When you read all sorts from the 1930's, you sometimes find a gem. Other times it's hard to finish. Death of my Aunt by C.H.B. Kitchin was written in 1929, first published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, which I thought gave it merit. This was the Golden Age of mysteries - Miss Marple found Murder at the Vicarage in 1930 - and Death of My Aunt was a success and frequently reprinted. So much so that Kitchin's desire to be a serious novelist was forever eclipsed in the public eye by his four mysteries (he also wrote Death of My Uncle).
London stockbroker Malcolm Warren is invited to weekend at his aging Aunt's country house. She would like him to look over her investments - locked in a special drawer with a key only she possesses. Young and broke, he readily accepts and is greeted by her new husband, who leaves for the night. The only people in the house are a cook, maid, and gardener. Speaking alone with his aging aunt, she has an 'attack' and asks him to get her 'remedy' from the locked drawer. After taking it, she dies. She alone held the key at all times, yet someone managed to poison her. Deciding to sleuth, Malcolm makes a list of everyone who would inherit or stand to gain - long lists of people we've never met. The police investigate and interview over the next two days, while Malcolm strolls the grounds aimlessly and wonders what they are doing.
Nothing happens in this mystery. Malcolm is a lacklustre sleuth who doesn't even investigate, we don't hear what the police are doing, there is nothing for us to discover. The obvious points are not followed up, but then become important. He also disappoints by not following the rules of detection: we need clues and suspects to solve the crime - it is either Malcolm or his Step-Uncle, so they blame each other, and wait to find out what happened.
There is a resolution - the magical kind where the culprit is pulled out of a hat, someone who was not part of the case and we had no chance of deducting - followed by a history of why and how, which we need because it was not part of the story. It's a cheat.
Reading unknown authors can be rewarding, but in this case, a non-event.
1929 / Tradeback / 278 pages
Comments