This is by Christianna Brand (1907-88), and it was published in 1941.

It's my first novel by this author; it's the second one she wrote; and it's the first to feature the shrewd but shabby Inspector Cockrill, who went on to star in several more.

My audio-version was brilliantly narrated by Derek Perkins, who is definitely a performer to look out for.

All over the internet, people say that Brand (real name Mary Milne) was born in Malaya. Nobody -- but NOBODY -- says where... Jessica Mann, in an introduction to an edition that came out in 1994, adds that Dad was a rubber planter, Mum died early, and their daughter was educated first in India (again, I don't know where), and then at a convent school in Somerset. When she was 17, her family lost its money, forcing her to earn her own living in a number of trades: Governess, fashion model, night club hostess, secretary, and shop assistant, inter alia. Her first novel (which imagines her hated boss as a murder victim) was rejected by 15 publishers, but published by No. 16, also in 1941.


Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. We don't know where Brand went to school, but we can speculate that she knew Weston

Brand wrote a few more mysteries, but then turned her attention to children's books (her Nurse Matilda series was the basis for the Nanny McPhee movies).

This story is set on the Pigeonsford estate, where Stephen Pendock, the genial owner, is hosting a houseparty of five friends: Lady Hart and her twin granddaughters, Francesca and Venetia, Henry Gold (Venetia's husband), and James Nicholl, a studious young man waiting to join his regiment (we've just had the Dunkirk evacuation, and there are references to air raids, but the war doesn't make much of an appearance in the story).

Right at the beginning, we meet Grace Morland, who lives in the village. We don't like her much. She's very keen on Squire Stephen, but he's not in the least keen on her, being very taken instead by Fran (a much younger woman, of whom Grace is terribly jealous).

The other person interested in Fran is James. But he, we eventually find out, is encumbered by an injudicious marriage to actress Pippi Le May.

You don't know this from the audio-version, but at the beginning of the printed book, there's a list of characters, along with the remark: "Among these ten very ordinary people were found two victims and a murderer." I don't think it's giving two much away to say that the two corpses are those of Grace and Pippi, and they're both decapitated (an unusual detail in the literature of the time).

And, for various reasons, there's a very closed circle of suspects (namely, the party staying with Pendock), none of whom we have any reason to dislike or to regard as capable of murder. This is the most gripping element of the book. Who, out of all these genuinely nice people, can have taken to cutting people's heads off?

Scenario after scenario is suggested, only to be demolished. Until we get to the truth. Which, frankly, is a bit of a cheat. I really don't think someone's mental illness should be sprung on us right at the end...

But never mind. It was a good listen, and very intriguing. Great as a social comedy (the inquest scene was particularly enjoyable), with a wonderfully racy style that lends itself perfectly to an audio-format. (Indeed, some have suggested that in this book, "Christianna Brand is at a crossroads over what she wants to write: a murder mystery, or a novel of manners with murder included.")

Most of the bloggers I've read say she ended up doing much finer things (which will therefore be worth reading), but this book, we're told, was Brand's own favourite.



One final comment: Henry Gold is Jewish, because there always seems to be a Jewish character in vintage crime fiction... Although he has to suffer stereotyping and micro-aggression from some of the characters, Brand's depiction, argues this blogger, is an attempt to push back against the prevalent social prejudice: "'Trust a Jew,' said Venetia, laughing. 'He always does it [ie, win at games and bets]. It only shows that it’s quite right when they say that the Jews have all the money and people like Henry are responsible for the War and Mussolini and the measles epidemic and the common cold and everything else that ever goes wrong with the world.' In isolation this might seem a little odd, but it’s well-established that Venetia, Fran’s sister, is deeply in love with her husband and that this is at worst gentle raillery, an acknowledgement of the gross misdeeds done to the Jewish people in popular imagination. When the typically dry and unemotional Henry begins to crack a little later one, Venetia rebukes him by saying 'Don’t get all Jewish and sentimental, darling,' and it feels sort of revolutionary that the Jewish archetype is seen as open and caring when placed against the uptight, stiff-upper-lip British attitude of the era."

Not every reader sees it like that, of course, but this interpretation seems plausible to me.

All up, a writer to revisit.