The Demon in the House (1934) by Angela Thirkell

🚲 Having read the first in Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series: High Rising, I tried to enjoy the third one, still about the Morland family. Unfortunately, it focused more on the Morlands - especially Tony Morland, a monster of a child! - while the other supporting characters only acted as, well, supoorting characters. They provided neither new interest nor parallel plot to make the story more entertaining. No, this one is all about Tony Morland and his exploits.

🚲 If you hadn't been acquainted to Tony Morland, he's a child of thirteen year old, the youngest of Laura Morland, a widow. They lives in an English countryside of High Rising, Laura - the mother and writer of 'good bad books' (trash to some, but bestseller to others); her exasperating and spoilt son - the demon in the title; and Stoker, the cook and only servant. Tony is a chattering little brat, who's always bragging about his superiority in every subject; whose exploits never failed to give his mother a terrible headache and anxiety; and whose nonstop condescending monologues exasperated others. Well, except maybe, Master Wesendonk, or Donk as Tony always calls him, who always seems to listen to Tony, and do what he was told to. There could never have been a more unsuitable pair of boys you'll ever see in your lifetime! 🚲 The story starts one summer holiday, when Tony asked her mother for a bicycle. He got a borrowed one, which he used it mostly to boast his skillful bike-riding to his two friends: Rose and Dora, whom he always patronizes. However, Tony and his bike give his mother apprehensions - she even imagines all sort of disastrous scenarios that could have happened to her son. Beyond Tony's exploiting his mother and two friends, we are also entertained by some recurring characters like Adrian Cotes, Laura's kind publisher, whom she successfully matchmade into a happy marriage in High Rising. George Knox, Laura's neighbor and close friend, also returns with his Victorian style of conversation, which always made me smile, because he often loses in his own flow of sentences, and then forgetting what he originally wanted to say. 🚲 And that's all about this book, a book about nothing but funny anecdotes of British upper-class lives in the 1930s. Readers might found Tony's 'terrorizing' people around him cute, but it was the one factor that's dampening my enjoyment of this book. If I had had a son like that, either I would, either kill him or else, kill myself! He really got me strung all the time, and it tired me after reading this book. I guess it's not a good one for an introverted people. I still want to read more of Thirkell's, but maybe not the Morlands story for the time being. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Weekend at Thrackley (1934) by Alan Melville

💎 This was my second inverted mystery, and contrary to my first one, The 12.30 from Croydon by Freeman Wills Croft (published in the same year), Weekend at Thrackley was a delightful reading for me. It's commercial success - it's his debut, moreover! - made Alan Melville giving up his current job, and dedicated his energy as a full-time writer. As usual with inverted mysteries, we, readers, know from the beginning the whodunnit; and the key of the story's attraction is in the how the crime would be committed, and how the victims-to-be would extricate themselves from the villain's clutches.

💎 Captain Jim Henderson had been unemployed post World War II, and a tenant in a dingy boarding house in London, when he received an invitation from Edwin Carson - old friend of his late father - to a weekend at his country house in Thrackley, Surrey. Jim - curious and excited - accepted the invitation (who wouldn't?) And while telephoning his rich bestie, Freddie Usher, to borrow a suit, Jim learned that Freddie, too, was invited to Thrackley. He learned also, that Edwin Carson is a famous jewels collector and connoisseur. The other six guests, including Freddie Usher, were asked to bring their precious jewelry to Thrackley, to be exhibited to the host. Why, then, Jim was invited too? He's the only poor one of the guests. But maybe he was invited for more of a sentimental reason?

💎 The weekend started very nicely, with the host's amiable welcome, sumptuous food, and the countryside air. And then, we were led to Edwin Carson's sinister way of procuring new jewels to be added to his collection. And that is when this story became most entertaining. From secret cellar, elaborate lift system, hidden camera, to electrical wiring - we were provided with an ingenious plot by Alan Melville. Not mentioning the little love affair which was sweetening the mystery, and Melville's eloquent, but hilarious at the same time, style of writing. I loved its neat ending, and some of the characters are unique, like a Spanish dancer called Raoul, and Lady Stone. I liked Jim Henderson from the start - he's a perfect amateur sleuth for this story. In short, this is a delightful country-house mystery, and I'll definitely look for more of Alan Melville's!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Mr. Finchley Discovers His England (1934) by Victor Canning

🚲 A story about middle-aged solicitor's clerk taking an adventurous holiday for the first time of his life is quite irresistible for me. And this book is just about that. No plot or story line, it's just a series of Mr. Finchley's hilarious, and often absurd, adventures around the countryside and little towns of England. The result is a refreshing and entertaining read!

🚲 Mr. Finchley's life can be accurately described in two words: regulated and rules. He's been working for years as clerk, and has never taken holiday from work. When his boss instructed him to take a three weeks summer holiday, Mr. Finchley was quite confused. But he bought a ticket anyway for a journey to a seaside town.

🚲 But Edgar Finchley never reached the town. For just from day one he always met with unexpected complications that thwarted his original plans. And these events and people he met are often comical; most of them very absurd. They are ranging from good to bad people. A Gypsy couple, a car thief (that's how he deviated from his original plan in the first place), and a male version of Miss Havisham are only a few I can remember. Along his journey, which he took either by foot or by bicycle, he was alternately kidnapped, on the run from an asylum, on the boat helping a smuggler, working at a gas station, and helping at a street show. Not to mention being chased by either the police or the angry gypsy because he thought Mr. Finchley had pinched his wife!

