If Aubrey Hamilton hadn’t reviewed George Bellairs’ Death in Isolation on her blog last week, I never would have discovered Bellairs and his Inspector Littlejohn mysteries. I read the third book in that series, Death of a Busybody. It’s not always easy to find Bellairs’ books, although, according to Hamilton and Martin Edwards, he published fifty-seven books in the series. But, many of the early ones have been forgotten. Fortunately, Death of a Busybody, written in 1943, was republished in 2016 as one of the British Library Crime Classics, with an introduction by Edwards.
George Bellairs was a pseudonym for Harold Blundell, a banker. The books were published between 1941 and 1980. Blundell died in 1982. In his introduciton, Edwards stresses that Bellairs’ books had humor in them, something not often found in the Golden Age mysteries. They are amusing stories, and it’s obvious the author “Detests sanctimony, hypocrisy, and greed.”
Miss Ethel Tither is a fifty-year-old spinster who snoops and interferes with village life in Hilary Magna. When she’s found murdered, there are few in the village that mourn her. Maybe the village constable who has to leave a promised meal to investigate. But, he soon passes the murder on to higher ups who call in Scotland Yard. And, Inspector Littlejohn, a large, shrewd man, arrives by train.
In the course of the police procedural, the humor is on display, as is Littlejohn’s cleverness. He stays at the local pub, and tucked away for dinner, quietly opens the window to listen to the local gossip. The men who drink there are bigger gossips than any women, and Littlejohn soon has a list of characters to interview. And, between the man who presides over the inquest, and the man who cleans the vicar’s cesspool, and dealt with Miss Tither’s body, the inquest itself becomes entertainment for the village.
Despite the use of an unsurprising clue, Death of a Busybody is a solid police procedural. With the help of other police officers, including the local constable, Inspector Littlejohn solves a case with threads in London and the South Seas, a case of financial scams, multiple identities, and murder. He even returns to Hilary Magna to wrap up a few stories and discover that village life goes on happily without Miss Ethel Tither. I’ll be traveling soon with Inspector Littlejohn on another investigation in another village.
Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs. Poisoned Pen Press, 2016. 9781464207365 (paperback), 208p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I bought a Kindle edition.
Glen will be reading DEATH OF A BUSYBODY as soon as he finishes KRAKATOA by Simon Winchester. He had seen one of the later books at Amazon recently, so we looked into George Bellairs and discovered we had several of his books on the Kindle and this one in the British Library trade paper edition. I hope he likes it as well as you did.
I hope he does, too, Tracy. The humor made this one a little different.
Aubrey’s review of George Bellairs’ book intrigued me also. I downloaded an audio from the library’s collection – The Case of the Famished Parson. Up next after I finish the first Peter Wimsey book.
I don’t always have time to check out the books Aubrey recommends, but her reviews are always interesting, and she does a great deal of research.
Bellairs was one of those authors whose books I always picked up when book hunting in England. A lot of his books were never published here (although some of them have been, since then) and they had other things going for them – they were short, most were thin (especially the wartime productions), they weren’t too expensive, and he was an author that people had heard of and hence more likely to buy than an unknown.
That makes sense, Jeff, when you were book hunting.
And, does Jackie know the next in Kelley Armstrong’s Rip Through Time series, Disturbing the Dead, is out? Reviewing it tomorrow.
She was just asking about it yesterday. Will tell her.
Oh, the “thin” comment – I was mailing books home then, and the lighter and thinner they were, the more you could fit into the package and the lighter they were.