A review by tombomp
Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac

3.0

Solid mystery novel of a golden-age inspired mould - not exceptionally good but satisfying and very readable. The ending is good in that it's clearly been foreshadowed when you look back so it feels pretty "fair", with the new facts that complete the case being clearly hinted at a few times before. Only mild annoyance with the ending is it's one of those ones where the case against the murderer is circumstantial and would be unlikely to hold up in court and then the murderer does something silly and unnecessary to get the case clinched. But it's not too bad (although 1 particular thing stood out to me:

Spoiler

they emphasise multiple times that the murderer was in too bad physical shape to reasonably climb the hill... but then in the "what happened" narrative the detectives casually mention they climbed the hill in order for the ending to shake out. I mean you can make up your own explanation just felt like a weird oversight