In the mood for a great English country house mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie? This classic, originally published in 1934, has just been republished by Sourcebooks. I've just spent quite a while online trying to see if this is part of a series, since it features a gentlemanly Inspector Harding of Scotland Yard who seems a likely recurring character. As yet, my investigations lead to just this one, but what a mystery it is!

The action takes place during a week at The Grange, the country house of General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith, a retired army man with quite a temper, and his lovely young second wife, Fay. The weekend's entertaining brings together an unlikely household: Miss Dinah Fawcett, Fay's fantastically smart and straightforward sister; the flirtatious Camilla Halliday and her long-suffering husband Basil; poetic son Geoffrey and his flamboyant cabaret-dancing Mexican fiancée Lola de Silva; Fay's loyal but frustrated lover-from-afar, Stephen Guest; the playboy nephew; the stodgy local clergyman and his wife; the matronly divorcée neighbor; not to mention the restrained butler and overdramatic servant girl.

Heyer’s lively characters, snappy dialogue, and hard-to-guess whodunnit make this an easy book for me to recommend. One chapter, in which the third person narration follows each person during preparations for dinner, was particularly striking as a cinematic and humorous literary masterstroke. I’m so excited to find a “new” classic author to follow who has more titles coming back to print. (Heyer also has delightful Regency romantic novels for fans of Jane Austen, so that’s something else to add to my must-read list.
~Tegan