The Cheltenham Square Murder

November 14, 2016
Originally published in 1937, this reissue in the British Library Crime Classics series is a clever closed-circle-of-suspects whodunit. The setting, a residential square in the town of Cheltenham Spa, consists of 10 houses arrayed in a U shape. Bude (1901–57) sets the stage for murder by introducing the residents, including a clergyman, a doctor, and a bank manager, who are engaged in a passionate debate about whether a large ancient elm tree in one of the square’s corners should be cut down. The enclave is known as Archery Nook, because so many of the residents are skilled archers, which becomes significant when one of them is shot through the head by an arrow. Fortuitously, Superintendent Meredith of the Sussex County Constabulary is in the square at the time, visiting an old friend who’s a mystery writer, and is able to lend his skills to the local police. That the shooter used a barbed arrow suggests the killing was intentional. Meredith may not be a particularly memorable lead, but Bude keeps the surprises coming.

December 15, 2016
Bude, a popular British mystery writer during the 1930s and beyond, crafted a number of impossible murder novels that the British Library has reissued as part of a flood of resurrected mysteries written during the Golden Age of Murder. In The Cornish Coast Murder (reprinted in 2016), for example, a man is found dead of a gunshot wound in his locked home. In this reissue, two men are having drinks in the host's home; the host hears a hissing sound and discovers that an arrow has lodged in the back of his guest's head. Setting is vital here; victim and host are both residents of the exclusive Regency Square in the Cotswold town of Cheltenham. The Georgian square harbors a lot of tension (and suspects): a married woman is having an affair with another resident; another has been swindled out of his fortune; and six residents belong to the local Archery Club. Bude's able series detective, Superintendent Meredith, happens to be visiting a crime-writer friend in the square, bringing Meredith's keen observational and interviewing skills to the fore. An absorbing head-scratcher.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)