The Documents in the Case

Miss Lemon just loves a good poisoning ... don't you? 

If so, her faithful readers will not want to miss Dorothy L. Sayers's The Documents in the Case (1930) a marvel of a murder mystery told entirely in the correspondence and written statements of the key figures in the case.

George Harrison, a likable chap devoted to his family and his pastimes, is unceremoniously poisoned by a stew of amanita muscaria, a mushroom famous for its deadly venom. See the photo at right and beware not to mistake it for amanita rubescens, or the comparatively benign and edible 'warty caps.' 

The hitch here is that Mr. Harrison was a seasoned gatherer and connoisseur of edible toadstools -- he even published a book on the topic and illustrated it himself. His son, Paul, finds it impossible to believe that his father would make such an amateurish mistake. So he collects the said documents and forwards them to Sir Gilbert Pugh at the Home Office. And thus an inventive and absorbing narrative unfolds, one that doubles as an armchair investigation.

Miss Lemon finds more than just the meta-form of this novel intriguing. Its creation is something of a curiosity, too. The copy Miss Lemon read, published by the New English Library in 1978, clearly names Robert Eustace as co-author. Yet many other editions -- and bibliographies of Sayers's work -- do not.

Eustace, the nom de plume of Eustace Robert Barton, a doctor and novelist in his own right, is credited by some sources with supplying Sayers with the central plot point and supporting medical and technical details that make The Documents in the Case such a marvel.  At the same time, those details are what sometimes interfered with Miss Lemon's willing suspension of disbelief. The technical whys and scientific wherefores are such that Miss Lemon found it hard to believe such minutia could be recalled in a letter or a written statement.  Unless, of course, the author was an inventive novelist himself.

How much of this work is Sayers's? And how much is Eustace's? Literary sleuths will enjoy puzzling out that question as much as they will the case of one very suspicious death.

Evil Under the Sun

For every evil under the sun,

There is a remedy; or there is none;

If there be one, try and find it,

If there be none, never mind it. 

-- Mother Goose

Catchy little rhyme, isn't it? Though the words have come to us on the wings of Mother Goose, they could have been as easily taken from the mouth of M. Hercule Poirot, as he tries to solve an intricately planned murder in Evil Under the Sun (1941).

The mise en scène is pure Agatha Christie. The stage is a secluded island off Leathercombe Bay, complete with a pirate's cove and a causeway that floods at high tide. The players are a delightfully Christie-esque cast that leaves no one without questionable character, opportunity or motive. There's the much despised Arlena Marshall, a former actress, and as many of her fellow guests would have it: 'a man eater.' Her husband, Captain Marshall, is an excellent specimen of English reserve.  There's a philandering husband and his wall-flower wife. An obnoxious couple from America (Mrs. Christie gets the 'And didn't I tell them, Odell' and the 'yes, dears,' just right); an athletic spinster; a successful dressmaker; a fanatical vicar; a shady, 'self-made' investor; and, lastly but not leastly, the neglected stepdaughter of the Marshalls.

All of these characters play some role -- even if ever so small -- in what turns out to be a most puzzling mystery. But M. Poirot, as Miss Lemon has known for so long now, is not to be gotten the better of.

Perhaps one of the particular pleasures of this novel (if Miss Lemon dare make mention of it) is to see the rough treatment the preening Poirot gets at the hands of Mrs. Christie. Horace Blatt, the self-made millionaire, sums up the company thus: 'A lot of kids, to begin with, and a lot of old fogeys too. There's that old Anglo-Indian bore and that athletic parson and those yapping Americans and that foreigner with the moustache -- makes me laugh that moustache of his! I should say he's a hair-dresser, something of that sort.'

Although the year was only 1941, and Dame Agatha was entering the peak of her powers as a crime novelist, it's clear that Poirot, loth as he'd be to believe it, is beginning to wear.

But her gentle barbs are just part of the fun. And they, with the mesmerizing seclusion of the coves and cliffs, make for a delightfully chilling game of mystery and murder. A perfect diversion for a hot summer's day.

Faithful unto Death

Miss Lemon begs her readers' pardon for her long silence. No, she wasn't enjoying an extended holiday in Biarritz. She was moving house! A daunting task, one must agree, for those who collect British mysteries in the quantity that Miss Lemon does.

Whilst un-shelving, organising and re-shelving her treasured possessions, Miss Lemon came across Faithful unto Death (1996), the fifth entry in the Inspector Barnaby series, and she enjoyed every second of it.

