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British Library Crime Classics

Murder Underground – Mavis Doriel Hay

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I’ve spoken before of my love of old-school crime fiction, and anyone who also reads my travel blog will know that I’m a huge fan of the London Underground and trains in general. Murder Underground is therefore the perfect combination of these two loves.

A copy of Murder Underground sat next to a cup of tea. On the cover of the book is an old fashioned tube train in a station with a well dressed lady walking along the platform. The front of the train shows that it is travelling to Morden.

Murder Underground

Miss Euphemia Pongleton is found strangled to death (with her own dog’s lead) on the stairs at Belsize Park station on the Northern Line. Murder Underground tells the story of trying to discover who murdered her, and why.

Miss Pongleton used to live at the Frampton Hotel and we get to meet the other boarders at the hotel, as well as the deceased’s nephew Basil and niece Beryl. The residents and Miss Pongleton’s family have their own theories as to who may have murdered her, and why, but it seems that none of their theories quite fit the circumstances correctly. Everyone has always assumed that Basil will be the beneficiary of Miss Pongleton’s will, but she also had a habit of changing her will whenever he annoyed her – which he seemed to have an ability to do regularly. It is therefore no surprise that some assume he must be guilty in some way. Basil’s own behaviour and vagueness about his alibi don’t help the matter, or impress fellow Frampton resident Betty, who he is supposedly courting.

A chance find by one of the residents eventually leads to the murderer, but not without various twists and turns on the way.

The Northern Line

With the murder taking place at Belsize Park station the Northern Line becomes a key part of the story. It was lovely to see a layout of the station inside the book to help readers understand where Miss Pongleton was discovered and give some context about some of the logistics involved in her murder.

In the end the layout of the Northern Line itself is key to understanding some of the suspects movements and just how well their alibis hold up. I’m guessing that even back when this was first written there were probably restrictions to including part of the tube map, but I certainly found it helpful to reference a couple of times whilst reading the book.

My thoughts

I really enjoyed the physical setting of this particular crime, and found myself becoming more and more fascinated by some of the characters involved, but at the same time the period of time in which the book was set caused some frustration to me personally. At so many points in the book I found myself asking why the people involved didn’t just check CCTV. Or look at the logs for the timing of trains on the day in question. They obviously couldn’t, it being 1934, but a part of my brain just really struggled to switch off from the modern day London Underground and how a crime like this would be solved in a matter of hours rather than days.

Where to buy Murder Underground

Murder Underground is available to purchase online here and has an RRP of £8.99. Mavis Doriel Hay’s other titles are also available, and you can find out more about all the British Library Crime Classics on their website.

Want to read more?

You can discover all the titles that I’ve enjoyed from The British Library Crime Classics series here. If modern crime fiction is more your cup of tea then try this page instead.

Disclaimer: All books mentioned in this post are ones that I have bought myself or borrowed from the local library. Some links are affiliate links. If you happen to buy anything having clicked on one of them I receive a small commission, but it will cost you no more than normal. Thank you for any purchases that you make. All are very much appreciated.

Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story – J. Jefferson-Farjeon

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As the subtitle A Christmas Crime Story may reveal, I actually started reading Mystery in White towards the tail end of last year. Over the last year or so I’ve become quite fascinated by the British Library Crime Classics series. Not only do they look lovely and uniform on a bookshelf, but they all also lovely “cosy crime” books, coming from a different age of crime writing. Mostly written by contemporaries of crime legend Agatha Christie, they are a time when without modern technology, crimes had to be solved by old fashioned sleuthing by detectives, police officers, or sometimes just those affected by the crimes. In short, they are the perfect distraction from modern day life. I’m n a quest to pick up as many of the titles in the series as I can from charity shops, and so far I seem to be doing rather well.

Mystery in White tells the story of a group of people who met when they shared a train carriage on a service out of London that ended up stuck in the snow on Christmas Eve. They leave the train and walk a way across fields to find a house. But the house they find appears to be empty. There are roaring fires and tea ready to serve, but no sign of anyone there. Whose house is it? Where have they gone? And what connection is there to an incident that happened in the next train carriage?

Now, being a train obsessive there were a few little details about the train in the story that I wanted to know more about. We know it was travelling out of London, but there seems to be a possible bit of confusion about where exactly it started. In the introduction, written by Martin Edwards, the train is described as “the 11.37 from St Pancras (or should that be Euston? both of those great stations are mentioned in the very first chapter)”. Now. I’ve read the first chapter several times now and I can only find mention of Euston station in it. In fact, two specific mentions of the train specifically being the 11.37 from Euston. The fact that the chorus girl in the carriage is trying to get to Manchester initially backs up the likelihood of the train having left from Euston based on modern-day running routes, but back in 1937 (when Mystery in White was published) trains ran from St Pancras to Manchester. Were both location mentioned in the first chapter and someone has edited St Pancras out? I’m intrigued and feel a need to dig a bit deeper to find out what went on here.

The train’s original departure point doesn’t really make any difference to the rest of the story though. It’s just a niggle for train geeks. What goes on at the house and how the main characters deal with it makes a lovely, gentle story. There is a point where it starts talking about ghosts, and I have to be honest and say that I nearly lost interest then, but it was as if someone then saw sense and brought it back to trying to solve a crime.

If you’re looking for a book to read when snowed in somewhere remote then this is either the perfect read, or will produce sleepless nights. The UK’s winters being somewhat milder than they used to be probably makes that quite unlikely, but then after the last couple of years who knows what is possible!

There are several more titles in the British Library Crime Classics series that I plan to share with you over the next few month. I’m also starting a little pet project about railways in fiction. I’m fascinated to look in more detail at how they feature in stories, in particular crime fiction, and how accurately they are portrayed. As anyone familiar with Agatha Christie’s work will know they feature in several of her books (…) but a quick look at the cover art for the BLCC series also shows trains make a regular appearance. Obviously in this book the train journey is only the start of the adventure, but I’m keen to see if that is true for other books in the series. I will report back.

Mystery in White is available to buy online here. If you want to find out more information about the British Library Crime Classics series then there is an excellent page on the British Library website here that lists all titles. All my reviews of titles from the series are here.