Difficult read for animals lovers.

Note: I accessed digital review copies of this book through Edelweiss and NetGalley. ( )

Detective Inspector Minto is visiting his brother and sister to attend his sister’s wedding. The circus happens to be in town and over breakfast he meets one of the stars, the clown Dodo who shares his opinion on how porridge should be prepared. He happily invites his family to the circus enjoying the cachet of knowing the performers. He is quite miffed, though, when the tiger trainer is murdered. Can’t a fellow enjoy a vacation without a murder interrupting his relaxation.

Everyone would like the murder to be written off as a mauling by the tigers, but the poor tigers are innocent. Even the local police would rather let Minto handle it. So he does. In the process, the murderer strikes again. There is an efficient brutality to the killer’s methods and Minto shocked me with his reckless use of one of the performers as bait.

I enjoyed Death of Anton a lot. There is an acerbic wit that enlivens the prose, causing frequent small smiles of pleasure at one little comment or another. The mystery is fair with the clues falling into place without revealing too much. There is one false note, Minto’s brother is a Catholic priest who hears the confession of the murderer and tells Minto. Robert breaches the confessional six ways to Sunday by telling Minto he heard the killer’s confession and tells him who is not guilty. He would not have even mentioned it and it was not necessary to advance the plot. Otherwise, the story is great.

I received Death of Anton from the publisher through NetGalley. It is one of the British Library Crime Classics that reprints great mysteries from the past.

Death of Anton from Poisoned Pen Press
Alan Melville on Wikipedia

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/9781464208720/ ( )

This mystery was sent to me by Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. Thank you.

The Death of Anton is a great fun! Lion-tamer Anton, the star attraction at the Carey Circus, has been found dead in the lion cage and it appears that his cats have killed him. Inspector Minto of Scotland Yard happens to be a guest at a party given by Dodo a circus clown and so is on the scene when the body is recovered. Very quickly he determines that the cause of Anton’s death is not the beasts but rather three neatly placed bullets in his chest. Who among the colorful residents of the traveling circus hated Anton enough to kill him and why? Is it his understudy who has been demoted to roustabout because he couldn’t handle the cats. Or the young trapeze artist whose wife was too friendly with Anton. Maybe it was the owner who was hoping Anton would buy the circus or even Dodo who found the body. Then, again, it could have been someone outside the circus who was worried that Anton might have discovered some shenanigans in the field where the circus was pitched.

Minto,in town for his sister’s wedding to an innocuous vacuum-cleaner salesman, has his hands full because his suspects keep getting themselves murdered! It doesn’t help that Minton’s brother is the local parish priest who actually has had the murderer confess to him and is bound by the seal of the confessional not to reveal the murderer.

The mystery is atmospheric and funny. Minto is a droll detective and the other characters are quirky. So pop some popcorn, find a comfy chair, and enjoy an afternoon’s read ( )