Maxwell's House

History teacher Peter Maxwell is quite upset when one of his young students is found dead in an abandoned house; while he was off vacationing in Cornwall, she was being murdered. There are few clues in the case, and the local police are interviewing everybody who knew the girl, including all her teachers. Max (as he is known) feels a responsibility to the dead girl because she was one of his students, so he decides to look into the crime on his own, a decision that soon leads to him becoming the prime suspect himself, at least in the eyes of some unsavory police officers…. This is the first in a series of mysteries set in contemporary England; the book was published in 1994 and there is a disclaimer at the beginning of the volume show more noting that the books were published in the 1990s and 2000s “when social attitudes were different,” which strikes me as unnecessary given that anyone reading for pleasure probably is aware that books written in earlier times have different attitudes. Yes, there’s a fair amount of sexism here, and a bit of homophobia, but the reader can probably deal with it (or stop reading). That said, this is a solidly constructed mystery and the ending came as a complete surprise to me (a good thing for a mystery); my main quibble with the book was that I couldn’t decide if I liked Max or not. Still, I bought this in an “omnibus” e-edition, the first 8 books for about $1, so what’s not to like? And I’ve already started book 2; so, a mild recommendation - as long as you can handle “different attitudes”! show less

Witty without being silly. It took a while to get used to the English colloquialisms. If you are under the age of 50, you probably won't get 90% of the movie or TV references. If you are over 50 but aren't British (like me), you probably won't get 40% of those references, but you can guess based on context.

In a minor public school (i.e. private school) in England, schoolteacher Maxwell seeks a student's murderer. Good characterization is a plus in this academic mystery.