Cyril Hare (1900-1958)
An English Murder
An English Murder
What would an `English' murder be? It must be a murder of a kind entirely peculiar to England, such as are the murders related in this particularly ingenious novel. And, naturally, it takes a foreigner to savour the full Englishness of a specifically English crime. Such a foreigner is Dr Bottwink who plays a very important part in the shocking events at Christmastide in Warbeck Hall. The setting seems, at first, to he more conventional than is usual in Mr Hare's detective stories. The dying and impoverished peer, the family party, the snow-bound country house, the faithful butler and his ambitious daughter. But this is all part of Mr Hare's ingenious plan, and there is nothing at all conventional about the murders themselves and the manner of their detection.
`By a long shot, the best crime story I have read for a long time. Everything is traditional, but originality does not suffer. The setting is perfect. Full marks to Mr Hare.' Irish Press
Francis Pettigrew, spending a summer holiday with his wife on Exmoor, finds himself living again the experiences of his boyhood. One of them, extremely unpleasant, had been the discovery of a corpse on a remote hill on the moor. When he again finds a body in exactly the same spot the coincidence is frightening and, when the corpse disappears, mysterious. Pettigrew's old friend Inspector Mallett comes out of retirement to help in solving the mystery which leads, by way of many Devonian complications, to a Chancery suit.
A superb example of the skilful combination of legal exposition, comedy, and drama' - Birmingham Post
CYRIL HARE
'Of Cyril Hare's detective stories my only complaint is, that they are too infrequent; he is a writer for the fastidious, combining legal cool thinking with a muffled compassion for human nature.' - Tatler
TENANT FOR DEATH
`Wit, fair play, and characterisation; the way in which an air of probability is combined both with clear, terse narrative and with a good deal of subtle suburban atmosphere, prove the extreme skill of the writer.' Spectator
SUICIDE EXCEPTED
Suicide Excepted is one of the earlier and least known novels of Cyril Hare, and his clear characterisation and witty narrative as well as the surprise of the solution, will not disappoint those who know him from his other Penguins.
‘Mr Hare's controlled ingenuity and lively, sardonic characterisation put Suicide Excepted in a very high class.' - Observer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cyril Hare was the pseudonym of Judge Gordon Clark, who was born at Mickleham near Dorking in1900. He was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, where he took a `First' in History. At the bar his practice was largely in the criminal courts, and during World War II he was on the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions; but later as a County Court Judge his work concerned civil disputes only. He published a number of detective novels including Death is No Sportsman, When the Wind Blows, An English Murder, Tenant for Death, and That Yew Tree's Shade. His own favourite and, perhaps, his best-known book is Tragedy at Law. He died in 1958.
- Tenant for Death (Faber, 1937) (Mallett) (Penguin 1081)
- Death is No Sportsman (Faber, 1938) (Mallett)
- Suicide Excepted (Faber, 1939) (Mallett) (Penguin 1162)
- Tragedy At Law (Faber, 1942) (Mallett, Pettigrew) (Penguin 897)
- With a Bare Bodkin (Faber, 1946) (Mallett, Pettigrew)
- When the Wind Blows (Faber, 1949) (Pettigrew)
- An English Murder (Faber, 1951) (Penguin 1123, 1956)
- That Yew Tree's Shade (Faber, 1954) ( Pettigrew)
- He Should Have Died Hereafter (Faber, 1958) (Mallett, Pettigrew)
- Best Detective Stories (Penguin C2194, 1964)
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