A TELEGRAM FROM LE TOUQUET

A fraught house party at a stately English home is the curtain-raiser for a mysterious death in France in this whodunit first published in 1956.

Schoolmaster Nigel Derry, the godson of Gwendoline Marrable, has long been in love with Sheila Tallent, whom Gwenny adopted after the death of her parents. Since Sheila’s only 19, the couple needs Gwenny’s permission to wed. So Nigel asks Aunt Gwenny, as he calls her, about it after a dinner at her country house, attended by Gwenny’s live-in lover, George Gammon; Gwenny’s sister, romance novelist Deborah Gaye; and French visitor André Duconte, who seems positioned to become George’s successor. Nothing doing, says Gwenny, who announces that her will cuts Sheila off without a penny if she marries before she reaches 30. George, who hasn’t heard any of this, reacts to André’s arrival by making love to Deborah, who responds with unwonted enthusiasm. As these parties and others disperse, the scene abruptly shifts to Cap Martin in southern France, where Gwenny has telegraphed Nigel inviting (read: commanding) him to visit her at her villa. The only trouble is that she won’t be there herself, since her naked body’s been found smothered and stuffed into a trunk. Convinced that “this isn’t a woman’s crime,” Inspector Blampignon, a superstar summoned from Nice to work with local Inspector Hamonet, toils to keep up with the domestic and romantic complications that continue to mount and mount until the inevitably anticlimactic denouement. Don’t count on marriage to rescue the heroes; marriage is one of the biggest problems here.

A conscientiously plotted mystery maze most likely to appeal to serious amateur detectives.