A Most Contagious Game

I have read every single one of Catherine Aird’s C.D. Sloan mysteries, and, with Aird now in her 90s, I didn’t expect any more novels. You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Aird released a stand-alone cozy mystery in 1967 (her second novel and the only one not to feature Inspector Sloan and his slipshod sidekick, Constable Crosby). I immediately bought the audio edition — and one sale, too! What joy!

Thomas Harding, a workaholic forced into retirement by a heart condition, chafes at being forced to slow down in his newly acquired Tudor mansion in a backwater village. But Harding’s existence livens up when he discovers a secret priest hole in his new home — and, within it, a skeleton of a teenager killed 150 years show more before. Harding and his wife Dora seek to discover why the teen was killed — and by whom. Surprising, the ancient mystery has a connection with a present-day crime. A delightful read and an unexpected treat to devour one final Aird cozy. show less

Thomas Harding purchased a country estate sight unseen. He regrets having turned over the matter of the purchase to his wife during his convalescence, but all that changes when the odd placement of an electrical outlet leads to the discovery of a hidden room in the house. When they finally tear away the plaster someone had used to seal the hidden priest's hole, they find an old skeleton. With a current murder investigation, the local law enforcement is not very interested in the older crime. Thomas begins investigating on his own. This is probably going to be an all-time favorite mystery. Thomas uses the same types of principles that a good genealogist would utilize to investigate the persons living in the home at that time period and show more earlier. This is an absolute gem of a mystery and one that I'm sure I'll want to read again in the future. show less

My spouse saw me reading two dead-tree books in a row, and thought to try to get me into the habit. So, she insisted I read this. It was an ok book, but I'll be glad to be getting back to my kindle. So will my tired arms and hands. Books are so heavy and unwieldy. ;-)

Anyway, this is one of those archetypal cozy-British-village, murder-mystery books which have been all the rage for close to a century now. This particular book came out not quite 50 years ago. We have a middle-aged man (50 something), who made a pile in London, but who also had a heart attack. So the "cure" was to quit work and go rest in the country...forever. I guess that was in the days before by-pass surgery and angioplasties (thank God we had angioplasties by 1987). show more Anyway, he buys an old Tudor manor house in a small village and is bored to tears.

But, he doesn't stay bored long. It seems that the house has a secret room, a place to hide Roman Catholic priests from back in the days when they were all being hunted down and executed, i.e. back in the late 17th century. It turns out there's a skeleton in the priest's hole, a skeleton that is roughly 150 years old, i.e. dating back to 1800 plus/minus. So, Thomas, the rich invalid, gets interested in tracking the family history of the people who lived in the house before him.

Along with "his" murder, Thomas becomes inadvertently involved in a more recent murder, a "village" murder. It seems that a young woman was just strangled. Her husband disappeared, and the police are trying to track him down to question him, perhaps arrest him and try him for the murder. Everyone in the village knows he didn't do it, so they're not much help to the police.

So, we get lots of background on priest holes and some history of the persecution of Roman Catholic families in those days, which is rather fun, and also some "mystery" bits, which are just so-so. I think the story about the 150-year-old murder mostly hangs together. The more recent murder not so much. Perhaps the author just forgot to add in some important details, or forgot to notice that some things just plain don't much make sense. Not unusual in this genre. Whatever, it's a reasonably GoodRead, though perhaps not a great one. show less

This book is very similar to Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time." A wealthy man is recovering from a heart attack in his new (to him) but otherwise extremely old house. He discovers a skeleton in a priest's hole, and slowly researches how it ended up there. I've gone and made it sound all dry, but really it's not — Aird did a brilliant job at atmosphere in this book. She slowly generates tension and makes the historical characters alive as we learn about them. If your favorite part of a traditional ghost story is the inevitable trip to the library, you should read this.

Thomas is bored to tears with his early retirement in a small English village when he and his wife discover a priest hole in their house. Hidden in the priest hole is a skeleton of a teenage boy. The police remove the body from the house but decline to investigate the death as the boy has been dead for a century and a half and his murderer would be long dead also.

Thomas decides to investigate the mystery to alleviate his boredom. Who is the boy? Who killed him? And why was his body hidden in the priest hole?

In its own way, A Most Contagious Game reminded me a bit of Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. Both have elements of historical fiction, and both involve the solving of murders from the past. Tey's hero thinks he has solved the mystery of who really killed the princes in the tower (viz Richard III); the hero in Aird's book comes upon a skeleton in a priest's hole he discovers in his home. After being told that the skeleton is probably about 150 years old, the main character sets about using history to try to figure out who the bones belonged to and why he or she was in there. Aside from that, though, the two books go on divergent paths, with this one adding in a present-day murder as well.

I thought this book was awesome until the very show more end, because when the murderer (present-day) is revealed, it is so quick and so fast that you're thinking to yourself "huh?" No lead in at all. I have noted in some of my reviews of her other books that the author has a habit of doing this and I'm sad to see she continued it here.

If I could give like 3.75 stars, that's what I'd do; but I must say I really liked the book up until that point. Others may disagree. Oh well.

Recommended for those who enjoy British crime novels and novels that feature a bit of history. show less

The first Catherine Aird I read...which led me to the Sloan and Crosby series. This stand alone book is intelligent, witty, has great pace and characters. I found it very entertaining. A great village cozy.