Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This reissue of a work by one of the most popular (but now largely forgotten) writers of the golden age of British crime fiction has a spectacularly cozy opening: as rain patters and a wind off the Atlantic moans around the windows of a vicar's snug, fire-lit study, he waits for his weekly guest, the village doctor. Their meeting centers on opening a crate from the local lending library. The books the vicar has chosen for his friend are an index to popular mystery writers of the time: Dorothy L. Sayers, J. Jefferson Farjeon, Agatha Christie, and Freeman Wills Crofts. The vicar and doctor serving the tiny village of Boscawen, in Cornwall, are avid detective-story fans. That very night, the doctor is called out to the neighboring cliffside home of a wealthy magistrate found with a bullet in his head. The vicar, steeped in procedure from his reading, joins forces with the police to solve a crime that hinges on the timing of curtains being pulled, high-heeled footprints, and varieties of gravel, along with the motives of the many who hated the magistrate. The combination of bracing Cornish cliffs and seascapes with cozy interiors and a cerebral mystery makes this one of the most deservedly resurrected titles in the British Library Crime Classics series. With an introduction by modern British crime writer Martin Edwards.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
