| Title | : | An English Murder |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 178 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1951 |
Who can be responsible? The scorned young lover? The lord's passed-over cousin? The social climbing politician's wife? The Czech history professor? The obsequious butler? And perhaps the real question is: can any of them survive long enough to tell the tale?
An English Murder Reviews
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Published in 1951, this is a typical, country house, murder mystery, with a slightly different feel. Although the setting is one familiar to readers of Golden Age mysteries – a group of guests, a snowed in country house – the modern world is beginning to impinge. Domestic staff is harder to get hold of and Briggs, the butler, valiantly does his best to keep up standards with far less help than he previously had. Meanwhile, the house itself, is suffering from a lack of staff, and money. It looks impressive, but maintenance is expensive and death duties will mean that the present Lord Warbeck’s son, Robert, is unlikely to be able to afford his inheritance.
Lord Warbeck is old, and ill, and keen to have his family with him at Christmas. His guests include his son, Robert – who is the President of the League of Liberty and Justice, a right wing political group, Sir Julius Warbeck, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mrs Carstairs, whose father was the rector of the parish when she was young, Lady Camilla Prendergast, a distant relative, and Dr Wenceslaus Bottwink, a Professor of History, currently doing research at Warbeck House.
The guests are an ill assorted group and tensions, political and personal, are in the air. The house is snowed in when there is a suspicious death and Rogers, a Special Branch Detective, whose job is to keep Sir Julius safe, is asked to step in to investigate. However, it is Dr Bottwink who, with the aid of his historical knowledge, solve the mystery. An interesting, post-war, setting for a classic murder mystery. -
This was a delightful little gem of a book that I would never have picked up without happening upon it in a London bookshop, so hurrah for the power of in person discovery! This could not be more aptly titled because oh my lord, this is just such a quintessential British mystery of the era. It has the isolated closed circle element that I love and I was so into the social history/political history threads woven in. Very excited to try another Cyril Hare - he has a great (and rather funny) authorial voice
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Half spoof, half homage to the vintage English country house murder mystery, this takes all the usual elements of a dysfunctional family, old loves and enmities, the house cut off by snow, murder - and gives them a shake-up by having a police bodyguard on hand who reluctantly plays detective ably assisted by a 'foreign' history professor. That Dr Bottwind is uncannily similar to Poirot is part of the joke - that he is Jewish and has survived the Holocaust adds a whole other dimension to a genre which generally ignores politics. Here the political strand is augmented by including characters who are, respectively, the leader of a British neofascist group, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of a post war socialist government.
The mystery is somewhat thin but moves along easily, and there's another dig that the solution rests on British constitutional history which only Dr Bottwind realises. A light read rather than a classic but interesting for the way in which it reflects and resists genre elements. -
Retko se desi da u knjizi koja od tačke do tačke strogo ispunjava vrlo sužene zahteve određenog podžanra (ovde onaj tip detektivskog romana u kome se desi ubistvo u snegom zavejanoj kući pa se mala grupa šarolikih likova međusobno sumnjiči i optužuje) naiđete na lik kome se onako od srca obradujete i pomislite MOJ ČOVEK. A ovde se upravo to dogodilo. Doktor Venceslav Botvink je istoričar i to istoričar pedant koji posvećuje život nekim trećerazrednim istorijskim ličnostima i dešifrovanju njihovih marginalija po tuđoj prepisci. Ali takođe je istočnoevropski Jevrejin čija nam je biografija data tek u oskudnim naznakama tipa "biblioteka jeste bila ledena, ali je u konclogoru bilo mnogo hladnije pa mu sad ovo nije smetalo" ili nagoveštena u iskazima tipa "naravno da sam siguran da je u pitanju trovanje cijanidom. Viđao sam takve smrti, one se teško zaboravljaju". Osim toga, iako (ubeđena sam) nosi tegle od naočara, Botvink ima oštro oko za međuljudske odnose i sitne detalje, jednako oštar jezik i grozomoran profesorski humor koji ostali (na sreću ili na žalost) uglavnom ne kapiraju. Konačno, nešto dosta užasno za ostale likove iz knjige tj. potencijalne žrtve i ubice: Botvink je blaženo ubeđen da će i njima za razrešenje zagonetke zločina biti dovoljno da im nabaci kako samo treba da se sete šta se Vilijamu Pitu mlađem NIJE desilo tad-i-tad ili da malo razmisle o finesama engleskog ustavnog prava. Poaro nikad nije bio ovako skroman.
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A wonderful, little mystery for the English mysteries group.
I liked it very much and I admit that I was clueless till the end (though with some suspicions).
