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Robert Macdonald #33
And Then Put Out the Light
It was really no concern of Mrs. Mayden whether Gillian Arkholme has spent a weekend at the Powys Arms with a married man or not, or that Alison Bentham was in love with her best friend's husband, or even that Dean's wife bought her meat on the black market. But sick, silly Mrs. Mayden had nothing better to do than ferret out all of Paulborough's sins and blazon them abroad. Then suddenly Mrs. Mayden was dead. 'Heart failure' said the doctor. 'Murder' said the town and began to look suspiciously at Gillian who had not only the motive but by far the best opportunity . Paulborough was an old and lovely town nestled in the shadows of its ancient Norman Abbey. On the surface, a godly town, but underneath simmered a brew of innuendo and hatred that boiled over into a spate of murders.
- GenresMystery
185 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
76 people want to read
About the author
E.C.R. Lorac
78Ìýbooks162ÌýfollowersEdith Caroline Rivett (who wrote under the pseudonyms E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac, Carol Rivett, and Mary le Bourne) was a British crime writer. She was born in Hendon, Middlesex (now London). She attended the South Hampstead High School, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
She was a member of the Detection Club. She was a very prolific writer, having written forty-eight mysteries under her first pen name, and twenty-three under her second. She was an important author of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
She was a member of the Detection Club. She was a very prolific writer, having written forty-eight mysteries under her first pen name, and twenty-three under her second. She was an important author of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 23, 2023
Another lovely mystery featuring my favorite Scotland Yard man, Chief Inspector Macdonald.
This time around, the murder victim is the town's nastiest gossip. Oh the stories she could, and did spread--a few true, most not. Macdonald's main problem is too many suspects, with the front-runner being the hapless husband.
It's always fun to watch Macdonald methodically follow what appear to be random trains of thought. He's a master at finding this clue and that missing piece, and using them to build a nice trap for the perp. He is once again ably assisted by Detective Reeves, who has the knack of getting information from the blue-collar folks who tend to go mute when questioned by Authorities. I gradually figured out whodunnit, but it took the wrap-up at the end to give me the 'why'. I was quite satisfied when I closed the book.
I am thankful that I have access to a city library that still has books from the 1930s and onward on the shelves. I was able to read the 1950 hardback of this title. It was still in circulation, even though its pages were yellow and brittle.
This time around, the murder victim is the town's nastiest gossip. Oh the stories she could, and did spread--a few true, most not. Macdonald's main problem is too many suspects, with the front-runner being the hapless husband.
It's always fun to watch Macdonald methodically follow what appear to be random trains of thought. He's a master at finding this clue and that missing piece, and using them to build a nice trap for the perp. He is once again ably assisted by Detective Reeves, who has the knack of getting information from the blue-collar folks who tend to go mute when questioned by Authorities. I gradually figured out whodunnit, but it took the wrap-up at the end to give me the 'why'. I was quite satisfied when I closed the book.
I am thankful that I have access to a city library that still has books from the 1930s and onward on the shelves. I was able to read the 1950 hardback of this title. It was still in circulation, even though its pages were yellow and brittle.
April 22, 2019
E.C.R. Lorac’s very readable Golden Age mystery And Then Put Out The Light opens with massage therapist, Gillian chatting with one of her many clients, Mrs. Bentham. It’s one of those odd intimate and yet non-intimate encounters shared by clients and professionals in which personal information is frequently divulged. This is certainly true in this instance when Gillian and Mrs. Allison Bentham discuss the recent, sudden death of Mrs. Lilian Mayden, a malicious woman who was disliked by everyone in the North Midlands Abbey town of Paulborough (with the exception of her equally toxic housekeeper/ former nurse, Garstang), a snobby little town inhabited by “ecclesiastical aristocracy.�
It seems odd that Mrs. Mayden, a “chronic hypochondriac� dropped dead of heart problems when she’d never shown a sign of having cardiac issues before. But wait � Mrs. Mayden’s previous doctor (now retired) prescribed heart pills to his patient basically to shut her up, but her new doctor said they were unnecessary and stopped the treatment; now Mrs. Mayden is dead. On top of this controversy, Mrs. Mayden’s long-suffering, browbeaten, spineless husband Guy is embroiled with a local girl who is pregnant, and right before Lilian Mayden’s sudden death, Guy asked for a divorce.
In Paulborough’s claustrophobic snobby society, which runs with Victorian morality (there’s frequent reference to Trollope, by the way), rumours spread like wildfire. Mrs. Mayden, who loved to spread gossip, and even kept records of her malicious scandalmongering behaviour, was loathed and feared by everyone. Yet her death, rather than bury all the tensions in the town, seems to stir things up. First everyone leaps to the obvious conclusion that somehow or another Guy managed to murder his wife (not that anyone blames him) but then other past gossip begins to surface.
The police arrive on the scene after being informed by Miss Garstang that she believes Mrs. Mayden was murdered. Emma Garstang claimed to know who killed her employer and how. � Enter Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald.
At not quite 200 pages, this is a mystery that rips along, and E.C.R. Lorac’s writing style makes this a swift, pleasant read. Well structured dialogue and strong characterisation brings the inhabitants of Paulborough to life. I managed to guess the identity of the murderer and I suspect that most die-hard crime fans will do the same. Still this is an entertaining read that recreates post WWII Britain and its shifting socioeconomic and moral landscape.
It seems odd that Mrs. Mayden, a “chronic hypochondriac� dropped dead of heart problems when she’d never shown a sign of having cardiac issues before. But wait � Mrs. Mayden’s previous doctor (now retired) prescribed heart pills to his patient basically to shut her up, but her new doctor said they were unnecessary and stopped the treatment; now Mrs. Mayden is dead. On top of this controversy, Mrs. Mayden’s long-suffering, browbeaten, spineless husband Guy is embroiled with a local girl who is pregnant, and right before Lilian Mayden’s sudden death, Guy asked for a divorce.