In this installment, Barnaby and his smug bag-carrier, Sgt. Troy, are tasked first with the disappearance of Simone Hollingsworth, the docile-seeming wife of an aggressive technology entrepreneur, and then, later, Alan Hollingsworth's suspicious suicide. Thrown into the mix is the brutal hit-and-run that kills Deborah Brockley, an awkwardly plain 30-something spinster and neighbour of the Hollingsworths, who harbours surprising secrets of her own. 

Are these crimes connected? And who could be the author of such callous violence in a village as quaint and placid as Fawcett Green? The solution certainly surprised Miss Lemon.

Like all of Caroline Graham's novels, Faithful unto Death is witty and well-crafted and stuffed full of quirky characters shrewdly drawn. A perfect diversion from relocation stress.

The Franchise Affair

Life had been sailing along rather comfortably, if not rather dully, for Robert Blair, senior partner of Blair, Hayward and Bennett, the next-to-only legal firm in the village of Milford. Miss Tuff had been relied upon to bring his tea (petit-beurre Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; digestives Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays) on the same lacquered tray with the same white linen napkin at precisely the same time for nearly a quarter of a century. As the last post of the day went at 3:45 in the afternoon, it was often Mr. Blair could knock off as soon as four for a late-afternoon round of golf.

Lassitude and golf weighed heavily on Mr. Blair's mind when on an afternoon in April, difficult to distinguish from thousands of others, the phone rang a minute after tea and the last post, and the Franchise affair began.

The facts of the case in Josephine Tey's The Franchise Affair (1949) turn out to be as sensational as they are seductively credible.  Robert Blair finds himself coming to the defense of two women whom the villagers quickly brand as witches. Are they guilty of the charges that are laid against them?

My dear readers, trying to work out whether they are or they are not quickly becomes the most compelling aspect of the novel.

Inspector Grant makes a small cameo appearance, but in actuality the investigation of the alleged crimes in the Franchise affair is up to Robert Blair. If Miss Lemon found anything wanting in this near-perfect mystery, it is that in the end, coincidence rather than the labour of the little grey cells put paid the mysteries of the Franchise affair. But it is a small criticism of what is an otherwise highly enjoyable whodunit.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

Only the other day, a brightly coloured package arrived at Miss Lemon's door. Imagine her delight when after untying the ribbon she discovered a book bedecked in a shade Miss Lemon could only describe as eponymous. It was the latest in the Flavia de Luce series:  A Red Herring Without Mustard.

The package reminded Miss Lemon that there was another book by Alan Bradley with a similarly eccentric title that sat among her prodigious bookshelves, patiently awaiting her attention.

Dismayed at having neglected the followup to such a delightful debut as The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Miss Lemon set to The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag with alacrity.

She wasn't disappointed. After making a brief adjustment to her suspension of disbelief to the incredible precociousness and cultural wisdom of the novel's eleven-year-old detective, Flavia de Luce, she found many of the same narrative pleasures and surprises as she found in Mr. Bradley's first novel. Only this time it is July, not June, and the murder victim is a puppeteer rather than a philatelist.

Once again, Flavia attempts to poison her older sister, Feely. Once again, she carries out harrowing experiments in her laboratory to find out things that perhaps she'd be better off not knowing. Once again, she cloaks her tale in a colourful cape of amusing metaphors and wry philosophical observations. 

In short, this is a novel not to be missed. And as it refers to several of the events in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, it may be prudent to read it before cracking A Red Herring Without Mustard.

Now if you're wondering (and who isn't?) where Mr. Bradley comes up with these madcap titles, he is gentleman enough to tell you, just after the flyleaf:

Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son
Three things there be that prosper up apace, 
   And flourish while they grow asunder far;
But on a day, they meet all in a place,
   And when they meet, they one another mar.

And they be these; the Wood, the Weed, the Wag:
   The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree;
The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag;
    The Wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee.

Now mark, dear boy -- while these assemble not,
   Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild;
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot,
   It frets the halter, and it chokes the child. 

Indeed, my dear readers, mark this well. For in it, you'll find many a clue; perhaps even before Flavia de Luce does.

Three Blind Mice

Miss Lemon doesn't feel that she is going too far by saying "Three Blind Mice," the first story in this eponymous short-story collection by Agatha Christie is perhaps one of her all-time best.

And as her devoted readers will agree, when it comes to pacing and plot, Dame Agatha is no slouch at the mystery in short form.

