I'm ever so glad that I bought this book, (as opposed to borrowing it from the library) as I found myself reading and chortling and reading and chortling, and chortling and underlining, and doodling little smiley faces in the margin, and chortling, and underlining, and smiley facing. I can't recall when I've marked up a book so monstrously. This was ripping fun. [Yes, I'm an American who has spent WAY too much time in British fiction and Acorn television, thank you, and this is a Brit story, so cheers, matey] A pub filled with a motley assortment of locals. A crafty murder in plain sight. A detective who finds himself falling in love with his most likely suspect. Delightful. A bubbly prosecco and butter cookies kind of read.
Note to anyone who might have a go at it: there are quite a few people involved, I had to make a list and wished that there was a cast of characters up front. More importantly, I was yearning for a pub map as the layout is important. There IS a map on page 63. Wish it had been in the early pages. ( )

Mathew Scaife, the local squire and a nasty old man, is found dead in the lounge of the village pub. Many of the other drinkers have motives for the murder, but none admit to seeing it. The local superintendent of police has interviewed the suspects and drawn his conclusions, not so much on the basis of fact but on his own prejudices. He cannot abide bohemians or independent women, so his suspicions have fallen on the writer Crescy Hardwick. Fortunately, the local police call in Inspector Guy Northeast from Scotland Yard.

The book was first published in 1941, and is set in 1939. WWII has just begun. Some of the male characters in their late twenties and early thirties have tried to enlist and been rejected, and are looking for ways to get into the services (which reminds me of Anthony Powell's The Kindly Ones, where Nicholas Jenkins is doing the same). People gather together to listen to Winston Churchill on the wireless.

Recommended. ( )

In blackout England, at the beginning of the war, the village Squire - Scaife - is killed in a crowded pub. It is up to Inspector Guy Northeast to find the murderer.
Unfortunately my main suspect was proved to be the guilty one - very disappointing.
A NetGalley Book ( )

local landowner killed in pub