E. X. Ferrars (1907–1995)

Ferrars is a prolific mystery author whose work I have never sampled before. This title is listed as No. 5 in the Inspector Ditteridge series, but the Inspector is not what you'd call a major character in the story...he doesn't appear until very near the end, and he doesn't do much at all. So not having read the other 4 first was no problem at all. The story involves a woman who applies for a job in the country household of a couple who previously employed her sister in the same position. It show more involves very little actual work; the owners are only there on weekends, and they are not the entertaining sort. Her real mission is to find out what happened to her sister, who mysteriously left the job and the house in the middle of the night several months before; she makes no mention of her sister, and assumes no one will connect her with the missing girl. The husband and wife are obviously not happy together, and they're mean about it; the gardener is peculiar, anti-social, possibly dangerously mad; there is a pair of totally whacko old ladies next door who have no sense of time and may show up on the doorstep at any hour of the day or night needing to borrow some treacle, or ask for help re-hanging an old mirror that's fallen down. Plenty of reasons for a sensible young woman to pack her bags and move on. But why did she never contact her family again, and why haven't the police taken a bigger interest in her disappearance? Alison is determined to know, even if the answers are unpleasant. I really liked this mystery--Ferrars skirted around a number of cliches, and avoided them niftily. Just as one instance, Alison isn't just blithely taking on this potentially risky investigation all on her own. Her brother and sister-in-law are quite well aware of where she is and she stays in touch with them; she soon takes her sister's bewildered boyfriend into her confidence as well. I hate stupidly intrepid heroines who needlessly put themselves in harm's way, and then get magically rescued. Nothing like that happens here show less

Not all books I pick up just for the sake of a challenge turn out to be duds. This one, which I picked up because it was on sale, and set in Australia, is actually an excellent story. The solution is not obvious. The characters are mostly three dimensional, though there are a lot of them and a few only get a brief character sketch. And Australia, where retired professor Andrew Basnet has gone for a holiday to visit friends, feels like another character in itself, as viewed in the eyes of show more someone from away. Although the book was written in the 1980s, it does not feel particularly dated. Well done, Ms. Ferrars. show less

The second in Ferrars' Virginia and Felix Ferrars series. Not exactly cosy, but comfy and undemanding. Virginia is on holiday with friends at their home, when her not-quite-ex husband, Felix shows up, on some mysterious mission. Virginia is skeptical of nearly everything Felix says and does, but he is kind and charming, and apparently fairly intuitive. Their relationship is kind of quirky and fun; he still loves her, and she enjoys his company for short well-spaced out intervals. Bigamy, show more blackmail, and a couple murders in the social circle give everybody something to speculate about, and Felix has the best ideas, although he isn't at all interested in sharing them with the investigators. Good enough to continue with, should more of these come my way. show less

This is a relatively short Golden Age novel that I've had sitting on my Kindle TBR for some time. I hadn't realised it was the debut title in a series of 6 novels. An interesting feature of the list is that the final title was published over 50 years after the fifth, and only a couple of years before the author's death. Not only that but it appears to have been the first of Elizabeth Ferrars' published work.

The plot is a complex one which poses some intriguing questions. Why does the local show more lord of the manor claim the dead body is his son whom he hasn't seen for some fifteen years, while Lady Maxwell says that it isn't. And who is sending anonymous letters to Toby Dyke to spur on his investigation?

And does Toby Dyke get it right or wrong at the end? Is he too clever for his own good?

This is a novel that has weathered the test of time quite well. show less