Death of Jezebel (1948)
My review:
Quite simply the best detective story of 2004. While the tone at the beginning is rather irritatingly arch, once the murder is committed, a genuine puzzle is offered to the reader. The alert reader will work out the ingenious method at the same time as Inspector Cockrill—but is he correct? The devilishly clever multiple solutions offered certainly shake his confidence. Brand his inherited Christie’s gift of forcing the reader to hesitate between three suspects—he comes so far, eliminating half the suspects, and is then lost amongst the beguiling possibilities, fixing on such maddening clues as cloaks and ropes. The solution is utterly brilliant, nearly as fine as Chesterton at his best (c.f. “The Secret Garden,” “The Dagger with Wings” and “The Worst Crime in the World”). Over-ingenious, perhaps, but wonderfully clever tricks are played with body parts as the Grand Chain becomes a danse macabre, providing the murderer with an alibi worthy of Christie. What a piece of work is Brand’s!