Cyndi J. (cyndij) reviewed on 8/14/2018 + 1031 more book reviews

A British Crime Classic, first published in 1939. This was interesting, although I ended up thinking it's also sort of odd. The preface to my copy gives some history about Farjeon and his writing; he was pretty successful in his day.

The opening pages are very funny and creepy at the same time. Farjeon gives us a lot of witty conversation, and Kendall teasing his Sergeant is just classic. The pacing could be more even, the whole middle of the book just drops to a crawl, and then it picks up again at the end. I'm guessing at the time this was written you were supposed to know a modicum of French - there's a few pages of mostly French dialogue. But not crucial to the plot, and I got the gist of it anyway. And I like modern female characters better, as Dora Fenner is your basic helpless maiden, incapable of dealing with a fright without collapsing to the floor. From there it gets really improbable, but Farjeon pulls it off with panache. I'm still not sure what happened to the cats though.

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