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Andrew Basnett #7
A Hobby of Murder
When seven friends gather to welcome retired professor Andrew Basnett to their village in the English country-side, conviviality soon turns to crime as guests suddenly start dying - and Basnett finds himself seeking a clever killer who's sure to strike again.
- GenresMysteryCozy Mystery
186 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
91 books28 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 10, 2012
"A Hobby of Murder brings back one of E.X. Ferrar's most popular characters, solving a classic mystery in a traditional house party setting.
"Retired professor Andrew Basnett had been at loose ends since finishing the book that was for so long his full-time occupation. A country visit with his old friends Mollie and Ian Davidge seemed like just the diversion he needed.
"And, indeed, the visit begins pleasantly enough with a cocktail party to meet the Davidges' friends and neighbors: Eleanor Clancy, the somewhat tiresome and obviously lonely retired games mistress; Brian Singleton, a biochemist, and his visiting brother, Luke, a well-known thriller writer; Edward Audley, a solicitor; and the fashionable Sam and Anna Waldron, who occupy the manor house of the village.
"Then it is the Waldrons' turn to host a party -- an elaborate dinner cooked by Sam. The fetive evening ends abruptly, however, when one of the guests keels over at the table and dies instantly. It's immediately apparent that the victim's coffee has been poisoned, although how the poison got there is not so apparent at all. But when a second corpse is discovered several days later, it seems clear that at least one person knew the killer's identity.
"Veteran writer E.X. Ferrars was working at the height of her powers in this classic country house mystery, whose startling solution lies in Basnett's close observation and ingenious powers of deduction."
~~front & back flaps
There's always a second corpse, isn't there? Sometimes I think it could hardly be an English cozy without one.
This is indeed a well-written, well-plotted mystery, and although hindsight informs me that the clues were there for me to find, I (like the characters in the book) was diverted and sidetracked by all the other details and red herrings that the author sprinkled so plausibly about.
I don't remember reading other books by this author, but I shall certainly seek them out in future!
"Retired professor Andrew Basnett had been at loose ends since finishing the book that was for so long his full-time occupation. A country visit with his old friends Mollie and Ian Davidge seemed like just the diversion he needed.
"And, indeed, the visit begins pleasantly enough with a cocktail party to meet the Davidges' friends and neighbors: Eleanor Clancy, the somewhat tiresome and obviously lonely retired games mistress; Brian Singleton, a biochemist, and his visiting brother, Luke, a well-known thriller writer; Edward Audley, a solicitor; and the fashionable Sam and Anna Waldron, who occupy the manor house of the village.
"Then it is the Waldrons' turn to host a party -- an elaborate dinner cooked by Sam. The fetive evening ends abruptly, however, when one of the guests keels over at the table and dies instantly. It's immediately apparent that the victim's coffee has been poisoned, although how the poison got there is not so apparent at all. But when a second corpse is discovered several days later, it seems clear that at least one person knew the killer's identity.
"Veteran writer E.X. Ferrars was working at the height of her powers in this classic country house mystery, whose startling solution lies in Basnett's close observation and ingenious powers of deduction."
~~front & back flaps
There's always a second corpse, isn't there? Sometimes I think it could hardly be an English cozy without one.
This is indeed a well-written, well-plotted mystery, and although hindsight informs me that the clues were there for me to find, I (like the characters in the book) was diverted and sidetracked by all the other details and red herrings that the author sprinkled so plausibly about.
I don't remember reading other books by this author, but I shall certainly seek them out in future!
November 19, 2023
easy reading.
But a number of things I didn’t think much of. I thought right away of the lie that was the central fact of the murder. But for a different reason than the story offered. And I really don’t like this idea of ‘mad’ people. There is no such thing. There are mental,illnesses a bunch but nearly nine of them cause one to murder or destroy things. Use different vocabulary, please.
But a number of things I didn’t think much of. I thought right away of the lie that was the central fact of the murder. But for a different reason than the story offered. And I really don’t like this idea of ‘mad’ people. There is no such thing. There are mental,illnesses a bunch but nearly nine of them cause one to murder or destroy things. Use different vocabulary, please.
