Green for Danger (1944)
My review:
Well deserving of the title “classic,” for it represents the detective story at the pitch of classical perfection. The admirably depicted setting, a World War II hospital where operations are carried out under cover of the Blitz, sees a death not caused by Mr. Hitler’s ingenious little toys. Joseph Higgins, a postman, dies on the operating table—and, since “to die in that shining little room, with the hot, bright lights beating down upon him, is to cast a gloom over a group of comparative strangers, to clutch icily at hearts that will not be warm again until a succession of straightforward, everyday cases has brought back reassurance and strength,” how much worse must those involved feel when the theatre sister follows Higgins into the next world? Suspicion falls on the six people who knew Higgins was in hospital: on Major Moon, whose son was run over by a man on a bicycle; on Major Eden, not too scrupulous where women are concerned; on the anaesthetist Captain Barnes, with an unfortunate record of patients dying under anaesthetic; on his fiancée, Nurse Linley, conducting an affair with Eden; and on her fellow VADs, Nurse Sanson, who lost her mother in an air raid, and Nurse Woods, whose voice was enough to terrify two men. Suspicion is cast around this closed circle in an expert manner, with clues serving both to construct and demolish cases against them in the best manner of John Dickson Carr. The clues are established not through detection (indeed, Inspector Cockrill is principally a deus ex machina) but through discussion—the characters incriminate themselves as a sort of morbid parlour game. The story is genuinely mystifying until the end, when, having waged a war of nerves against his suspects, Cockrill brings the case to its conclusion in the operating theatre where it began, in a scene which is a masterpiece of sustained tension. Despite the closed circle, the murderer’s identity is genuinely surprising; the motive (which should be obvious) is well-hidden; and the method that gives the book its title is utterly brilliant—as simple and as flawless as the book itself.