Neither one of these elements in stinted in "Three Blind Mice," where the mise-en-scéne draws the reader in without delay: a blizzard bears down on the lonely guesthouse of Monkswell Manor, while its novice proprietors await with anxiety and uncertainty their strange list of guests.

As it so often happens in stories by Agatha Christie, not all ends up well at the Manor. First one murder occurs; then another. And while one of the guests at Monkswell picks out a haunting little nursery tune on the piano: Three blind mice; Three blind mice / See how they run; See how they run; another lays a trap that may well prevent the murder of a third.

There's quite a bit of history behind Mrs. Christie's story, a wicked play on the old Mother Goose rhyme by the same name. "Three Blind Mice" made its debut as a radio play in May 1947 and was broadcast in honor of Queen Mary's 80th birthday celebration. Mrs. Christie later worked the radio play into a short story in December 1948, and, then, in 1949, into a stage drama, which is now best known the world over as London's longest-running-ever play, The Mousetrap.

The play opened at The Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End in 1952 and starred Sir Richard Attenborough -- and it was a tremendous success. Meanwhile, the short story had been published in a magazine in the U.S. and then was collected and published, in 1950, in Three Blind Mice and Other Stories. But Mrs. Christie wavered when it came to having a similar sort of collection published in the U.K., as so many people had yet to see The Mousetrap.

And so it is still today. The Mousetrap continues its historical run in London's West End (now at St. Martin's Theatre) and "Three Blind Mice" as a short story is still only available in the States. An interesting fate for both works.

What Miss Lemon enjoyed seeing most especially in the short-story version were the little elements sprinkled within the narrative that were clearly drawn from Mrs. Christie's own experience after World War II, with the sudden shortage of affordable houses and domestic servants. Rationing was another issue that adds an interesting plot dimension. In all, "Three Blind Mice" is excellent fun -- but do respect Mrs. Christie's wishes and don't read it if you haven't yet seen the stage version. 

Do you have a favourite short story by Agatha Christie? Miss Lemon would love to hear what it is.

The Murders of Richard III

My dear readers: Have you ever wondered whether Richard III really did murder those innocent babes in the Tower to secure his position on the English throne?

Miss Lemon must tell you that she likes to ponder that tricky bit of history every now again. So it was with great pleasure that she picked up The Murders of Richard III (1974), by Elizabeth Peters, wherein the main characters seek to suss out the truth behind the much-maligned reign of dark King Richard.

Their parlour-games of re-enactment, however, quickly turn treacherous as one by one the various characters that were supposed victims of Richard III fall into mischief and even worse.

Will Jacqueline Kirby, Ms. Peters' spirited librarian-cum-sleuth who sets on the case with her prodigious handbag and formidable store of knowledge sort out the tangled histories and the mystery of the Ricardian trickster in time to stop a murderer?

Miss Lemon leaves it to her readers to find out.

She will say, though, that those who like medieval history are certain to like this book. Ditto for admirers of Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, which the book gently spoofs. For if there was ever a figure from history who has swirling about him more mystery than Richard III, Miss Lemon would like to meet him.

Elizabeth Peters is one of the nom de plumes for Barbara Mertz, a respected historian and author of nearly 70 books, including works of nonfiction. Two of these are now considered classic works of popular history: Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs and Red Land, Black Land. She earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1952. Mystery Writers of America awarded her the MWA Grandmaster in 1998.

When it comes to the past, Ms. Peters knows whereof she speaks.

Six Feet Under

Yes, my dear readers, you all know it by now. Miss Lemon loves to grouse about Inspector Thanet. Reading Six Feet Under (1982), by Dorothy Simpson, has done little to change that proclivity.

Stuffy and self-satisfied, the Inspector could rival M. Poirot, were it only that he had a sense of humour.

But the poor man in trying.

Now that his partner, DC Mike Lineham, is about to enter the matrimonial state (the only state, by the way, that Luke Thanet thinks fit to live in, so it's high time), he turns his moral apprehensions homeward. 

And my, does Inspector Thanet find something to fret about: His wife Joan is thinking of ... how could she? ... joining the workforce. Life, Thanet predicts, will never be as sweet, harmonious, or comfortable as it is with Joan waiting for him quietly at home.

While he gnashes his teeth over this familial conundrum, a more serious domestic drama unfolds in the bucolic village of Nettleton. Carrie Birch, an introverted spinster devoted to the care of her invalid mother, is found murdered.