In Paulborough’s claustrophobic snobby society, which runs with Victorian morality (there’s frequent reference to Trollope, by the way), rumours spread like wildfire. Mrs. Mayden, who loved to spread gossip, and even kept records of her malicious scandalmongering behaviour, was loathed and feared by everyone. Yet her death, rather than bury all the tensions in the town, seems to stir things up. First everyone leaps to the obvious conclusion that somehow or another Guy managed to murder his wife (not that anyone blames him) but then other past gossip begins to surface.
The police arrive on the scene after being informed by Miss Garstang that she believes Mrs. Mayden was murdered. Emma Garstang claimed to know who killed her employer and how. � Enter Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald.
At not quite 200 pages, this is a mystery that rips along, and E.C.R. Lorac’s writing style makes this a swift, pleasant read. Well structured dialogue and strong characterisation brings the inhabitants of Paulborough to life. I managed to guess the identity of the murderer and I suspect that most die-hard crime fans will do the same. Still this is an entertaining read that recreates post WWII Britain and its shifting socioeconomic and moral landscape.
December 27, 2020
Lillian Mayden was a sick woman. Oh, not the way she claimed. That was all hypochondria, but she was sick in her mind and in her soul. She operated a network of spies and gossips that might make MI6 envious. But her operations weren't meant to make people feel more secure. She used what she learned to write vicious letters accusing her neighbors of everything from immorality to embezzlement, from cheating at cards to buying meat from the black market. She kept meticulous records and filed copies of al her letters and every scrap of "proof" she could glean. She kept the village in fear of where her letters might appear next...until one day she died.
Her death was ascribed to a heart attack by an elderly doctor filling in for her injured regular practitioner. Her regular doctor insists a heart attack is nonsense, but he doesn't suspect murder. But then those who might be able to shed light on the matter begin dying in similar "natural" or "accidental" ways and the town's gossips start pointing accusatory fingers...at Mr. Mayden, at Gillian Arkholme--who had suffered greatly from Lillian Mayden's slander, at Mrs. Bentham--who it's said still harbored feelings for Guy Mayden (and, of course, now he's free...). Inspector MacDonald is brought in to separate the wheat from the chaff and find out if there's any truth to the rumors of murder. And if so who benefits most from the silencing of Lillian Mayden's poisoned pen.
This was, I believe, the very first Lorac I ever read, long ago and far away before blogging was a gleam in the internet's eye. Actually, before the internet was a gleam in anyone's eye. And for reasons unknown to me, I never made the connection between the title and the plot. Even now with 2020 brain, it took a little bit for the light to dawn. Rereading this now, I'm really kind of amazed that I put Lorac on my "To Be Found" list--because this is a rather squalid little story. Mrs. Mayden was one of the nastiest poison pen writers to come along in crime fiction and one really can't feel terribly sorry that she has gone off to her final judgement. Not that the villain of the piece is much better...after all, they'd be quite content to let someone else answer for their crimes and they're not too picky about who it is.
What saves this story is the other village characters and our policemen, Inspector MacDonald and Inspector Reeves. Both of these gentlemen have ways about them that make the villagers open up and talk to them--MacDonald visiting the middle and upper classes and Reeves mixing well with the laborers and such. It's also worth the price of admission to watch MacDonald put the local Dean in his place when the ecclesiastical bigwig tries to squash the investigation.
A fairly decent mystery, but definitely not one of Lorac's best.
First posted on my blog .
Her death was ascribed to a heart attack by an elderly doctor filling in for her injured regular practitioner. Her regular doctor insists a heart attack is nonsense, but he doesn't suspect murder. But then those who might be able to shed light on the matter begin dying in similar "natural" or "accidental" ways and the town's gossips start pointing accusatory fingers...at Mr. Mayden, at Gillian Arkholme--who had suffered greatly from Lillian Mayden's slander, at Mrs. Bentham--who it's said still harbored feelings for Guy Mayden (and, of course, now he's free...). Inspector MacDonald is brought in to separate the wheat from the chaff and find out if there's any truth to the rumors of murder. And if so who benefits most from the silencing of Lillian Mayden's poisoned pen.
This was, I believe, the very first Lorac I ever read, long ago and far away before blogging was a gleam in the internet's eye. Actually, before the internet was a gleam in anyone's eye. And for reasons unknown to me, I never made the connection between the title and the plot. Even now with 2020 brain, it took a little bit for the light to dawn. Rereading this now, I'm really kind of amazed that I put Lorac on my "To Be Found" list--because this is a rather squalid little story. Mrs. Mayden was one of the nastiest poison pen writers to come along in crime fiction and one really can't feel terribly sorry that she has gone off to her final judgement. Not that the villain of the piece is much better...after all, they'd be quite content to let someone else answer for their crimes and they're not too picky about who it is.
What saves this story is the other village characters and our policemen, Inspector MacDonald and Inspector Reeves. Both of these gentlemen have ways about them that make the villagers open up and talk to them--MacDonald visiting the middle and upper classes and Reeves mixing well with the laborers and such. It's also worth the price of admission to watch MacDonald put the local Dean in his place when the ecclesiastical bigwig tries to squash the investigation.
A fairly decent mystery, but definitely not one of Lorac's best.
First posted on my blog .
Want to read
December 25, 2019Synopsis: silly Mrs. Mayden had nothing better to do than ferret out Paulborough's sins and blazon them abroad. Suddenly she was dead. Murder?
June 17, 2024
A regrettably unknown Golden Age mystery series featuring DI MacDonald. Stellar writing, acute characterizations.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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