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sunilsinghx's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Although I found the plot to be interesting and nothing like I had seen before with the murder aspect. It was very over complicated and sort of a struggle to read.
ladyinpnw's review against another edition
4.0
Good cozy mystery. If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie give this a read
robinwalter's review against another edition
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Ingeniously plotted, another fine story in the MacDonald series. The intricately layered story ended up being a case of "it must be them, they're still alive", but it was fun to read and the delightful twist in the tail, though not 100% unexpected, got the score bumped .25 of a point
fyre_flies's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Antisemitism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Infidelity
Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Suicide
marmalade72's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
fictionfan's review against another edition
5.0
Starring MacDonald of the Yard...
When Bruce Attleton doesn't turn up in Paris as planned, his friend Neil Rockingham begins to worry. A strange man called Debrette had been harrassing Attleton, so Rockingham sets another friend, young Robert Grenville, the task of tracking Debrette down. Things take a sinister turn when Grenville finds Attleton's suticase, complete with passport, in the cellar of the Belfry – an old building where Debrette had been living until very recently. Time to bring in Inspector MacDonald of the Yard...
This is an excellent early example of the police procedural novel, mixed with just enough amateur detection from young Grenville to make it fun and to keep the authentic Golden Age feel. Grenville plays a very minor second fiddle to the professional Inspector MacDonald though, and the police methods throughout have a feeling of authenticity that is rare in my experience of early crime fiction. MacDonald doesn't work alone – he heads a team, all allocated with different tasks and responsibilities suited to their rank, and we get a clear picture of the painstaking detection that lies behind MacDonald's brilliance.
The plot is nicely convoluted, involving murder, possible blackmail, secrets within families, a bit of adultery, and a solution that I only got to about five pages before MacDonald revealed all. MacDonald does, at one point, make a rather unbelievable leap of intuition, but for the most part the mystery is solved by conscientious fact-checking of alibis and identities, following suspects and making good use of forensic evidence.
The book is based in London – one of my favourite locations for crime novels – and Lorac is wonderfully descriptive in her writing, especially in the way she highlights the ancient and modern jostling side by side in the city, with short alleys leading from offices and factories to quiet little residential squares that seem unchanged by the passing centuries. The Belfry itself is a spooky place and Lorac gets in some nice little touches of horror to tingle the reader's spine. It's written in the third person past tense. Back in the Golden Age, most crime authors wrote well, but Lorac's writing impressed me more than most, often having quite a literary feel without ever becoming pretentious.
As with a lot of Golden Age fiction, there's a romantic sub-plot – young Grenville is in love with Elizabeth, Attleton's ward. They are both fun characters – Grenville is headstrong and occasionally foolish, always putting himself in danger and often paying the price for it, while Elizabeth is a modern girl, living in her club and with a mind and a will of her own. They give the reader someone to root for amidst the rest of the other rather unpleasant characters who are assembled as victims, suspects or both. Being modern young people, they talk in a kind of slang not far removed from how Wodehouse characters speak, and this adds a nice element of humour, keeping the overall tone light. MacDonald is no slouch in the slang department too, and I loved how Lorac gave each of the major characters such distinctive voices and personalities.
I can't begin to imagine why a book as good as this one would ever have been allowed to become “forgotten”. The British Library Crime Classics can be a bit variable in quality, but it's finding these occasional little gems among them that makes the series so enjoyable. One of their best.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When Bruce Attleton doesn't turn up in Paris as planned, his friend Neil Rockingham begins to worry. A strange man called Debrette had been harrassing Attleton, so Rockingham sets another friend, young Robert Grenville, the task of tracking Debrette down. Things take a sinister turn when Grenville finds Attleton's suticase, complete with passport, in the cellar of the Belfry – an old building where Debrette had been living until very recently. Time to bring in Inspector MacDonald of the Yard...
This is an excellent early example of the police procedural novel, mixed with just enough amateur detection from young Grenville to make it fun and to keep the authentic Golden Age feel. Grenville plays a very minor second fiddle to the professional Inspector MacDonald though, and the police methods throughout have a feeling of authenticity that is rare in my experience of early crime fiction. MacDonald doesn't work alone – he heads a team, all allocated with different tasks and responsibilities suited to their rank, and we get a clear picture of the painstaking detection that lies behind MacDonald's brilliance.
The plot is nicely convoluted, involving murder, possible blackmail, secrets within families, a bit of adultery, and a solution that I only got to about five pages before MacDonald revealed all. MacDonald does, at one point, make a rather unbelievable leap of intuition, but for the most part the mystery is solved by conscientious fact-checking of alibis and identities, following suspects and making good use of forensic evidence.
The book is based in London – one of my favourite locations for crime novels – and Lorac is wonderfully descriptive in her writing, especially in the way she highlights the ancient and modern jostling side by side in the city, with short alleys leading from offices and factories to quiet little residential squares that seem unchanged by the passing centuries. The Belfry itself is a spooky place and Lorac gets in some nice little touches of horror to tingle the reader's spine. It's written in the third person past tense. Back in the Golden Age, most crime authors wrote well, but Lorac's writing impressed me more than most, often having quite a literary feel without ever becoming pretentious.
