J. R. L. Anderson (1911–1981)

I bought this a few years ago, when Otto Penzler was selling his collection through his bookshop, Mysterious Books. It's a review copy of an author I'd never heard of, but the short catalog blurb made it sound interesting: mysterious death on a train, unknown works by Gainsborough, Turner and Constable found with the body, along with a sprig of - you guessed it - sea lavender.

This is a mid-century mystery, and it suffered from the usual quirks of that age: instant, yet chaste, romance, and a complete disregard of the fair-play rules of mystery plotting. As such, the reader, by the end, is presented with a fait accompli in both the romance and the mystery's resolution, without having any idea whatsoever how the main character got there, although he does explain it all at the very end.

By today's standards, it's all a bit thin, naive and 2 dimensional, but I had fun with it nevertheless. It wasn't trying to be anything other than an entertaining mystery and, while I've read others that are greater successes, it generally achieved its goal.… (mehr)

A Sprig of Sea Lavender is a nice little mystery tale that begins with a young girl dead on a train with what may be hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of paintings. Chief Inspector Piet Deventer, himself an artist as well as a policeman, investigates the murder.
Piet Deventer is an excellent character, very three dimensional and dynamic. No other character in the book comes close to being as well described as he, up to and including both his love interest and the villain. I would be interested in reading more about him, except for the rather bland love interest, with whom, it seems, he intends to spend the rest of his days. I have a problem with this relationship mostly because they have known each other for less than four days by the end of the book and most of that time they are not even together. She does seem clever, but it seems unlikely they'd be talking marriage at the end of that time. I'd buy, "Hey, we should continue to see each other now that no one's trying to kill us and see how that goes," but not "Here, have my grandmother's ring. Oh, look it fits you perfectly." Seriously, for a mystery so intricately well-built and detailed, it's unfortunate for the reader to feel they've been gagged by the sickening sweetness of this subplot romance.
I should say, though, that the murder mystery really is very nicely written with enough twists and red-herrings to keep even a jaded mystery reader feeling the suspense of I-have-to-know-whodunit before I can sleep!!!… (mehr)

Skibsrederen Andrew Stavanger er tilsyneladende forsvundet, men hverken ledelsen af det firma, rederiet er fusioneret med eller hans datter tager sig af det, ja de siger endda at han bare er bortrejst. En bankdirektør - Sir Geoffrey Gillington - kommer i tvivl om underskriften på en handel med Ingardkoncernen til 3 millioner pund og så går oberst Blair fra den særlige efterretningsafdeling igang med at kigge på sagen.
Et lig er fundet i Themsen og det var tynget ned med en masse riffelpatroner med serienumre som ikke passer med partier importeret til England. Ingard er ved at gå rabundus pgra et køb af en kæmpegrund Winter Marsh ved Themsen. Blair er lige ved at blive skudt, da han kigger nærmere på grunden og da han finder patronen fra et af skuddene er det samme slags som riffelpatronerne fra liget. Mrs Carolan, Andrew Stavangers datter opfører sig sært og da Blair konfronterer hende med det, forsøger hun at skyde ham. Det mislykkes og hun bliver tilbageholdt - selv om hun er gift med en kabinetsminister Vivian Carolan. Imens forsøger Blair at finde ud af hvad der er ombord på skibet Agnes T, som han formoder vil forsøge at losse noget af ved Winter Marsh. Skibet går på grund og viser sig at have Andrew Stavanger som kaptajn. Andrew har saboteret hvad der viser sig at have været Vivians ret vanvittige planer om et statskup og både Vivian og hans kone dør. De to chefer for rederiet og Ingard ender i fængsel og Ingardkoncernen går konkurs. Altsammen pgra den årvågne bankdirektør.

Ganske spændende og overbevisende skrevet… (mehr)