Forgotten Book - Post after Post-Mortem

I'm working my way slowly through the books of E.C.R. Lorac (and those published under the name Carol Carnac) and continuing to enjoy her work. I don't claim that she's a match for Christie, Sayers, Berkeley, or Wade, but to me she is a sound detective author of the second rank. I also keep musing about the precise reasons for her resurgence in popularity following the appearance of several of her novels as British Library Crime Classics (the most recent being These Names Make Clues - a really good one!) 

Often she focuses on setting, but she doesn't neglect character. As a generalisation, she takes more interest in her people than, say, John Rhode or Freeman Wills Crofts, but she is also adept at the mechanics of mystification. Post after Post-Mortem illustrates these virtues. The book was first published in the Collins Crime Club in 1936, but copies are very elusive and I've certainly never seen one in a dust jacket. Definitely a forgotten book, then, but one well worth a look.

The main setting this time is Oxfordshire - Stow and Moreton receive several mentions. In the first chapter, set in Upwood, a country house in that part of the world, we are introduced to the Surray family, whose lives appear to be idyllic. Young Naomi has just earned herself a First in Greats, while other members of the family include Ruth, an attractive but enigmatic figure who has established a successful career as a literary novelist. And literary matters play an interesting part in the storyline.

But then Ruth is found dead. At first, all the indications are that she has taken her own life as a result of a bout of depression. But then a misdirected letter that she sent to her brother Richard immediately prior to her demise comes belatedly to light and casts serious doubt on the inquest verdict. Richard consults Inspector MacDonald and the Scotland Yard man sets about unravelling a complex puzzle. This is one of the best Loracs I've read.   

Forgotten Book - These Names Make Clues

Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on an inscribed copy of E.C.R. Lorac's These Names Make Clues, an uncommon Collins Crime Club title from 1937; no dust jacket (the one in pictured is an image from Mark Terry's fascinating site of facsimile wrappers), but still a treasured possession. All the more so because the story is an enjoyable one. In fact I'd rate this as one of the more interesting Loracs.

A key reason for my enthusiasm is that this book is more in the realm of the classic "closed circle" puzzle mystery than some of the author's other work. Inspector Macdonald is invited to a Treasure Hunt evening convened by a publisher called Graham Coombe, who shares a big house in London with his sister Susan. His fellow guests are mystery writers, but part of the fun is for their identities to be concealed under pseudonyms.

The seasoned crime fan won't be surprised to learn that this pleasant idea backfires when a death takes place during the treasure hunt. The deceased was an author called Andrew Gardien, and the suspects are the Coombes and the novelists. Complications ensue when Gardien's literary agent is also found dead. Were either of the deaths murder? Macdonald investigates, abetted by a breezy young journalist called Vernon.

What fascinates me particularly about this novel, published in the year that Lorac was elected to membership of the Detection Club, is that there are strong reasons to infer that her initial experience of the Club supplied the inspiration for the story and some of the characters. Coombe may be Billy Collins, but I'm fairly sure that Gardien was inspired (albeit not in terms of his personality) by John Rhode.

I also suspect that Rhode influenced (maybe even suggested to her; he was a generous man) Lorac's choice of m.o. in relation to the two deaths. Other characters seem to me to bear traces of Douglas and Margaret Cole, and Baroness Orczy. As for the plot, it boasts variety and ingenious touches aplenty, though to my mind it's not really a "fair play" whodunit, given that a key fact is revealed rather late on. Definitely a book that deserves better than the obscurity which has been its fate since the 1930s.