 2022)
A thoroughly ingenious locked room murder mystery, but one in which the author focusses too much on obfuscation. The narrator stumbles from confusion to confusion while the detective (Gideon Fell) skirts the main issue and sits pretty but silent on the solution.
Thou Shell of Death
by Nicholas Blake (Collins, 1936); audiobook read by Kris Dyer (Bolinda, 2015)
A marked improvement on the first book. Nigel Strangeways appears from the outset and isn’t so abstruse in puzzling out the murder(s). Still, he remains slow on the uptake—less dazzling detective, more scatter-brained dilettante bumbling his way through a crossword puzzle.
A Question of Proof
by Nicholas Blake (Harper and Brothers, 1935); audiobook read by Kris Dyer (Bolinda, 2015)
As much middling school story as murder mystery, the untangling of which rarely stirs the reader beyond mild interest. Poetry-quoting gentleman detective Nigel Strangeways elevates the story but makes his appearance late and lacks a sidekick to unpick his seemingly capricious actions.