Death at Dyke's Corner - E C R Lorac (for the 1940 club)

E C R Lorac is having a moment in the sun at the moment. Quite a few of her books have been republished recently as part of the British Library Crime Classics, and one published by them for the first time (Two-Way Murder). 

Death at Dyke's Corner isn't one of those,  I read the library's copy in Humanities 2 Reading Room in St Pancras in one sitting this morning (with a break for coffee and cake), and enjoyed it. It's an excellent book for a binge read - the set up for the murder was quite ingenious, the scene setting with the pouring rain and dangerous road very well done, and I've met Lorac's series detective MacDonald in previous books and found him unflashy but agreeable. The cast of supporting characters were also mostly good, even though the occasional aside of this sort (about Braid, the chauffeur): 'Like most Irishmen he thrived on controversy' or (about MacDonald himself): 'His rather comminatory - and extremely Scottish - train of thought.' felt not only very much of it's time but also completely superfluous, because Lorac successfully builds these characters by their dialogue and the things they notice, and doesn't need to reinforce them by telling us what we should think.  

Plot-wise the murder victim, Conyers, is a successful builder of department stores, moving into towns and buying up or undercutting the small local traders until he comes out on top, and there's a rather interesting discussion between one young lady and her father (the local squire type person) where 'Daddy' is all for the old ways, and she is pointing out the lack of hygiene in the old shops, and how some of them mercilessly bully and underpay their staff, or refuse to heat the place even in miserable weather, or sell you what they think you ought to want, and not what you do. It seems Mr Conyers' business practices were not solely a force for evil.

But his business practices were not the only possible reason for someone to kill Conyers. He was an adulterer with an eye for girls more his son's age than his own, and a bully at home. Anyone's murder, MacDonald says, and he's right. Much of the book is him clearing away the dead wood, talking to people, being his sensible and almost too considerate self. 

Until, that is, the last few chapters. 

Firstly, because of the treatment of some gypsies who are clearing out because they found something. MacDonald allows White, the gamekeeper, to explicitly threaten the man with a shotgun and enter their caravan uninvited and without sufficient reason and frighten his wife. The language used makes it clear what the gamekeeper thinks of gypsies, but it's MacDonald's complacency about it that grated. It felt out of character, especially contrasted to how reasonable and gentle he is with everyone else (including actual suspects). 

He then, a bit later, does another out of character thing by breaking into a dark house by himself rather than getting help or waiting the murderer out, which I can only think was put in to up the excitement, because even with the explanation that his colleagues are busy it's madly reckless, the kind of thing a completely different detective would do. It reminded me of those Poirot episodes that end in a chase around an airport or someone waving a gun about even though that was never in the original book. 

That said, the solution is clever, and when all was explained in the last chapter there were definite moments where I realised I should have spotted what he spotted. 

Incidentally gas masks and ARPs are mentioned on page 121 and there's a similar reference towards the end, but there's otherwise little or no reference to wider contemporary events in the book. 

As always thanks to Simon and Karen for running the club. You can find lots more reviews of other 1940 books, and previous years they've done, on their blogs.