Last month as one of my Book Challenge selections I read the short story collection English Country House Murders edited by Thomas Godfrey. (See Review in June) The story by Christianna Brand caught my attention and the blurb at the beginning mentioned that she had been a contemporary of the Golden Age mystery writers (i.e. Christie, Marsh, Tey, and Sayers), had written several mystery novels featuring a detective named Cockrell, and was still very popular in England and on the continent. He suggested Green for Danger as her best one. This is definitely a classic mystery although in the way she develops her characters and handles her plot I think her style resembles Josephine Tey more than Agatha Christie. The setting is during the Blitz in a military hospital in a heavily bombed area that is forced to take in civilian casualties. Although it takes place in a hospital it still has the feel of a Country House Mystery because besides the victims we are only concerned with the six suspects, three doctors and three nurses, and the detective, Cockrell. The environs are the hospital, the grounds and the lodge house where the three women reside when not on duty. The motive for 2 of the murders is part of the mystery, for the characters as well as the reader. This mystery has interesting characters, gives an historically accurate picture of what was happening in England during the blitz and also a great description of medical practices at that time, some very suspenseful moments that are psychologically created rather than “chase related”and a very clever puzzle which keeps you guessing.
There were two things that made this book particularly appealing to me. I found the historical part of the book interesting because this was written in 1944 when the WWII era would have been fresh in Brand’s mind, up close and personal. I enjoyed comparing her descriptions with Jaqueline Winspear’s account in Maisie Dobbs, which is a 21st century novel cum mystery set during and after the WWI era. I was especially tickled to spot a reference to the feathers that are the crux of Winspear’s second Maisie Dobbs novel, Birds of a Feather. I wonder if they did the same thing during WWII as they did in WWI or is it an anomaly that Brand uses it, too. I will have to research that again. The other appealing aspect of this novel is that Brand fooled me in her solution to the mystery while completely playing fair. This does not happen to me very often. How much fun I had remembering the important clues that I had noticed but ignored because she hid them in plain sight so well. Classic mystery buffs should love this book! ( )

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