From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Impact of Evidence

Carol Carnac,

E.C.R. Lorac

Start date: December 1, 2024

Finish date: December 31, 2024

Discussion: Group reads

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What Members Thought

Mar 28, 2024 Susan in NC rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: my-library, detectives-buddy-read24, currently-re-reading, audiobook, reread, want-to-reread

11/27/24 - Really enjoyed this reread even though I read it last winter! I listened to the excellent audiobook, which added to my enjoyment, immersing me right in the story.

March 2024 - This is a favorite GA author (also wrote as ECR Lorac), so I knew I’d like it, but I was so engrossed right away, and enjoyed this so much, I have to give five stars.

This author always gives me a satisfying puzzle, but she also writes a literate, immersive story, evoking a real sense of time and place. This tim 11/27/24 - Really enjoyed this reread even though I read it last winter! I listened to the excellent audiobook, which added to my enjoyment, immersing me right in the story.

March 2024 - This is a favorite GA author (also wrote as ECR Lorac), so I knew I’d like it, but I was so engrossed right away, and enjoyed this so much, I have to give five stars.

This author always gives me a satisfying puzzle, but she also writes a literate, immersive story, evoking a real sense of time and place. This time it’s February, 1954, in the Welsh border country; snow, rain, ice, and now flooding have made the mountainous, rural landscape even more treacherous. A horrific car crash lands two vehicles in the rushing, swollen river, killing the elderly doctor driving one vehicle, and leaving the driver of the second car badly injured. But the real mystery is the dead stranger found under a blanket in the back seat of the doctor’s car.

Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Julian Rivers, and his usual second, Inspector Lancing, are called in to deal with identifying the stranger and figuring out how he got there, and why he appears to have been killed prior to the crash…

Her usual series detective is Robert Macdonald of Scotland Yard, and I like his dogged, low-key style very much; he always meets suspects or witnesses wherever he finds them, high-born or low, city or rural village or farm. As she wrote in the 1920s-50s, things like class still mattered very much in Britain!

This book stars her other detective, Rivers; I’ve only read one other book in this series, Crossed Skis, also published by the British Library Crime Classics imprint. He is a very similar character to Macdonald, but I found a bit more humor in this book, and Rivers seems a bit friendlier and on more equal terms with both his junior, Lancing, and the witnesses they encounter. Macdonald is always polite, and has a usual couple of subordinates he works with, but he always seems more self-contained. Here’s an example of a humorous exchange between Rivers and Lancing as they discuss a potential suspect and his thoroughly nasty wife:

“Any germination going on in your own gray matter?” enquired Lancing.
“I don’t know, laddy. That’s the devil of it. That woman is an obese old horror, and as venomous as a rattlesnake – but she may be right, you know...”

I can’t imagine the proper Scotsman Macdonald being so brutally honest about a suspect, no matter how awful! I really enjoyed the camaraderie between the two Scotland Yard detectives, and the local magistrate; also, the local farm families were very interesting, smart and likable characters. The urgency, danger and remoteness of the location, with the thaw and rising river, overwhelmed authorities, power and phone lines down, areas cut off, were so well done. I hope they keep reissuing both series, by Lorac and Carnac, as she is very good whichever name she writes under, and has been overlooked or forgotten for too long. ...more

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Apr 14, 2024 Lady Wesley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-golden-age-or-similar, listened, british-library-crime-classics

Another winner from E.C.R. Lorac (writing here as Carol Carnac), this time set in the hills of the Welsh borders during a nasty winter snow/flood. I love stories with a strong sense of place, and this author excels at portraying country landscapes and the farm families who live there. Of course, I didn’t catch on to whodunnit (and I still have a problem with how the culprit was able to pull off his final attempt to escape).

This was my first time to read about Scotland Yard Chief Inspector River ...more

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Nov 17, 2024 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Carol Carnac is a pen name used by Edith Caroline Rivett (1884-1959) and is best known by her other pseudonym, E.C.R. Lorac. As Lorac, she had a long-running series featuring Robert Macdonald, as Carnac, Julian Rivers is her detective and 'Impact of Evidence,' published in 1954, is a Rivers mystery.

The introduction suggests that this novel was inspired by the author's move to the countryside, near her sister, during WWII. The remote countryside and the hardships of farming life have been moved t ...more

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Dec 02, 2024 Teri-K rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-golden-age, sense-of-place

This book starts off with a bang and just keeps rolling till the end. I love the setting - very rural, hilly country that's had days of heavy snow which is now melting and causing flooding. It's almost impossible to get around, so when a car accident turns into a murder investigation I wasn't even sure how they'd get anyone there to detect. But like many rural folks these people are resourceful, and as the bodies mount up they continue working together to keep their livestock - and people - aliv ...more

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Mar 06, 2024 Lynnie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, post-war, british-library-crime, read-in-2024

Another classic Lorac/Carnac novel, wonderful scene setting, similar to her Lancashire mysteries. I enjoyed this very much.

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Dec 03, 2024 Frances rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-series

When old Dr. Robinson, who shouldn't have been driving, is involved in a fatal car crash on the snowy roads in an isolated rural community, there is an unexpected surprise in the form of an additional body in the back seat of his car. As the snow is followed by heavy rain and flooding and the small community is cut off from its neighbours, Detectives Rivers and Lancing must be ferried in to begin their investigation. A clever mystery, a wealth of rural details and well-drawn portraits of the var ...more

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Nov 05, 2024 Jill rated it really liked it

Shelves: e-c-r-lorac

With it's limited cast in the beginning, I thought this was reading as a cosy mystery. However it soon opened up, and turned out to be more in the style of Lorac. The setting of a very rural community on the Welsh Borders, during one of the severe weather conditions of the winter, there does limit the cast. As this was set after the war, it does mean that the men did have different experiences of the armed forces as well as farming, and the women being farmers wives so also being able to cope wi ...more

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Aug 04, 2024 Annarella rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: edelweiss, golden-age-mystery

Carol Carnac or ECR Lorac are amongst my favorite mystery writer as the mystery are always twisty, complex, and fair to the reader.
This is a very complex impossible crime set in a tightly knitted community on the Welsh border.
The description of the places made me fall in love with the fictional area even if there's a flood and a lot of people who maybe not be what you think.
It's not a fast paced mystery, it's like the pace of the book reflect the rythm of the people and the nature.
Two bodies, on ...more

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