Having recently looked at the debut from one legend in the annals of mystery fiction, let’s turn our attention to another: Death in High Heels (1941), the first novel from Christianna Brand, recently republished in the excellent British Library Crime Classics Range, so that, incredibly, fully seven of her novels are now readily available. And, once again, we find a genre great on apprentice form, with this story of murder in a fashionable dressmakers running too long and rather lacking in incident. Brand would have to learn her trade somewhere, however, and there are encouraging signs here of the force she would become.

With the British Library having cracked the decades-old problem of getting Christianna Brand republished — they’ve now put out six of her novels, with a seventh, her debut Death in High Heels (1941), to follow in November — it’s wonderful to dive into Cat and Mouse (1950) and find something decidedly uncommon that speaks of an author wanting to challenge herself after penning some of the best small-cast, twist-ending novels in the genre. The focus on an almost Gothic level of mood and suspense here puts one in mind of a similar attempt in Telefair, a.k.a. Yesterday’s Murder (1942) by Craig Rice; but Brand wins, because she also remembered to include a plot.