Who would want to harm a woman so drab and selfless as Carrie?

As Thanet and Lineham go digging, they turn up plenty of dirt, as it were, on Carrie and the few villagers she lived among.

Miss Lemon doesn't feel as though she's giving much away if she says that Thanet is wise and decent enough to see from the business in Nettleton that a stranglehold put on a loved one is no way to ensure that love is returned.

As Miss Lemon said, he is trying. Despite Inspector Thanet's irritating ways, this is a smartly plotted and psychologically insightful mystery.  Well worth the read.

The Balmoral Nude

What do Queen Victoria, a pre-Raphaelite artist, the Rt. Hn.ble William Ewart Gladstone and the murder of a gin-shop courtesan have in common?

In The Balmoral Nude (1990), by Carolyn Coker, the connections add up to a delightful stew of art, history, murder and mystery.

It seems Cecil T. Fetherston was a one-time tutor of art to Queen Victoria. He also happened to fall in love with a prostitute called Emma. Mr. Gladstone, who was known to proselytize among the less morally fortunate in Victoria's time, has the unhappy luck to witness jealousy get the better of Mr. Fetherston.

When Fetherston is hanged for Emma's murder, he leaves behind a tantalizing cache of pen-and-ink drawings.

Deborah Foley, the twentieth-century heir to the Fetherston Gallery, dangles the drawings in front of several parties more than eager to own them; and the result, as one might guess, is a nasty series of murder. 

Miss Lemon found herself enjoying this novel in spite of herself. None of the characters are particularly likable. There's an obnoxious couple from Phoenix, Arizona, who buy up British artefacts and otherwise spend their lives making excuses for their spoilt and slatternly daughter, unfortunately called 'India.' Worse, they've just bought a title at auction and now insist on being addressed as Lord and Lady Smith-Hamilton.

Deborah Foley, the owner of the Fetherston Gallery is a vague and single-minded woman, whose chief interest is her American husband, Clayton, whose occupation is modeling for Harris Tweeds and whose demeanour and appearance made Miss Lemon think constantly of the Marlboro Man. Deborah's brother, Arthur, evokes the prodigal Sebastian Flyte, from Brideshead Revisited, but he seems to lack all of Sebastian's charms.

There's an uptight and ambitious gallery manager, called Sybil Forbes; and an arts reporter, called Mandy Carruthers, famous for her plunging necklines; and a writer, called Malcolm Putney, who happens to be publishing a book on the Queen Victoria, William Gladstone, Cecil Fetherston connection, and who would stoop as low as required to get his hands on the drawings to illustrate his otherwise unremarkable work.

But for all these grasping characters, The Balmoral Nude is neatly written, with sharp characterization, snappy dialogue and evidence of the author's keen sense of just what to leave out to keep the pace zinging along. Best of all is the late-to-arrive Inspector Chadwick of Chipping Codsbury, who does little more than lurk. And in the process, of course, he catches himself a murderer.

The Balmoral Nude is long out of print. But should her readers see a copy in a second-hand shop, Miss Lemon's advice would be to snap it up. It's perfect holiday reading.

Dead Man's Mirror

For her readers about to set about on their summer holidays, might Miss Lemon recommend Dead Man's Mirror, a chilling collection of tales by the dame of whodunit, Agatha Christie, to tuck into their steamer trunks? She promises it will make passage on the Queen Mary -- or any other mode of transport -- seem all the more swift.

The book sets off in the way it means to continue with its title story, "Dead Man's Mirror," a novella, really, that is also one of Mrs. Christie's takes on the old mystery chestnut: the locked-room murder. Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore, a man by all accounts of remarkable ego and quite possibly mad, is found in his study shot through the head. A revolver lies beneath his dangling fingers; a note scrawled in haste on the blotter reads a desperate 'SORRY.' Both the window and door to the room are locked and the key is conveniently found in Sir Gervase's pocket.

Seems like a neat case for suicide until Hercule Poirot picks a tiny shard of shattered glass from the base of statue. The case, he observes, "is like the mirror smashed on the wall. The dead man's mirror. Every new fact we come across shows us some different angle of the dead man.... We shall soon have a complete picture."

"Murder in the Mews," the second in the lineup, is also a locked-room murder; but one, Miss Lemon thinks, more elegantly plotted. M. Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp stroll along the streets of London on the evening of 5 November, when Japp remarks that all the fireworks would be just the thing to disguise a murder. And indeed, the two are led to just such a ploy when they are called to investigate the death of Mrs. Barbara Allen. Ostensibly another suicide, this time the angle of the bullet wound and the absence of prints on the weapon make it impossible for any but the most naive to think that was so.