Excellent for a snowy, winter afternoon. -
Very enjoyable country house mystery set at Christmas time during a snowstorm. However, if you are looking for a holiday book, this might not be a good choice as Christmas really plays no part in the story except as a reason for the people to have gathered together (and become stranded) at this country house.
Despite the presence of a Scotland Yard man, this is actually a cozy mystery since the solution of the mystery (and much of the detecting) is done by one of the guests, -
3.5 stars.
I really liked this murder mystery, which was also a study of the British social order & anti-semitism. Dr Bottwink owes a lot to Hercule Poirot, but otherwise for me this was quite an original tale & I will be happy to read more by this author. -
A Christmas to remember. The book I read was published in 1951 by Little, Brown and Company. There are already so many editions listed I didn't take the trouble to add yet another edition.
Class distinction and prejudices; dying Lord of the Manor trying to have a family/friends gathering for his last Christmas; Exchequer of the government who can't add; a son who is decidedly not a gentleman and assorted others comprise this unhappy grouping where cyanide pays a visit. -
A perfect Christmas read here especially if you like the old school Christie type mysteries - it is also a short read which adds to the perfect Christmas read thing you can get through it over the holiday.
An English country house, a gathering of family, then a MURDER. Classic and in this case really brilliantly done. Atmospheric, totally of it's time I loved it.
I don't really think there's a lot else that I can say. It is a beautiful read and I want to read the other crime books Cyril Hare wrote now.
Recommended for fans of classic crime. -
A short and entertaining mystery that subverts some of the traditions of the 'English country house murder'. In particular, it's much more politically aware and much more candid about the post WWII inability of the landed gentry to maintain those grand country houses. The characters were well-drawn.
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A great English country house read in the tradition of the locked room, although it is a snowed-in house in which all the characters find themselves isolated. And, it being Christmas makes the crime especially ghastly. A thoroughly satisfying read for the holidays, short but engaging.
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This was a very enjoyable book which I only picked up because it’s mentioned in numerous reading lists for classical Christmas novels. As many others it’s set in an English country house during the festive season. With a snowstorm going on outside someone is killed and since the telephone line and the roads are blocked the remaining guests need to find out who the murderer is. The reason why I don’t rate this book better than 3.5 stars is because it has nothing to do with Christmas. When I read a seasonal murder mystery novel I want Christmas to play an actual part in the story and get into a festive mood and that’s not the case with this novel.
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Der alte Lord Warbeck liegt im Sterben – deshalb lädt er seine engsten Verwandten und Bekannten zu einem letzten Weihnachtsfest auf seinem Landgut ein. Er selbst ist bereits in so schlechter Verfassung, dass er eigentlich gar nicht mehr den Gastgeber spielen kann. Diese Aufgabe soll sein einziger Sohn und Nachfolger, der mürrische und jähzornige Robert Warbeck übernehmen.
Ansonsten sind noch die junge Lady Camilla, Cousin Sir Julius, der eine beachtliche Karriere hingelegt hat und derzeit der Schatzkanzler Großbritanniens ist, Familienfreundin Mrs. Carstairs und der leicht eigenartige Historiker Dr. Bottwink eingeladen. Vor allem Letzterer ist den andere Besuchern ein Dorn im Auge – der ausländische Dr. Bottwink (man munkelt, er sei Jude) – der hat doch bei so einer intimen Familienfeier nichts zu suchen! Doch der alte Lord besteht darauf: Bottwink ist sein Gast, er feiert mit der Familie. Neben einigen namenlosen Hausangestellten sind zudem auch noch der altehrwürdige Buttler Briggs, seine Tochter Susan und der Polizist Rogers (als Leibwächter für Sir Julius) im Herrenhaus anwesend.
Die Stimmung ist von Anfang an aufgeladen – doch als das Haus pünktlich zum Weihnachtsfest komplett eingeschneit und von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten wird, kommen die Konflikte erst richtig ins schwelen. Und trotzdem sind alle überrascht, als um Mitternacht der erste Mord geschieht. Die möglichen Täter sind alle anwesend. Doch wer wäre so kaltblütig, seine üblen Gedanken in die Tat umzusetzen?
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Ist Ende November zu früh für den ersten Weihnachtskrimi des Jahres? 😅 I hope not.
Das hier war ein klassischer Krimi aus dem 20. Jahrhundert, vielleicht nicht sonderlich originell, aber ich habe ihn ganz gerne gehört. Besonders gut hat mir gefallen, dass er die englische Gesellschaft zur Zeit der Veröffentlichung so kritisch behandelt. Wie schon eine andere Rezension hier besagt, geht Cyril Hare da mit allen Schichten gleichermaßen ins Gericht.
