Death At Breakfast is another odd mystery from John Rhode, written in 1936. Listed on the cover as "A Doctor Priestley Detective Story", he once again plays third wheel to the actual stars Junior Inspector Jimmy Waghorn and Inspector Hanslet. At times they visit Priestley for his astute advice, but I've yet to hear what qualifies him.
The strange events begin with Victor Harleston falling dead at breakfast from poisoning. He had shaved that morning with a tainted razor blade soaked in deadly nicotine, the day he was to receive a tremendous fortune. His meek sister informs the police, his estranged brother comes up to London from his fruit farm down south. For Jimmy and Hanslet the clues just don't add up. But never mind that, the story quickly shifts miles away to the coastal town of Torquay, where Victor's boss at the brokerage firm has disappeared in the night. Foul play and perhaps murder is presumed when they find bloody bedsheets and torn pyjamas. It seems the friends he was visiting have plenty of reasons to kill, and someone was seen carrying a heavy case down to sea in the stormy night. Somehow these two crimes will intersect before the end of page 312.
The similarity with other Rhodes titles I've read was Priestley playing a minor part in the investigation, leaving Jimmy doing the leg work. It's a 'police procedural', meaning they slowly piece the case together through interviews and clues - and if you aren't paying attention, the progress is repeated again and again as Jimmy reiterates the case to Hanslet, then Hanslet repeats it Priestley, and Priestley corroborates it to both of them (sometimes within the same meeting!). At first intriguing, by the end it was doing my head in. There are only so many times we need to go over it. Still, it was quite ingenious (with a wealth of plausible red herrings) and it held my interest, if only as a curio of 1930's mysteries.
1936 / Hardcover / 312 pages
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