Mrs. Allen's flat mate, Miss Prenderleith takes her death a bit too cooly for Japp; but there are others just as 'hairy at the heel.' Miss Lemon gives nothing away when she says that the clue to this mystery is more smoke than mirrors. 

The final story -- and Miss Lemon's favourite -- is titled "Triangle at Rhodes." It begins with a peek at HP in top form:

Hercule Poirot sat on the white sand and looked out across the sparkling blue water. He was carefully dressed in a dandified fashion in white flannels and a large panama hat protected his head. He belonged to the old-fashioned generation which believed in covering itself carefully from the sun. Miss Pamela Lyall, who sat beside him and talked ceaselessly, represented the modern school of thought in that she was wearing the barest minimum of clothing on her sun-browned person.

Miss Lyall, like Poirot in his own more subtle way, is at once observing and gossiping. Little does she know that she's about to witness the makings of murder.

'Mademoiselle,' said Poirot and his voice was abrupt, 'I do not like this at all!'

'Don't you?  Nor do I. No, let's be honest, I suppose I do like it really. There's a horrid side of one that enjoys accidents and public calamities and the unpleasant things that happen to one's friends.'

This story, which was later expanded in Evil Under the Sun (1941), neatly reminds Miss Lemon why she enjoys mysteries so much.

*Miss Lemon must note that this American edition, published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1937 omits the fourth story included in the British edition published by Collins, "The Incredible Theft." But with writing so blithe and with Poirot and Japp in such high good humour, she scarcely noticed the lack.

Unnatural Causes

Please don't think Miss Lemon unkind if this recommendation of P. D. James's Unnatural Causes (1967) sounds halfhearted.

In fact, there are many things Miss Lemon likes about this novel, set in the very isolated, very literary village of Monksmere, precariously perched on the edge of the North Sea. At the same time, Miss Lemon regrets to say that she found a few things about Unnatural Causes less genial.

So let's get the unpleasantries out of the way first, shall we? For starters, Miss Lemon does not much care for Adam Dalgliesh. Now before her loyal readers stoke the heretical fires, do let Miss Lemon explain.

At least in this particular work, Superintendent Dalgliesh is condescending and smug, and, worse, reluctant to get involved in a riveting case because he's on holiday in Monksmere, visiting his spinster Aunt Jane. Not a convincing excuse. Because in the meantime, the body of a local mystery novelist drifts to shore in a dinghy, the writer's hands severed neatly at the wrists. Not long after, a likely suspect finds that a hefty dose of arsenic is decidedly not his cup of tea (or whiskey).

But Dalgliesh remains largely unmoved. Sometimes simpering (he's ostensibly on holiday to have a good think about whether marrying Deborah Briscoe would turn out to be too much of a bore); sometimes seething (Dalgliesh takes great offence to the insinuation by Inspector Reckless that his saintly aunt might somehow be implicated in the crime), Dalgliesh seems content to tell himself that this is Reckless's show and he's perfectly capable of managing it alone.

Even so, Dalgliesh can scarcely mask his disdain. Even among the writerly cabal that seems to have headquartered itself at Monksmere, Dalgliesh, because he is a poet, places himself on the artistic high ground. There's Maurice Seton, the mystery writer; Celia Calthorp, a garish woman who pens romance; Oliver Latham, the womanizing theatre critic; and J. D. Sinclair, literary novelist and village recluse. And although they seem to outwardly despise each other, it's nothing odd to find them converging en masse on poor old Aunt Jane, or lunching and picnicking, or spending the evenings in one another's company. Again, not very convincing.

Perhaps Miss Lemon still feels the sting of Ms. James referring to Agatha Christie as a 'literary conjurer,' with hardly any influence on the detective novel as we know it today in her latest book, Talking About Detective Fiction. She also calls Mrs. Christie's characters 'pasteboard,' which is all well and good so long as one cannot be accused of employing them in one's own fiction. To wit, Aunt Jane.

But to be fair, there were many things that drew Miss Lemon into Unnatural Causes. The village setting, along the craggy Suffolk coast, was deftly drawn. There's also an unforgettable scene in London at the fictional Cadaver Club, set up in Tavistock Square. This is one of Miss Lemon's favourite parts of London, and if only there were such a club that privately catered to mystery writers and criminologists and which exhibited relics of unforgettable crimes....

