I’ll let you in on a secret: much as I struggle to read two books by the same author close together, there are certain writers whose diversity of approach enables me to sidestep this consideration. One such personage is Erle Stanley Gardner, and I’m starting to suspect that E.C.R. Lorac might be another. Lorac’s country-set novels featuring Inspector Robert Macdonald are very different beasts to his London-based cases, and Death of an Author (1935) — not featuring Macdonald at all — is different again: a zesty, propulsive, and supremely clever little puzzler dug out from seemingly inescapable obscurity by the British Library for our not inconsiderable enjoyment.

In the latter stages of World War 2, artist Bruce Manaton is painting the portrait of a friend dressed in the robes of a cardinal, and his sister Rosanne fretting about the efficacy of the blackout curtains on the studio where they live, when there is a knock at the door. It seems that a special constable has discovered the body of murdered Old Mr. Folliner, the Manatons’ miserly landlord, and apprehended the killer as he was fleeing. Leaving the suspect in the care of the five people in the studio — two chess-playing friends have also dropped by for the evening — the constable summons the police, and before long Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald finds himself with another complex tangle to unfurl.

I’ve enjoyed mixed fortunes with the work of E.C.R. Lorac, from the high of The Devil and the C.I.D. (1938) to the low of Murder by Matchlight (1945), and a return to her work has always been on the cards. And so, with the British Library kind enough to send me a review copy of Crook o’ Lune (1953), the eleventh title by Lorac to be reprinted in their august Crime Classics series, we return. There can be no denying that Lorac has been a huge success for the BL, undoubtedly allowing the taking of a risk on some more obscure titles elsewhere, so I knew that there were plenty of others in print for me to read if I enjoyed this one.

If you seek evidence of my tendency to over-commit where GAD is concerned, look no further than my reading and reviewing two E.C.R. Lorac titles and then buying a further, ahem, six before actually getting round to reading any more.  For all her perceived failings — not as rigorous as Christie, not as refined as Sayers, not as dull as Marsh — I’ve found my first few books by Edith Caroline Rivett to distinguish themselves in her approaching fairly standard setups with an air of trying to do something a little uncommon.  We’re not reinventing the wheel, but we are putting a different tread on the tyres.

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