Death of an author

This mystery first published in 1935 and resurrected by the British Library Crime Classics has the energy and bounce of a 1930s comedy. E. C. R. Lorac, the pen name for Edith Caroline Rivett, produced more than 70 mysteries. This one, besides being an entertaining stumper, shines a comic light on the fact that women mystery writers were assumed to be lightweights compared to men and often concealed their identities, as Lorac did. From the opening scenes, in which a publisher introduces Vivien Lestrange, the writer of a best-selling mystery, to another writer who is astonished that Vivien is a woman, Lorac plays with characters' and readers' expectations. The plot catapults from surprise to surprise. The female Vivien, who met the male writer, may be a cover for the actual, male Vivien. A charred corpse found in a remote cottage may be the author or not. Part of the fun is seeing how, decades before advanced forensic science, the two Scotland Yard inspectors investigating the case had to rely on evidence like the milkman's knowledge of people's schedules. Mystery writer and critic Martin Edwards provides a fascinating introduction. Readers may want to follow this up with more reissued E. C. R. Lorac mysteries, like Two-Way Murder (2021) and Murder by Matchlight (1945).

Another rarity for the British Library Crime Classics: a witty, ingenious mystery finally returned to print after 89 years. Against all odds, publisher Andrew Marriott succeeds in attracting his most unlikely author, reclusive crime novelist Vivian Lestrange, to a private dinner with another, celebrity author Michael Ashe, who wants to try his hand at a crime novel himself. The first surprise is that Lestrange turns out to be a young woman who engages Ashe in spirited argument. The second and third come three months later, when Eleanor Clarke, Lestrange's secretary, reports to the police that both her employer and his housekeeper, Mrs. Fife, have vanished (two more characters will eventually follow suit). It turns out that Lestrange is a man after all, whom Clarke impersonated for that dinner with her employer's full knowledge and amused cooperation. Inspector Bond, of the Hampstead police, and Chief Inspector Warner, of Scotland Yard, have distinctly different theories about the case. Their disagreements, sharpened by the discovery of an unidentifiable body in a burned-out rural cottage, give the pseudonymous Lorac (1894--1958), who clearly enjoys taking revenge on the early reviewers who thought she was a man, plenty of chances to bring different theories of the puzzle into dialogue with each other. "Detecting consists of asking the right questions," Warner asserts, and the biggest conundrum in this case is clearly whether the right question is "Who killed Vivian Lestrange?" or "Who is Vivian Lestrange?" Alert readers will beat the sleuths to the answer, but probably not by much. A rewardingly tangled discovery that's aged like fine wine. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.