Off the Record

February 7, 2011
Set in 1924, Gordon-Smith's fifth Jack Haldean mystery (after 2010's A Hundred Thousand Dragons) gets off to a sluggish start, but the later, near-manic pace more than compensates. When the butler and chauffeur of entrepreneur Charles Otterbourne, whose company is about to manufacture a machine that will record and play sound electronically, hear a gun shot, they rush to their master's study, where they find him dead on the hearthrug, with Alan Carrington, the machine's eccentric inventor, kneeling nearby, gun in hand. When Carrington later commits suicide in prison, the case appears closed. But an alarming number of murders all somehow connected to the Otterbourne family deeply troubles Scotland Yard's Insp. Bill Rackham, who turns for help to his friend and confidant, detective fiction writer Jack Haldean. Haldean's impish wit, charming manner, and imaginative flights of fancy bring cohesion and sparkle to a busy plot at risk of drowning in a sea of red herrings.

January 15, 2011

Jack Haldean, World War I pilot turned mystery writer and amateur sleuth, takes up a case involving big improvements to gramophones.

The firm of industrialist Charles Otterbourne, who's known for his good works, plans a merger with that of Andrew Dunbar to develop a radical new sound machine created by Professor Alan Carrington. But the merger is derailed when Carrington is found, gun in hand, with the body of Otterbourne, and he's arrested by the local police. His son Gerry admits to his cousin Steve Lewis, who's married to Otterbourne's daughter Molly, that his brilliant father is mentally unstable. Soon afterward, the professor is found dead in his cell, seemingly ending the affair. But Gerry's discovery that Otterbourne had embezzled the funds in his workers' retirement plan convinces him that Otterbourne committed suicide. Knowing how ruthless his stepfather can be, Dunbar's stepson asks him to look into the case. Developments continue at a spirited pace. An uncle of Alan and Gerry's is attacked, and Dunbar is found shot in a hotel. Although Gerry is arrested for the murder, Jack thinks he may be innocent and sets out to prove it by following the twisted path of family and business relationships gone wrong.

Jack's sixth (A Hundred Thousand Dragons, 2010, etc.) surrounds the clever sleuth with loads of period detail from the Golden Age of British mysteries.

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February 15, 2011
In Stoke Horam in 1920s England, Charles Otterbourne owns a paternalistic company, New Century Works, which manufactures gramophones, typewriters, and telephones. However, the principled, philanthropic Otterbourne is suspected by his accountant of embezzling company pension funds. When Andrew Dunbar and the eccentric Professor Alan Carrington approach Otterbourne about purchasing Dunbars company to get the rights to Carringtons new invention, an electrical recording system, Otterbourne is murdered at the meeting, apparently by Carrington. Did he really do it? Who else would want Otterbourne dead? Was it personal or professional? When Dunbar is also murdered, Carringtons son, Gerard, becomes the chief suspect. Inspector William Rackham consults writer Jack Haldean to help him unravel the mystery. Plot twists, deductive reasoning, step-by-step investigation, and details of the newly invented electrical recording system add to this leisurely paced British mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)