Cyril Hare | Author | LibraryThing

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Common Knowledge

Legal name: Clark, Alfred Alexander Gordon
Birthdate: 1900-09-04
Date of death: 1958-08-25
Burial location: St Michael Churchyard Mickleham, Mole Valley District, Surrey, England
Gender: male
Nationality: UK
Birthplace: Mickleham, Surrey, England
Place of death: Box Hill, Surrey, England, UK
Places of residence: Battersea, London, England, UK
Mickleham, Surrey, England, UK
Education: Oxford University (New College)
Rugby School, Rugby, England, UK
St Aubyn's, Rottingdean
Occupations: judge
barrister
crime novelist
short story writer
Organizations: Detection Club
Short biography: Cyril Hare's pen name was reportedly derived from a mixture of Hare Court, where he worked as a lawyer, and Cyril Mansions in Battersea, where he lived. As a young man and during the early days of World War II, Hare served as a touring judge's marshal, an experience he used in his novels. Between 1942 and 1945 he worked at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He served a short time at the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and the wartime civil service. In 1950 he was appointed county court judge in Surrey. Hare suffered from tuberculosis and died at the age of 57.

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Reviews

An English Murder by Cyril Hare

A satisfying murder mystery which feels deeply classic but also oddly modern. Classic, because it is set in a snowed-in country house over a 36-hour period, with the suspects restricted to our main cast - everyone of them noble on the surface but deeply shabby within - and a bunch of unseen servants, of course. Modern, because this is a novel in which a socialist Chancellor and a neo-Fascist make up two members of the family, whose guests include a variety of upper-class types realising their day is nearly done, lower-class types on the make, and a refugee from Hitler's Europe who sees through all of this nonsense. (More than once, I had to remind myself this was an authentic novel of the 1950s, and not an Anthony Horowitz pastiche.)

Like most crime fiction novels, the second half is less exciting than the setup, although the plot holds together quite well. I would like to adapt this for the screen, I think. It could make an enjoyable - and timely - TV film.… (more)

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therebelprince | 24 other reviews | Oct 24, 2023 |

An English Murder by Cyril Hare

I never try to figure out the solutions to murder mysteries anyhow, and I wouldn't have been able to in this. For me, it's the quality of the journey with Cyril Hare. And he does, in the very end, tell you why these murders are peculiarly English.

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ReadMeAnother | 24 other reviews | Oct 10, 2023 |

An English Murder by Cyril Hare

Very english. :) A nice classic british locked-room mystery (of the isolated group variety, not a literal locked room).

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Kiramke | 24 other reviews | Jun 27, 2023 |

With a bare bodkin by Cyril Hare

Maybe even 4.5*

I found Hare’s setting in this one very amusing (a satire of WW2 British bureaucracy, it’s set in the Bureau of Pin Control and has a subplot about black market trading in pins!) and the mystery was very good. I thought that I had figured it out but not so!

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leslie.98 | 5 other reviews | Jun 27, 2023 |

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