Auch fand ich es schön, dass der etwas seltsame Dr. Bottwink, der von den anderen teilweise wirklich herablassend behandelt wurde, am Ende der gewiefteste Beobachter war.
Gemütliches Cozy Crime für die Vorweihnachtszeit für Freund*innen des klassischen Kriminalromans.
3,25🌟 -
This is a Golden Age classic recommended to me by a friend. I enjoyed the Poirot-like amateur detective; most of the other characters were stereotypical. Never in a million years could I have figured out whodunnit.
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An unhappy family gathers at Warbeck Hall to celebrate Christmas. Summoned by the ailing Lord Warbeck, they come for what will be his last Christmas. Yet the death they encounter soon after their arrival is not his but that of his son Robert, a fascist with a secret he has kept hidden from his family until now. With access to the outside world cut off by a heavy snowstorm, the remaining members must determine the answer to a pressing question — whom among them is the murderer?
Cyril Hare’s novel is more than just a country house mystery set during the holidays. It also captures a Britain in transition, with the old social order under assault from a more egalitarian-minded populace. The politics of this lies at the heart of the tensions between the characters, and politics also plays a role in the murder at the center of it. It makes for a different take on the classic country house mystery than is typically the case, yet I couldn’t help but feel that Hare doesn’t quite pull it off. For while the politics might provide a fresh element the author lays it on a little too thickly, which overwhelms the other aspects of what makes for a truly great novel of the genre. -
A traditional snowed-in-for-Christmas country house setting complete with his Lordship and a butler, but with a very ingenious solution, which I never would have guessed.
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《I apologize, I realized I had accidentally swapped my review of An English Murder with my review of A Man Lay Dead. After thoroughly confusing myself, I think I got it straight now. Lol : ) 》
I was in the mood for a good Country House mystery so I decided to read An English Murder by Cyril Hare. The Lord of the manor is ill and bedridden so he decides to invite several family members and close friends to his home at Warbeck Hall for one last Christmas holiday gathering.
There's an undercurrent of tension amongst the guests right from the start. They dislike each other for a multitude of reasons- politics, love triangle, racism, classism- you name it.
With that said, the characters are really the downfall of this book I think. None of them were very likeable at all which made the book kind of dreary and boring to me.
Also just a heads up, if you are thinking of waiting until Christmas to read as a holiday book its really not necessary. This isn't really a festive story and the holiday is only mentioned a couple times, if that. -
Enjoyable Golden Age mystery.
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Aptly named, this was a very enjoyable humorous read. It had all the elements I love: country manor, snowstorm leaving victims and murderer in isolation, snooty upper crust family with the standard butler, poison, and a foreigner—a little like Hercule Poirot—on the scene to ferret out clues until authorities can arrive. Even though I sometimes get lost in the various titles of the British aristocracy, the characters were easy to distinguish and the actual motive escaped my attention completely until the last pages. Excellent mystery!
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3.5 stars- Very enjoyable country house murder - snow covers the ground and cuts this isolated Christmas party off from the world, and then the murders begin...
I’ve never read Cyril Hare before, and read this with the Reading the Detectives group. As others in the group pointed out, Dr. Bottwick, the academic present at the house to do historical research, owes a debt to Hercule Poirot. Like Christie’s Belgian detective, he is an outsider among the British guests and servants, thus able to observe and bring his particular expertise to bear to solve a murder (Poirot was a former police detective, Bottwick is a historian with an extensive knowledge of English history).
Interesting twist on the usual country house setting - Christmas is an excuse for the gathering, but it’s not really a Christmas book. Hare skillfully exploits the isolation of a snowstorm and subsequent flooding as the thaw sets in to add to the building tension and claustrophobic fear. Well done and interesting motive and plot twists; nothing terribly sneaky as a murder method, but quirks of English law serve as an excellent motive. Satisfying conclusion, summed up Poirot-style, but not overly drawn out - well done all round. -
Dieses Buch werde ich im Rahmen meines Rezensionsmarathons im Oktober besprechen, daher erfolgt aktuell keine Bewertung.
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'An English Murder' is a classic English Country House Christmas Murder Mystery that gently debunks 1950s English upper-class manners and beliefs..
The murder mystery works fairly well. Set in s splendid country house with a small group of closely connected guests snowed in over Christmas, it offers dramatic death scenes. a rich pool of suspects, damsels (of different classes) in distress, and triggers an almost over-mastering impulse to shout, 'the butler did it'.
Who did it, how they did it and why they did it slowly become clear as the plot unwinds like a skein of tangled wool pulled at by a cat. I enjoyed trying (and failing) to work the thing out.
