It's July 1955 and English author Donald Langham is trying to screw up the courage to propose to literary agent Maria Dupré, but trouble keeps intervening.
When author Edward Endicott disappears while writing a biography of a 120 year old occultist, his son Alasdair asks Langham, an ex-PI for help.
With only a couple of idiomatic anachronisms, Eric Brown writes a period piece of detective fiction. It has its precursors in the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers -- a country house/locked room mystery that involves such characters as writers, a fading ex-movie star, the local vicar and a distasteful local artist.
Murder at the Chase combines period touches with an updated sensibility. The clues are in the technologies and attitudes of the time, and they are there for the reader to ferret out, so to speak. All the best crime/mysteries let the reader have a fair chance to beat the sleuths to the solution.
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Ali Kayn |