Death of an Airman

The two detectives looked at each other, and, after thanking Lady Laura, walked over to the hangars. “An intelligent girl,” said Creighton. “I don’t know why one is surprised when a good-looking woman has brains.

What a fun murder mystery! Death of an Airman had everything I like about Golden Age mysteries: eccentric characters, humour, technical detail that makes it fun to follow the puzzle, red herrings galore, and a solution to the mystery that made it difficult to book down the book before the last page.

My favourite part was when Scotland Yard followed a lead that involved the covert sale of a French newspaper to "special order" customers in Glasgow which ended with the policemen being thrown out of the newsagents... I show more literally read this, giggled, and hoped that this would be more than a red herring.
A similar turn of plot in Death in the Tunnel had frustrated my reading experience of that book and I was relieved to find out that although there were a lot of similarities between the books, Death of an Airman was taking itself less seriously and, in consequence, was a much more enjoyable read. I laughed on several occasions, but I was also enjoying the hunt for clues and trying to figure out the mystery of how the victim was killed - because that was a real mystery for most of the book.

I wish we had many more works by Sprigg that we could discover, but Sprigg died at the age of 30 after had joined the Spanish Civil War. Had he lived, I wonder whether he would have injected some more of that irreverence and fun that made Death of an Airman such a joy into the rest of the mystery genre. Don't get me wrong, I love the Golden Age mystery reads, but instead of the xenophobia and snobbery that sometimes seems to run through these books, I would have loved to have seen more of Sprigg's tone of voice:

"Any convictions against the woman in your records?”
“Nothing serious. Dangerous driving, of course, and a narrow escape from a manslaughter conviction, but this type of reckless individual may always get involved in that kind of thing. They think it’s their duty to drive about the streets like maniacs. Oh, there’s a fine for assault when she bashed a fellow over the head with her ice-hockey stick for making some uncomplimentary remark about the sportsmanship of women players. It was perhaps excusable.” show less

A beautiful cover, a fizzy Golden Age mystery, and some gloriously nerdy technical details about airplanes combine to make me give a four-star rating to this book. I highly enjoyed Christopher St. John Sprigg's tale of a fatal plane crash that is initially dubbed death by misadventure, but contains enough oddities for the local police to open a murder inquiry. The investigation is helped somewhat by a visiting bishop from Australia who was taking flying lessons at the club where the incident occurred. The facts revealed by the investigation end up coming together in a way that probably stretches several bounds of credulity but is still very enjoyable. And the ending made me cheer. Overall a very good book from this imprint.

Readers will find Death of an Airman bittersweet, as it is one of the few books the author, Christopher St. John Sprigg, published in his lifetime. (Other works were published posthumously.) A committed Marxist, Sprigg joined the International Brigades and went to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where he was killed at age 29.

No less than Dorothy L. Sayers proclaimed the novel as having “a most ingenious and exciting plot, full of good puzzles and discoveries and worked out among a varied cast of entertaining characters.” Readers will find they agree with Miss Sayers wholeheartedly.

In Death of an Airman, an Australian bishop finds himself in England and decides to learn to fly airplanes, the better to travel in his extensive diocese show more back home. That’s how Edwin Marriott, bishop of Cootamundra, finds himself on the scene when pilot George Furnace dies in a plane crash. While others chalk up Furnace’s death to a fatal accident, Marriot isn’t so sure. He eventually convinces the authorities that Furnace was murdered and that the secret to his death lies at the Baston Aero Club.

Sprigg’s delightful mystery made me wish he’d lived to write dozens; instead, he wrote only seven whodunits. I hope some of them will detail the further exploits of the dogged Inspector Creighton or Scotland Yard’s suave Inspector Bernard Bray. Or of his lordship, Bishop Marriott! And I hope that, as it has been doing with so many forgotten masterpieces from the Golden Age of crime fiction, the British Library will republish some more gems from Christopher St. John Sprigg.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review. show less

In this mystery centered around an English aviation club, one of its best flyers perishes in a tragic plane crash. Most people assume it’s an accident, but the victim was a first-class pilot, and the inquest revealed nothing wrong with the plane. A few of the club members suggest suicide, but a visiting Australian bishop suspects murder. When the police get involved, they realize the victim’s death may be connected to a much larger criminal organization. I liked this mystery well enough, but I think the strength was definitely in the plot rather than in the characters. For example, for the first several chapters, it looks like the Australian bishop is going to be the sleuth, but suddenly everything switches to the police show more inspector’s point of view. Still, this was a fun variation on the “impossible crime” mystery with a truly ingenious solution. show less

Death of an Airman is a traditional British mystery with a hodge podge of hoity toity characters involved in murder and a drug smuggling ring centered around an air taxi service. A priest visiting from Australia decides he wants to learn to fly. A pilot was found dead in his crashed plane. Was it murder or suicide? The police start to investigate this convoluted tale. Great descriptions of early aircraft and flying techniques so likely fascinating for aircraft aficionados. The author died young in the Spanish Civil War or he might have become as well known as Christie and Sayers.

It must have been so much fun to just jump in a little plane and take off for a day in France and probably with less trouble than driving to the shopping centre nowadays. This book, a British Library Crime Classic, was originally published in 1934. I was delighted by all the buzzing around and aerobatics by the members of an aviation club. An Australian bishop arrived to take flying lessons and at first it appeared that he might become the sleuth and discover who murdered a pilot but police investigations took over. The beautiful cover lived up to its promise and I loved all the aeronautic details, although the solution was less than stellar.

There were some surprises in this mystery from this British Library Crime Classics reprint. An Australian bishop signing up for flying lessons whilst in the UK made a lot of sense and he was a fine character. There were an assortment of eccentric women, a sappy American judge, a brief appearance by a German aviator, a French connection, some white powder, etc... What fun!
The motives for the crimes seemed rather modern for a book written in 1934.

I love this series. My copy is an advance review copy from Poisoned Pen Press, the USA publisher.