Death in Fancy Dress

Starred review from February 10, 2020
In this standout entry in the British Library Crime Classics series from Gilbert (a pseudonym of Lucy Malleson, 1899–1973), first published in 1933, lawyer Tony Keith and his friend Jeremy Freyne travel to Feltham Abbey at the request of the Home Office, which is unsettled by a baffling rash of suicides of people who had either money or “rank and position.” That each of the dead raised large sums of money for various unstated purposes leads officials to believe that a sophisticated blackmailer known as the Spider was responsible for the suicides. Hilary Feltham, the fiancée of a Foreign Office employee, is believed to be the Spider’s next target, and Keith and Freyne hope their presence at Feltham Abbey will avert disaster. A murder occurs, despite their best efforts. The ingenious story line is enhanced by ample doses of wit (of Freyne, Keith states, “when you heard of some white man with the reputation of a lunatic, doing anything particularly futile in some obscure British protectorate, you could bet your boots Jeremy wasn’t far off”). Gilbert neatly combines Wodehousian humor with a fair play puzzle.

February 1, 2020
Did your New Year's Eve leave you feeling underwhelmed? Tuck into this reprint from 1933 whose centerpiece is a country-house party complete with everything from costumes to a corpse. The pseudonymous Gilbert--real name Lucy Beatrice Malleson (1899-1973)--spins a web whose center, according to Edward Philpotts of the Home Office, is the Spider, a well-placed blackmailer he suspects is behind a recent rash of upper-class suicides. So he's eager to have solicitor Tony Keith root around in his relatives' home, Feltham Abbey, where Philpotts thinks Tony's cousin Hilary Feltham is the latest blackmailing victim. That suits Tony, who's received a frantic summons to Feltham by Lady Eleanor Nunn, the widow of Hilary's father, Sir Percy Feltham, who topped himself over a family financial scandal back in 1917, leaving her to rescue her own fortunes by marrying Sir James Nunn. And it suits Tony's old school friend Jeremy Freyne, who's just learned that Hilary, the woman he loves, has become engaged to Arthur Dennis, of the Foreign Office. While Tony looks for signs of the Spider, Jeremy will tag along, elbow this interloper Dennis aside, and sweep Hilary off her feet once more. Other interested parties turn out to have plans of their own. Sir James and Lady Eleanor want to throw a party for Hilary's 21st birthday, when she's due to come into the 10,000 pounds her father salvaged from the general wreck of his estate. Sir Ralph Feltham, Hilary's cousin, seems intent on blackmailing everyone he meets. Arthur Dennis rather winningly suggests killing Ralph. And when Ralph fails to turn up at Hilary's party, it's for the best reason in the world. The result is a country-house whodunit on steroids, with hyperextended expository paragraphs, gossip on tap 24/7, endless blather, and a meticulously detailed explanation at the end. As a bonus, readers can enjoy a pair of short stories from 1939 that show how much sharper the author's voice became in the interval. The fey main event couldn't be more different from Gilbert's tales of scalawag solicitor Arthur Crook. Retro fans rejoice.

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Starred review from March 1, 2020
The long shadow of WWI hangs over this inventive country-house mystery, first published in 1933 and now reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series. The central mystery centers on a string of suicides committed by aristocrats and the very well-off, starting with a toff putting a bullet in his head in 1917 and including Sir Vere Porter, who pitched himself out of a window; a girl who strangled herself with her own silk stockings; and any number of suspicious hunting, boating and swimming accidents. A government agent, working with the CID, recruits two young men (both served in the trenches), one a lawyer (who serves as the tale's narrator) and the other his playboy buddy. The commonality among the suicides is that all the victims received a phone call or letter beforehand that shook them up. A blackmail ring is suspected, and the young recruits are asked to attend a country-house party at Feltham Abbey, where a young woman (the playboy's girlfriend) has received disturbing phone calls. A bold murder is committed at a masked ball that weekend, reminiscent of Poe's The Masque of the Red Death. The narrator's jaunty tone, very like a '30s movie, is a perfect vehicle for delivering wicked social commentary and a complicated, unnerving plot. Everything you could wish for in a country-house mystery. "Anthony Gilbert" was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)