The Hog's Back Mystery: British
Library Crime Classics
Freeman Wills Crofts
Poisoned Pen Press, Jul 7 2015, $12.95
ISBN: 9781464203817
Thirty miles from London at the Ash Train Station
in Surrey, Julia Earle welcomes two visitors (her sister novelist Marjorie
Lawes and their friend Ursula Stone) she has not seen in years. Not long after the trio call on another
school mate Alice Campion.
Soon after their arrival, Julia’s husband retired
doctor James vanishes from their St. Kilda home near the Hog’s Back Ridge. Arriving by train, Scotland
Yard Inspector Joseph French leads the
investigation into what he assumes is a domestic dispute most likely due to
infidelities. He revises his first
impressions when Superintendent Sheaf explains that only the two siblings were
home when James failed to return from a walk.
Soon after others also disappear before the first corpse is found.
This is a reprint of a terrific 1933 rural British police
procedural. Most of the storyline
centers on French’s inquiry as he struggles to find motives and breaking alibis
while slowly putting together a timeline (reminds me of Canadian Constabulary
Detective Murdoch’s chalkboard). The
convoluted whodunit and why make for an interesting read although the
storyline’s intriguing methodology also keeps readers at armchair’s length from
the mostly off-page action.
Harriet Klausner
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