March 4, 2024
Andrew Basnett does it again
Andrew decides to visit with friends of his for a short-time. One of their neighbors invites a bunch of the locals to a dinner based on an old diary he has been studying. One of the guests dies of cyanide poisoning. Several days later another of the locals is murdered. Andrew is called upon to help. He has a gift for solving murders.
Andrew decides to visit with friends of his for a short-time. One of their neighbors invites a bunch of the locals to a dinner based on an old diary he has been studying. One of the guests dies of cyanide poisoning. Several days later another of the locals is murdered. Andrew is called upon to help. He has a gift for solving murders.
July 22, 2024
Quite a treat cozy mystery lovers
The prose is literate and the plot has enough mystery to keep one interested. I also love the well spoken, mild mannered characters. All in all, British cozy mystery at its best!
The prose is literate and the plot has enough mystery to keep one interested. I also love the well spoken, mild mannered characters. All in all, British cozy mystery at its best!
August 10, 2020
3.5 stars. Enjoyable and relaxing.
August 16, 2024
Slow at times but generally quite enjoyable and a very unexpected ending.
February 27, 2026
A lesser light from the series for me. Ferrars admittedly serves up a new tableau that is unique to the series (a seemingly impossible dinner party poisoning kicks things off), but the story is stuffed a little overly full, to my liking, in terms of possible motives and red herrings. The most intriguing thing for me, as the series slinks to the almost finish line, is this one's focus on "blighted affection". There is a muted but ever-present secondary concern to this series: what should and will Basnett *do* with the dwindling remains of his life ("Winter, his own winter, was waiting for him."), and for what reason, since, "Other murders in other towns and villages would fill the newspapers. Death would stalk the land as usual. Plans would crash, killing all the passengers and crew. Busses would be overturned on motorways... and Luke Singleton's novels would go on selling as well as ever, if not better, for a considerable time after his death.")? It's an alluringly bleak preoccupation tucked inside what the marketing copy ceaselessly suggests is nothing more than a cozy mystery series. As a reader that's been allergic to that word, I'm glad I found this series, because there's a nifty, slightly nihilistic second heart that beats through all of these, allowing us to understand not only a nuanced protagonist but also a prolific, long-gone author.
November 3, 2024
charming english mystery
Another felony and mayhem special. I have been fascinated by our protagonist’s thought process. Four novels with nursery rhyme lyrics that provide clues and whispers. I am actually hoping for book5 as it might tie together a couple of wolf books. Then i try to imagine what murder will take place. And which part of the country it will take place in. Country houses in England have a fair number of murders a la Christie. This is an intellectual treat, in that it requires alternative thinking/outside the box/taking a different view. All in all a very good read.
Another felony and mayhem special. I have been fascinated by our protagonist’s thought process. Four novels with nursery rhyme lyrics that provide clues and whispers. I am actually hoping for book5 as it might tie together a couple of wolf books. Then i try to imagine what murder will take place. And which part of the country it will take place in. Country houses in England have a fair number of murders a la Christie. This is an intellectual treat, in that it requires alternative thinking/outside the box/taking a different view. All in all a very good read.
September 2, 2025
3.5 stars rounded up, I am full of generosity because this series is just so relaxing, and this one is the second to last. Side note, based on the number of drinks served and the hour at which the first one is usually offered I have to assume the English are completely immune to the effects of alcohol. If I were a character in one of these books I would have a headache by dinnertime.
November 13, 2024
I actually read A Thief in the night but she didn’t come up that way.
December 25, 2025
Like this seriesl!
June 16, 2013
It started off slow at first but then you really get into it I think I busted a brain cell trying to figure out who the murder was, it was very well written. It's about a retired professor whose looking for a hobby and while he's looking he decides to visit some friends in the country. During his stay he goes to a dinner party and someone ends up dead at the dinner table and after that two more end up dead.
August 14, 2014
Widowed and retired professor Andrew Basnett is visiting friends in the country, thinking that he really should start a hobby to pass the time. He and his hosts are invited to a lavish dinner party, all good, solid middle-class folk like themselves. The one celebrity present is a best-selling novelist whose brother lives in the village. When there's a sudden death, the police are baffled. After all, it looks like an impossible crime.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews