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What mysteries are you reading at the moment? (2022)
By Judy · 873 posts · 160 views
last updated Jan 08, 2023 08:15PM
What Members Thought
Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland was a recent recommendation by a fellow fan of crime and mystery books on Goodreads. He knows my tastes in books fairly well and this recommendation of a book and author I had never heard of entirely hit the spot for me. I have not actually read many mysteries this year so far which is a sad departure from my usual reading mood, but I think Rutland has coaxed me out of the mystery funk.
Blue Murder starts with the story of an author who is bad at writing mysteries a ...more
Blue Murder starts with the story of an author who is bad at writing mysteries a ...more
Published in 1942, this is the third, and last, of Harriet Rutland's published mysteries. I am delighted they have been republished as she is a little-known author now, but her books are really very interesting.
Arnold Smith is a writer who has been advised by his publisher to try a crime novel. His romantic adventures are out of date, but he doubts he can do anything new. When he is bombed out, he rents a room at the Hardstaffe's and soon decides to use the family as his fictional victims. Mr Ha ...more
Arnold Smith is a writer who has been advised by his publisher to try a crime novel. His romantic adventures are out of date, but he doubts he can do anything new. When he is bombed out, he rents a room at the Hardstaffe's and soon decides to use the family as his fictional victims. Mr Ha ...more
Third and final book by Harriet Rutland, Blue Murder is just about brilliant. In this one, the setting is World War II. The Hardstaffe family had to take in a boarder to help with the war effort. The autocratic and brutal headmaster of the local school, his wife, the ever-suffering hypochondriac, and their daughter, the hearty and not so beautiful Leda, make up this household into which the writer, Arthur Smith, enters. Throw in a German Jewish maid on the run from Hitler, a young, beautiful tea
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3.5 stars. Arnold, an author in search of inspiration and to escape the bombing of London ends up in the countryside with the Hardstaffes - headmaster of local school and philanderer, his hypochondriac wife and very competent daughter, Leda, who breeds dogs and runs most of the war committees in the little village. The atmosphere in the house is such that Arnold is soon writing a murder mystery using the household members as cast. Well plotted with a very unexpected ending, we also experience so
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3.5 stars, the 1/2 for a shocking, dramatic end - well, not totally, because the killer became rather obvious to me, so I jumped ahead and read the last chapter and learned I was right.
The basic story concerns a pompous, womanizing, elderly schoolmaster in a small village. He lives with his wealthy, hypochondriac wife and horsey, dog-breeding daughter; none are likable characters. A London writer, fleeing the Blitz, comes to board with them. First, the wife is found dead in her bed, unsavory sec ...more
The basic story concerns a pompous, womanizing, elderly schoolmaster in a small village. He lives with his wealthy, hypochondriac wife and horsey, dog-breeding daughter; none are likable characters. A London writer, fleeing the Blitz, comes to board with them. First, the wife is found dead in her bed, unsavory sec ...more
This is probably 3 1/2☆. Upon completion all I could say was "Wow!". A number of suspects for the first two murders. Inspector Driver didn't seem to be making much headway on the resolution. Both the daughter and the son had motive. The father's girlfriend had motive. She seemed to bewitch every man she met.
But I went back and forth on this book all the way through it. But in the end I am glad I stuck with it. The ending was definitely worth it. ...more
But I went back and forth on this book all the way through it. But in the end I am glad I stuck with it. The ending was definitely worth it. ...more
Definitely a different sort of Golden Age mystery and well written but I did not enjoy spending time with the unlikeable characters. Hoped for retribution for them all by the end.
This is the second book that I have read from this author, and enjoyed both. The third book she wrote is still to be read by me. Set during the war, this is about an author who finds that life in London is too much for him with the bombings, and so answers an ad to stay at a house in the countryside as an evacuee. He arrives at the house to be met by a family who consist of a mother who is an almost a bedridden hypochondriac, a father who is a very strict, hated headmaster of a school, and a dau
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Verity Halliday
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May 15, 2021
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May 08, 2022
Gary Vassallo
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Sep 29, 2022
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Oct 25, 2022
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