🚲 On the whole, this is a light read with cheerful tone, silly and charming. Overall I liked Mr. Finchley's adventures, though I was a bit uneasy when he just brushed off the smuggler's occupation just like that as if it's not wrong - because a crime is still a crime, though the criminal is kind and warm towards you, right? I know that in his position he couldn't do anything for his own sake, but I would feel troubled had I experienced the same. Excepting the game of cricket - which was too long and boring - I loved this book.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/5

Miss Buncle's Book (1934) by D.E. Stevenson #SpinsterSeptember

✍🏼 September is the month dedicated for #SpinsterSeptember, a Twitter and Instagram reading event created by Nora @pearjelly_. The idea is to read books in which the main characters are spinsters. My first contribution is a brilliantly written novel by D.E. Stevenson. In Miss Buncle's Book, Stevenson wrote a book about a woman who writes a book about a woman who writes a book. Confused? Let me elaborate...

✍🏼 Miss Barbara Buncle is a spinster in her late thirties, who lives in a small town of Silverstream. When the dividend, on which she was depended her financials, was decreased in both quantity and frequency, Miss Buncle was forced to do something. This something turned out to be writing a book. But Miss Buncle has a handicap - she doesn't have imagination. Thus, she wrote a book about what she knows well - Silverstream and its residents.

✍🏼 Mr. Abbott, the publisher, read Miss Buncle's manuscript, and loved it. He agreed to publish it under title of Disturber of the Peace. The title became a prophecy when, intrigued by this new book penned by John Smith (Miss Buncle's pseudonym), the Silverstreamers procured and read the book, and.... found themselves in it! Peace has been disturbed alright. And it is the chaos the book has stirred that forms the center of this amusing book.

✍🏼 The best part of the book is learning how different each individual's reaction is towards the Disturber of the Peace. Yet, it is easy to remark that their reactions are always in accordance with their personal characters. It can be said that their reactions reflect their true characters. Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg is the strongest opponent of Disturber of the Peace. She hated both the book and the writer, John Smith. So much so, that she went to London to bully Mr. Abbott into withdrawing the book from publication - which at this point had become a bestseller - and regarded it as libel. Of course Mr. Abbott refused to do that and there's no lawyer willing to take the case. Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg was so adamant, that she decided to take the matter by herself. She invited some residents whose name were included in the book, to gather and discuss the real identity of John Smith - for they realized that he/she must be their fellow resident - and what they'd do to punish this person. 

✍🏼 This action only revealed Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg's true personality: hypocrite. She recognized the character in the book as herself, but she denied vehemently that there is any similarity between the character and herself. Funny, right? But there are also those who saw the book as amusing, like Colonel Weatherhead. The book even inspired him to do something he would have never thought possible, but in the end it actually made him happier. To another male character, the book had opened his eyes of his wrongdoings towards his family, that he tried further to correct it.

✍🏼 In short, this is a hilarious story that satirized the hypocrisy in any society in our world. What we see outside is not always the same with what lays inside. People see Miss Buncle as a rather foolish or stupid woman, that they never suspect her as John Smith. Among the Silverstreamers, only Sally Walker, the 17 years granddaughter of Miss Buncle's neighbour, who really appreciate Miss Buncle as she is. Interestingly, Sally is the only one who could describe Disturber of the Peace in accordance with its literary merit. The moral of the story is, that sometimes it's good to see one's reflection from other's mirror - there might lay the truth one doesn't often realize about one self. However, only they who are conscientious enough who can see it as it is. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
 

The Unfinished Clue (1934) by Georgette Heyer

💃🏻 Sir Arthur Billington-Smith is the type of person who attracts murder. He's a bully, unpleasant man, who treated his family horribly, and made everyone miserable. Thus, it is clear from the beginning who the victim would be.

💃🏻 Sir Arthur and Lady Fay Billington-Smith is receiving guests for the weekend in their countryside house. Dinah Fawcet, Fay's sister, is staying to support her sister. She's an intelligent, efficient, no-nonsense girl. Also staying as guests: Camilla Halliday, who is flirting with her host, with her jealous husband Basil; Sir Arthur's hard-up nephew: Francis Billington-Smith; and Stephen Guest, a family friend who's in love with Fay Billington-Smith and wants to marry her. Last but definitely not least: Sir Arthur's rebellious son Geoffrey, who's causing upheaval at her father's house by bringing home with him his new fianceé, an insolent selfish cabaret dancer named Lola de Silva.

💃🏻 Sir Arthur was found dead in his study, stabbed on the neck, with only a piece of paper, with unfinished word or sentence written before death took him, as the clue. Excepting Dinah Fawcet, who had neither opportunity nor strong motive to kill him, all the others are suspects. Is it an insider's job? Or one of the servants or other non-staying guests? Whoever it was, the local police were in a difficult position to handle the case, so they call in the Scotland Yard.

💃🏻 Inspector Harding is the epitome of a perfect crime detective. Educated in Oxford, and gentlemanly in his manner, he skillfully deals with the people concerned. He's a charming man too. Had Heyer written a series of Inspector Harding, he would be my favorite detective. Unfortunately, this is a standalone book, and Harding himself uttered a wish to leave Yard and become a farmer in the final chapter. While performing his investigation diligently, he still has time to court the admirable Dinah Fawcet, who reciprocates his affection. What I loved from him most, is his ability in deduction and extracting information from suspects, and his professional authority when he's on duty, which always commanding respect instead of fear.

💃🏻 All in all, this was a perfect Golden Age detective story. A charming detective, a wonderful plot with surprising twist, a proportionate writing with decent pace, a tinge of efficient romance, pleasant and believable characters, set in an English countryside. What more could you expect? Well, more books, actually...! But as we won’t have it, at least this one has been a very wholesome read.

Rating: 5 / 5

This book counts for: British Crime Classics Challenge 2023

For Bingo Card: Death by Stabbing