Even so it reminds one that even with its flaws, Unnatural Causes is still worth reading. One of the novel's most clever aspects is the metafiction on which it rests. The opening chapter is a lovingly drawn description of a handless body adrift at sea -- the very description found in the manuscript that Maurice Seton posts to his secretary from the Cadaver Club.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Do forgive Miss Lemon if she seems to be hopping on the Alan Bradley bandwagon. But it was the title that drew her to this sassy sleeper from 2009.

That clever turn of phrase -- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie -- comes from William King's The Art of Cookery, published in 1708:

Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?

Catchy, isn't it?

Indeed, the cover sets one to thinking about pies and crusts and even jack snipes, poisons and postage stamps, which are just the points on which this mystery turns.

Miss Lemon found many things to like about this novel and its heroine-cum-detective, Flavia de Luce. She is smart, for starters. Preternaturally so. But Miss Lemon was more than willing to suspend her disbelief for an eleven year old so well read and culturally astute as to remark that Beethoven sounds as if he cribbed all of his piano works from Mozart and that in a perfect world, the Bishop's Lacey library would be open 24/7. Did she mention that Miss de Luce also maintains a sophisticated laboratory and not only has the periodic table memorized, but also owns a first edition of Richard Mead's A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays (1702)?

Flavia de Luce is also resourceful. And not in the least squeamish -- of rats, of heights, of bullying pub owners, or of creepy philatelists. She is plucky almost to a fault.

By the same token, Miss Lemon found a few things she did not like in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. A protracted and borderline-violent confrontation with the killer made Miss Lemon think that perhaps Mr. Bradley takes too liberal an interpretation of the conventions of cosy crime fiction (see six rules for cosy writing on Mysterious Matters).

He also overdoes it with the metaphors. Readers will be treated to at least one in every paragraph, and sometimes more. Sometimes many more. This will irritate some of Miss Lemon's followers, she fears. But on the whole, many of the metaphors do as Aristotle dictates: they help the reader to see some emotion or action or sense differently by extracting some essential essence by way of the comparison. Those metaphors that don't live up to this standard could have been edited out.

But these are two small quibbles in what is an otherwise highly enjoyable mystery with a gratifyingly original heroine. Miss Lemon has already placed The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag high on her to-read pile. (It's the title again!)

Death of a Mystery Writer

For her readers who cherish every quirky aspect of the classic British mystery (and if you're reading this column, surely that means you), may Miss Lemon recommend Robert Barnard's delightful Death of a Mystery Writer (1978).

The novel has everything, from a cold-blooded poisoning in the polite village of Wycherley to a gaggle of disappointed heirs and a Welsh detective who's just far enough left of the mainstream to stir up the long (long) list of suspects into an amusing set to.

Few and far between are the people who know best-selling mystery writer Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs and would not like to see him dead. As insufferable as the Welsh detective he creates, Sir Oliver likes nothing better than to get the better of his inferiors. Whether he's insulting his neighbour's wine or making his children grovel for favour, Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs finds no shortage of enemies.

Worse, his novels aren't even good. Sir Oliver knows little about crime or its detection, and he has never once met a Welsh person.

And that's just what makes Death of a Mystery Writer such a deliciously smart satire. Miss Lemon may even go so far as to give it that terribly modern label: meta-mystery. With chapter titles and dramatic twists that allude to the masters, like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, the ironies abound.

To wit: when Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs at long last drinks a deadly draught of nicotine-tainted Lakka, a Welsh detective is called in to investigate. The murder, more than one of the suspects remarks, could have been taken directly from the pages of one of Sir Oliver's novels.

Pardon Miss Lemon for mentioning the she even sees shades of herself in Sir Oliver's unflappable literary secretary, Miss Cozzens. Inspector Meredith notes that "the brief glimpse that he had had of her ... suggested to him that here was a woman with no nonsense about her.... On the surface she looked like a shorthand taking machine, and a totally conventional moral entity -- but behind the glasses savage little glints of intelligence were to be detected."

Readers should be not at all surprised at the level of complexity and cleverness they'll find in Death of a Mystery Writer. Robert Barnard names Agatha Christie as one of his favourite mystery writers, and her presence is felt keenly here and in other works. Mr. Barnard wrote an appreciation of Mrs. Christie in 1980 called A Talent to Deceive. It is now on Miss Lemon's to-read pile.