Murder Underground

August 1, 2016
Not every volume in the British Library Crime Classics reprint series is a gem, as shown by Hay’s first mystery, originally published in 1934. Elderly Miss Euphemia Pongleton is on her way to the Belsize Park station of the London Underground, where she’s subsequently strangled with her dog’s leash. Her fellow boarders at the Frampton Private Hotel speculate on the death and eventually stumble on fragments of the truth that identify the murderer. Significant action is not shown; rather it’s discussed in the hotel’s parlor—we never see the actual murder, nor are we privy to the initial police interviews. The novel perks up when Mrs. Daymer, amateur sleuth and lover of homespun wool, appears. At one point, she coyly remarks, “I almost think I ought to try my hand at a crime novel after this. Treating it in a psychological way, of course—not merely superficially, as most crime novelists do.” Fortunately, Hay (1894–1979) would apply this advice to her second mystery, Death on the Cherwell, also available in this series.

An unpleasant spinster meets her end on the stairs of the Belsize Park Tube station.All of the residents of the Frampton Private Hotel in Hampstead knew that Euphemia Pongleton was in the habit of walking one stop closer to the center of London to save a penny's fare on the Underground. But they hardly expected to hear that she was found on the stairs at Belsize Park, strangled to death with her terrier's leash on her way to a dental appointment. Her death sends shock waves through the boardinghouse. Betty Watson and Cissie Fain are all agog. Mrs. Daymer regards the murder as fodder for her latest psychological thriller. The landlady, Mrs. Bliss, frets about how she'll get dinner done with the maid, Nellie, crying her eyes out because the police have detained her boyfriend, Bob Thurlow. Gerry Plasher is in a tizzy because the question of whether his fiancee, Beryl Sanders, will or won't inherit her aunt's fortune depends on what vindictive Euphemia wrote in the latest version of her will. Meanwhile, Basil Pongleton, the other claimant to the family fortune, tells the police a cock and bull story about traveling to Hampstead from his own boardinghouse in Tavistock Square when he was actually in Belsize Park at the time of his aunt's death. He's so rattled by his own blunder that he seeks advice from Joseph Slocum, another Frampton tenant whom young Basil regards as a man of the world. All the while, Mr. Blend sits at his table in the living room, cutting his newspaper placidly into strips. How this band of halfwits will solve a murder will surprise, and perhaps amuse, readers of this reprint of Hay's 1934 classic. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2016
In this republished mystery from 1934, some fairly standard components of classic crime mysterya disputed will, a stolen brooch, and a broken heartare transported to twin settings unusual for the time: a London boardinghouse and a Northern Line Underground station. The boardinghouse device, which throws together people of varying ages and fortunes who are either stable, broken, or on the make, is a marvelous way of bringing the country-house mystery into the city and the Depression. One of the Frampton Hotel's boarders, a Miss Euphemia Pongleton, an annoying, nastily frugal elderly woman disliked by all, is found strangled to death with a dog leash at the top of the stairs leading down to Belsize Park Underground station. The other boarders react with keen interest, but not grief, to the news of the murder and set about solving it, sussing out which of their fellow boarders may have murdered Miss Pongleton. In terms of plot, the novel is almost pure puzzle, making it a prime example of a Golden Age mystery, but Hay injects humor and keen characterization into the mix as well. As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote in the Sunday Times: This detective novel is much more than interesting. With an insightful introduction by British mystery writer Stephen Booth, this is another winning entry in the British Library Crime Classics series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)