Hard to believe, I know, but I had a life before this blog, and in that life I read The Case with Nine Solutions (1928) by J.J. Connington and was mildly disappointed that those ‘solutions’ were merely permutations on the interpretations put on two deaths and not a Poisoned Chocolates Case-esque reinterpretation of available information to give a nonet of distinct answers to explain away events.  Beyond that, I remembered very little about it and so, now more versed in Connington’s writing, I return — making this the fifth Connington novel I’ve read in the last 12 months, which is probably enough to convince me that I’m now a fan.

Having recently discussed with Martin Edwards the efforts writers can go to in order to keep things fresh, I can understand how, after five books in three years featuring Sir Clinton Driffield as sleuth, J.J. Connington would fancy a change. This might be unfair to Driffield, however, for the simple fact that the plot Connington cooked up for The Eye in the Museum (1929) is about the dullest thing anyone would put on paper in that decade. With interview after interview after interview after interview, we’re not Dragging the Marsh (© Brad Friedman) so much as dying inside. No, that’s not clever; this book has left me unable to care.