Cyril Hare uses this mystery to display and gently debunk some of the beliefs and practices of the English upper-class in 1950. Much of this debunking assumes knowledge of recent events in British politics. I945-1950 saw the first full-term Labour government. They had been elected with a massive majority and saw themselves as having a mandate for fundamental change. At the end of their first full term, in 1950, the Labour Party stayed in power but with only a two seat majority, having lost seventy-eight seats. When the government called another election in 1951, the year 'An English Murder' was published, the Labour Party lost to the Conservatives. Hare manages to field characters from across the political spectrum in his small Christmas house party.
I liked that Hare chose to use a foreigner, Dr Botwink, a German Professor of history, who is studying the papers of the seventeenth century Lord Warbeck, to hold up a mirror to the twentieth century English. Dr Botwink speaks excellent engiish and has a better grasp of logic and more detailed knowledge of English history, including the history of the family hosting him, than the English upper-class around him do. Dr Botwink who, as well as studying and teaching in Heidelberg and Prague, has spent some time in a German concentration camp, has a very un-English view on politics and is constantly trying to understand the nuances of what the English think of as 'good form'.
At the beginning of the book set a few days before Christmas, Dr Botwink asks Briggs, the butler whether it is right for him to eat with the servants or with the guests who are coming for Christmas. He's happy when Briggs tells him that he should eat with the guests. Then he learns that the son and heir of the present Lord Warbeck will be present and he tells Briggs that he would rather eat with the servants. The exchange that follows is the start of taking a look at the English from the outside. Dr Botwink explains himself to Briggs by saying that the son is:
'...the president of this affair that calls itself the League of Liberty and Justice?’
‘I understand that to be the fact, sir.’
‘The League of Liberty and Justice, Briggs,’ said Dr Bottwink very clearly and deliberately, ‘is a Fascist organisation.’
‘Is that so, sir?’
‘You are not interested, Briggs?’
‘I have never been greatly interested in politics, sir.’
‘Oh, Briggs, Briggs,’ said the historian, shaking his head in regretful admiration, ‘if you only knew how fortunate you were to be able to say just that!’
I was amused to see that the current Lord Warbeck became a symbol for the plight of the aristocracy after World War II: passive, out of place and doomed. He is weak, bed-ridden and close to death. His decline mirrors that of the great houses who could no longer afford to staff or maintain their estates. His imminent demise raises the spectre of Death Duty which the Labour was using as a mechanism to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.
His brash and objectionable son and heir is used to show the flirtation of the English aristocracy with Fascism, although this case he seems to be driven less by political dogma and more from pique at his own loss of status. He's shown as leading a small, furtive group who dress-up in special jumpers in secret and play at being patriots.
His uncle, the present Lord Warbeck's brother, the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, also ends up being the butt of humour. This man, who has a key role in creating a new, more egalitarian, socialist Britain is shown to have no grasp of economics (he thinks he doesn't need it. He has chaps for that). We also learn that one of his dark, politically embarrassing, secrets is that while he often rode to hounds in his youth.
Then we have the women in the house party: the well-connected wife of a talented but Not-Our-Class-Darling Labour Junior Finance Minister who pushes her husband's career too hard and talks too much and a bright should-have-been-married-by-now-and-becoming-rather-desperate-about-it young gentlewoman who seems prone to passivity.
The servant classes are represented by the Butler and his daughter and the Personal Protection agent from Scotland Yard who is accompanying the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was fascinating to watch these folks being torn between their old roles of unquestioning service and their awareness that that world was dying.
From the first death onwards, the Scotland Yard man is nominally in charge but clearly out of his depth. Meanwhile, Dr Botwink sets about solving the mystery as an act of self-preservation, reasoning that: 1. there is a murderer in the house and more murders may follow. 2. he is a foreigner and therefore the obvious person to take the blame.
I liked that the solution to the mystery required knowledge of an obscure piece of English law and a forgotten piece English history. I can imagine, that Cyril Hare, who was a County Court Judge when this book was published, saw this whole book as a sort of lawyerly joke. Still, it is a joke that is well told and which, eighty years later, still made me smile.
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Das Buch eignet sich hervorragend als Lektüre zur Advents- und Weihnachtszeit. Es reizt durch seine verschiedenen Charaktere und die interessanten sowie spannenden Plot-Twists. Viele Elemente sind sehr "typisch" für den klassischen Detektiv- und Kriminalroman und damit vielleicht auch hier und dort vorhersehbar. Dennoch ereignen sich eine Reihe an überraschenden Ereignissen, die den Leser grübeln lassen. Vor allem aber ist der Roman "very british" und unterhaltsam! Frohe Weihnachten! :)
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A lovely little Christmas story.
