The Lake District Murder

November 3, 2014
Originally published in 1935, Bude's murder mystery remains as intriguing today as it was upon its release almost 80 years ago. Set in the spectacular Lake District, the novel opens with the discovery of a body in a secluded garage. Inspector Meredith then begins what turns into a complicated investigation. In addition to having to find out the identity and motives of the killer, he must determine whether or not the dead man was planning on leaving the country, and if he was connected to the disreputable dealings taking place at the garage. The deeper Meredith delves into the case, the more complicated it becomes. A cast of believable, colorful characters will keep the reader engaged from Ht to finish.

October 1, 2016
Poisoned Pen follows its recent publication of Budes first novel (The Cornish Coast Murder) by reprinting his second, which was first published, like its predecessor, in 1935 and marks the debut of his doughty series detective, Inspector Meredith.Merediths first impression is that Jack Clayton, who owned a garage outside the town of Keswick, committed suicide, ending his workday by gassing himself inside his car. But why would Clayton have put on his tea to boil just before ending his life or worn gloves to hook up the hose that carried the fatal carbon monoxide? No, its murder, as Meredith realizes in one of Budes many underwhelming sentences that end with an exclamation point anyway. Since the obvious suspect, Claytons business partner, Mark Higgins, proves an inconveniently convincing alibi, Meredith is forced to look further afield. Maj. Rickshaw, a chance witness who saw a lorry parked outside the garage shortly before Claytons death, sends the investigation in a new direction by raising the possibility that the employees of Nonock Petroland perhaps its chief, Mr. Ormsby-Wrightwere engaged in an elaborate scheme to cheat their customers out of a substantial percentage of the fuel theyd bought and paid for. Readers whove been waiting to read minutely detailed conversations with a series of essentially faceless garagemen, drivers, and experts on the logistics of shortchanging wholesale petrol customers are in for a treat. Even the more jaundiced, waiting in vain for the scenic vistas Budes title seems to promise, may still wax nostalgic over the days when members of the English constabulary foreswore X-rated language and spoke in complete sentences en route to the arrest of suspects as unsurprising as they are forgettable. Period reticence apart, the most notable impression this old-school procedural leaves is how remarkably little the formula has changed over the years.

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October 1, 2016
The Model T Ford belonging to a farmer returning late at night from a union meeting runs out of petrol on a deserted road. The farmer finds a garage, but no one is around. He hears a car running in a lean-to next to the garage and discovers the corpse of one of the garage's owners. Golden Age writer Bude's mystery (published in 1935, the same year as his debut novel, The Cornish Coast Murder, moves from this spectacularly disturbing opening into a satisfying intellectual puzzle, in which tiny discrepancies, like what time the tea table was set, become hugely illuminating. Inspector Meredith follows in the steps of one-man shows like Sherlock Holmes. He alone sees the death as suspicious and not the suicide it appears to be. There seems to be no motive, either for suicide or murder, but Meredith painstakingly puts together tiny threads of evidence and revelations from interviews until the sinister truth emerges. Bude also wrote The Sussex Downs Murder, another long-forgotten mystery reissued, like this one, as a British Library Crime Classic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)