Somebody at the Door

September 15, 2017
As war hangs over England, a town councilor staggers into his home in Croxburn after what seemed a perfectly ordinary train ride from Euston Station and dies of mysterious causes in this reprint, first published in 1943.Despite his invincible ordinariness, Henry Grayling seems to have given everyone who knew him reason to dislike him. His wife, Renata, had gone so far as to take a younger lover, publishing assistant Hugh Rolandson; George Ransom, a corporal in the same Home Guard platoon where Grayling served as second lieutenant, had clashed with him recently and insolently; Charlie Evetts, an assistant in the chemist's department of Barrow and Furness, where Grayling worked as assistant cashier, had particular reason to fear him; even the vicar of Croxburn found little Christian sentiment in his churchwarden. Clearly Inspector Holly has his work cut out for him. It's true that there were only nine other people in the railroad carriage that took him to Croxburn, but their number included Rolandson, Ransom, Evetts, and the vicar, as well as Albrecht Mannheim, a refugee who's been under suspicion ever since he was rescued from the Third Reich. Since Grayling was carrying a weekly cash payroll of over 124 pounds that's now disappeared, there's an obvious motive for the crime. But besides whodunit, Holly must also figure out howdunit, since it's not at all obvious what brought about Grayling's death. Postgate adapts the most striking structural device of his much better known Verdict of Twelve (1940/2017) by devoting most of his narrative to detailed back stories of most of Grayling's fellow passengers before returning to a present in which Holly tries out one possible solution after another before hitting on one as logical as it is surprising. Less original than Verdict of Twelve, and marred here and there by dated political satire, but still clever, absorbing, and wide-ranging: another welcome rediscovery by the British Library Crime Classics.

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October 2, 2017
When Henry Grayling, the victim in this worthy British Library Crime Classics entry, takes his usual train home from his London firm one frigid January evening in 1942, five of his nine carriage-mates have more than the usual reasons for wishing him ill. But which of them held a mustard-gas–soaked handkerchief up to his nose, causing his slow and agonizing death? Home Guard Cpl. George Ransom, harassed by Grayling, his lieutenant; Professor Mannheim, a German refugee, falsely accused by Grayling of being a spy; Hugh Rolandson, whom Grayling had just discovered was his wife Renata’s lover; or Renata herself, who wished to end a repulsive marriage? In this 1943 mystery, Postgate (1896–1971) reveals the backstories of his well-drawn characters with the same thoroughness as in his classic Verdict of Twelve (1940), and his opinion of his fellow humans is not overly kind. The portrait of Britain at war and a trip through Germany right before the start of WWII have an immediacy that’s fascinating for today’s reader with an interest in the history of the time.

November 1, 2017
This British Library Crime Classics reissue will remind readers of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934). In Postgate's mystery, published in 1943, the train runs more prosaically from London to the suburbs, but his skillful sketching of the atmosphere of wartime London, with blackout rules darkening even trains ( rattling and panting the train pulled in, dead and dark with all its blinds drawn ), makes this train feel as exotic to today's readers as the luxurious Orient Express. One of the commuters, bad-tempered, widely disliked cashier Henry Grayling, dies an agonizing, inexplicable death a few hours after arriving home, his attache case, which had been filled with payroll cash, found empty along his route home. Suspects abound, including his obviously nongrieving new widow and his coworkers, but Inspector Holly of Scotland Yard concludes that something lethal happened in Grayling's train compartment. Postgate veers from a traditional detective story into the points of view of the people in the compartment in a way that keeps suspense fresh. Steeped in atmosphere, with skillful plotting and intriguing characterization.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)