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Quel che promette, mantiene: un delitto inglese, un “enigma” inglese che più inglese non si può. Ciò detto una garbata e a tratti arguta lettura che tiene compagnia, non imperdibile ma consigliabile se le atmosfere, i manieri, il clima, i maggiordomi molto british sono apprezzati.
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a bit laborious at the beginning and too much showmanship at the end. mostly unpalatable characters. red herrings all over the place. I hoped for more imagery of the snowy weather. nevertheless very satisfying and progressive for the fifties. butler and professor depicted to prefection.
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Cyril Hare loves to throw a bit of obscure law and/or English history about in his books and he does it again in The Christmas Murder (aka An English Murder; 1951). But not knowing the ins and outs of English law and history as well as our author (who was actually His Honor Judge [Alfred Alexander] Gordon Clark, and as a young barrister had chambers in Hare Court) didn't detract from the enjoyment of the mystery--nor did it prevent me from spotting the culprit (though I may not have known precisely why s/he did it).
The crime takes place as you might expect from the title of this edition during Christmas at the country home of Lord Warbeck, an ailing peer who wants to be among his family for what he believes will be his last Christmas. But as midnight strikes on Christmas Eve Warbeck's young son, Robert staggers to the windows which show a raging blizzard and falls dead from poison. There is no hope that the local police will make it to the Hall any time soon as snowfall has cut the country house off from the outside world. So the case lands with the only available policeman--the man assigned as personal bodyguard to Lord Warbeck's brother, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Robert wasn't exactly the most lovable of men. He was rude and selfish. He flaunted his fascist politics. He could be cruel in his love affairs. He was almost asking to be murdered. But was he done in by the girl whose heart he had broken? Or by a relative that he'd been cruel to one too many times? Or maybe the long-suffering family servant had finally had enough of Master Robert's ways?
On the spot is also an unassuming Jewish historian--a survivor of Auschwitz who has come to catalogue the Warbeck history. Accustomed to historical "detective" work of a sort, he has an eye for detail and less-than-obvious connections and soon Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink has discovered not only the culprit, but the unconventional motive for the murder.
I read this once upon a time from the library under its original title An English Murder. In fact, it was the very first Cyril Hare novel that I read and I enjoyed it enough to put the other Hare books on my "To Be Found" list. I was pleased to find it in this edition and back in 2014 and to have it available to read at Christmastime. It is a lovely country house mystery with a positive view of Jewish refugees and an interesting look at British class structure woven in. Those who enjoy the Golden Age style--where the clues are displayed (whether one is astute enough to pick them all up or not) and fair play is observed--will enjoy this one. ★★★★ then and ★★★★ now.
First posted on my blog
My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks. -
A somewhat entertaining read but I wasn't too taken with Dr. Bottwink, who seemed to show off his knowledge with abandon. I liked Rogers much better as someone who was pushed into a position he obviously didn't want, but did his best nonetheless.
The motive for the killings was a bit much, and the 'happy' coincidence that prevented the scheme from working needed a large grain of salt. -
A Goodreads friend reviewed this and it sounded like something my mother would enjoy so I checked if the library had it in Big Print. They did, she borrowed it, and then passed it on to me. I have to say I felt a bit self-conscious reading a Big Print book - people will think I'm "elderly" (if they don't already, that is - which of course depends pretty much on the age of the person doing the thinking .... to my grandchildren I'm ancient). But, on the other hand, it's actually easier to read a Big Print when I'm wearing my prescription-lens sunglasses, which I bought when my eyes were considerably younger than they are now, and which would probably not be safe when driving. As I read most of this book while walking in the sunshine, the Big Print is good. So, I just need to accept that my eyes are elderly.
None of which has anything to do with this book, although there are several elderly personages in it. Two of them are British upper-class and the other is a Jewish historian. Then there's an arrogant son, a wishful childhood (female) friend of said son (described as a magnificent figure of a young woman - the friend, that is, not the son), a family friend (who is particularly ambitious for her husband), and the butler. Oh yes, and the policeman whose job it is to protect the Chancellor of the Exchequer (one of the elderly Brits) and who therefore has accompanied him for what is intended to be a brief visit to the family mansion (owned by the other elderly Brit who is almost on his deathbed). And another person who we don't know about for quite a while. And the cook who is virtually non-existent in the story, so I won't bother mentioning her.
First published in 1951, this book reflects its time. That's fine. It's still an intriguing murder-mystery, and an interesting look at historical England. Good value!