As with a lot of Golden Age fiction, there's a romantic sub-plot – young Grenville is in love with Elizabeth, Attleton's ward. They are both fun characters – Grenville is headstrong and occasionally foolish, always putting himself in danger and often paying the price for it, while Elizabeth is a modern girl, living in her club and with a mind and a will of her own. They give the reader someone to root for amidst the rest of the other rather unpleasant characters who are assembled as victims, suspects or both. Being modern young people, they talk in a kind of slang not far removed from how Wodehouse characters speak, and this adds a nice element of humour, keeping the overall tone light. MacDonald is no slouch in the slang department too, and I loved how Lorac gave each of the major characters such distinctive voices and personalities.
I can't begin to imagine why a book as good as this one would ever have been allowed to become “forgotten”. The British Library Crime Classics can be a bit variable in quality, but it's finding these occasional little gems among them that makes the series so enjoyable. One of their best.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
vsbedford's review against another edition
3.0
A perfectly okay mystery that's peopled with some horrible characters favored by writers of this age; at least, in this instance, when a side character is called a "girl" she's nineteen instead of 27 (that's always a huge irritant to me, like she's got a JOB, detective, and her own GD apartment, call her by her given name). Anyway, there's a super dum-dum who's foiled in love and insists that he is as capable as the police, a kindly professor/mentor that tries to rein him in, a thoroughly awful victim and his cold wife, etc., etc., etc. The wrap up of this book is a thorough word salad but it's a lively one so you don't notice that it makes absolutely no sense. A weak recommend.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
iphigenie72's review against another edition
5.0
My second read of this series, excellent mystery. This series does not need to be read in order and it's probably why they are issuing them in ebooks out of order too, this one no 13 is the earliest I could find maybe they are choosing the best of the series?
We meet the suspects and maybe the victim at a party where a Elizabeth Leigh introduces the subject (because of a competition for the most clever way to dispose of a body her Club is having) of the best way to make a body disappear, later one, a body will be discovered and one of the ways will have been used in hiding it. Present are her guardian Bruce Attleton, a has been writer; his wife, a famous actress; a journalist who want to marry Elizabeth, a dramatist and a businessman. Attleton might be being blackmailed so the dramatist, Rockingham, wants the journalist to find the blackmailer while Rockingham and Attleton go to Paris separately. The journalist, Grenville, has a confrontation with the person he thinks is the blackmailer in the man's studio "The Belfry". When Rockingham comes back is it to tell Grenville that Attleton never met him in France, but Grenville has found Attleton suitcase and passport in the interim so they decide to get the police involve.
What I really liked about this is I was never sure of my deductions in the end I was right, but I like the feeling of uncertainty in a mystery. I really like how this series is written, getting to know the characters before the murder gives a deeper knowledge of them. It also feels like the detective is not hiding things to the reader, it is something that sometimes annoys me in the Inspector Alleyn series by [a:Ngaio Marsh|68144|Ngaio Marsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1237946649p2/68144.jpg] that she will have on the page her detective tell the twist in the ear of his sergeant (keeping the "surprise" for the reader) so I appreciate when that doesn't happen.
A very good mystery, I was a little lost about finding my next Golden Age of Mystery series to explore, but I have found it... I hope they reissue more, but I have some to read for awhile.
We meet the suspects and maybe the victim at a party where a Elizabeth Leigh introduces the subject (because of a competition for the most clever way to dispose of a body her Club is having) of the best way to make a body disappear, later one, a body will be discovered and one of the ways will have been used in hiding it. Present are her guardian Bruce Attleton, a has been writer; his wife, a famous actress; a journalist who want to marry Elizabeth, a dramatist and a businessman. Attleton might be being blackmailed so the dramatist, Rockingham, wants the journalist to find the blackmailer while Rockingham and Attleton go to Paris separately. The journalist, Grenville, has a confrontation with the person he thinks is the blackmailer in the man's studio "The Belfry". When Rockingham comes back is it to tell Grenville that Attleton never met him in France, but Grenville has found Attleton suitcase and passport in the interim so they decide to get the police involve.
What I really liked about this is I was never sure of my deductions in the end I was right, but I like the feeling of uncertainty in a mystery. I really like how this series is written, getting to know the characters before the murder gives a deeper knowledge of them. It also feels like the detective is not hiding things to the reader, it is something that sometimes annoys me in the Inspector Alleyn series by [a:Ngaio Marsh|68144|Ngaio Marsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1237946649p2/68144.jpg] that she will have on the page her detective tell the twist in the ear of his sergeant (keeping the "surprise" for the reader) so I appreciate when that doesn't happen.
A very good mystery, I was a little lost about finding my next Golden Age of Mystery series to explore, but I have found it... I hope they reissue more, but I have some to read for awhile.
lrconnol's review against another edition
5.0
This one kept me guessing until the end. Convoluted and confusing but a great mystery read.