The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham is a super little detective work, more novella than novel, and has the added bonus of being intended for adults which is sure to impress the younger end of our age group particularly. A man called Crowther is shot in the study of his neighbour's house. He is a nasty peice of work who bullies and emotionally blackmails those around him. His manservant and another man called Cellini have suffered this, as have the neighbours Mr and Mrs Christensen, and Mrs Christensen's sister Norah Bayliss. On the spot is Jerry Challoner who calls in his father W. T. Challoner of the Yard to help solve what on the surface seems to us an ordinary country house mystery whilst young Jerry inevitable gets drawn to Norah. After a lengthy journey with the cast through France (where we learn of the master network of thieves) and the passage of some years, the outcome of this tale turns out to be far from ordinary.
A lovely Golden Age dectetive novel The White Cottage Mystery has a small cast of characters and a great little twist at the end. Its very smallness (about 130 pages) makes it a great introduction to the genre. It is not particularly violent nor gruesome, though it does have some of the typical class concerns of this type of book.
The genesis of The White Cottage Mystery is interesting. Margery Allingham is best know for her Albert Campion series but this is rather earlier. It was Allingham's first detective story and was published in 1928 having previously appeared as a serial in the Daily Express. It was smoothed into a uniform whole, from its serial form, by Allingham's sister Joyce. It was then not reissued until first Chatto and Windus and then Penguin reprinted it in the 1970s, and again under the Classic Crime of Penguin in 1990, and it is now sadly out of print. I have the recentish 1990 Penguin edition in the Classic Crime green and cream banded version with the ISBN 0140087850 and you may find some copies secondhand. I wish someone would republish it and would be delighted to know if anyone does.
Watch points:
Violence: death by shooting for the victim. Brief description of a body 'almost blown to pieces' and how the body has bled (which angle was it shot from, has it been turned etc) though there is much less of this than in most such novels. There are also some fights described in the fairly genteel manner of the era.
Death: just the murder.
Romantic relationships: from the first Jerry and Norah have a bit of chemistry but it largely consists of cheerful glances before working its way up to a bit of hand holding. The one potential stumbling block for our age group is that the paternity of a child is a possible motive for the murder. Some awareness of the facts of life are therefore required to understand this aspect of the plot. It is a red herring and not dwelt on, but it is there.
Anything else?: the class prejudices of the era. The prejudices against foreigners (French and Italians mainly) of the era. One character is in wheelchair but is a depressed portrayal of disability in a WWI veteran. There is quite a bit of amateur pyschology applied to the dead man but nothing so complex our age group could tackle it, but they may need a bt of help here.
The White Cottage Mystery is at the time of writing out-of-print so will be hard to get hold of in any number for a bookclub.
Summary: great introduction to Golden Age crime fiction. Sociology of the era might need explaining as well as the 1920/30s obsession with psychology. Propbably suitable for any child in our age group who has some basic understanding of the facts of life.
Other reviews:
Review by Simon's Book Blog which is laden with spoilers.
Comments