This is a time frame when the language was full of words like "corkers." I have always liked the Golden Era of writing mysteries for their colorful language and descriptions of evenings spent with cocktails and playing games after everyone dressed for dinner. The sophisticated atmosphere included mists and walks after dinner... filled with ways to bump off a character. The English Manor house style is just a narrative I really like. When you read these books you are getting a bit of history too on the side. I had a good laugh at the fast cars of 40 miles per hour.
Silas Kane is celebrating his sixtieth birthday among family and business partners. The celebration is rife with atmosphere between Rosemary Kane and her Husband, Clement, as well as the Mansell's... Partners to the Kanes and very much interested in a business proposition, which Kane would need to put up twenty thousand pounds in - if he agreed. A business proposal that he meant to turn down ...when he is found dead one morning.
A very delightful mystery and one that was extremely entertaining I quite admit I love these British 1930's and 1940's set mysteries and if you do -read this one. Five stars...
Blurb:
Silas Kane's sixtieth birthday party is marred by argument and dissension amongst his family, and then the next morning, Kane is found dead. The coroner's verdict of death by misadventure would seem to confirm that Silas accidentally lost his way in the fog. But then his heir is shot, and threats are made against the next in line to inherit his fortune.The redoubtable Superintendent Hannasyde is called in to investigate. All clues point to an apparently innocuous eighty-year-old woman, but as the Inspector delves further into the case, he discovers that nothing is quite as it seems?
