With a Bare Bodkin (1946)
Blurb:
My review:
A rather dull entry in Hare’s series. Francis Pettigrew makes his second appearance, as Legal Advisor to the Pin Control, an obscure government department lodged in a former mansion belonging to Lord Eglwyswrw, and where an employee (and former lunatic) is stabbed while making tea. Ironically (and probably a sign that Hare had read Marsh’s Artists in Crime recently), the victim was the proposed murderess in a fictional murder plotted by the suspects. Unfortunately the detection also comes straight from Marsh at her worst: interminable serial interviewing without intellectual excitement. The book is so utterly dull that it is impossible to maintain interest in the plot, and the most probable suspect turns out to be the murderer.