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Robert Macdonald #19
DEATH AT DYKE'S CORNER
Death at Dyke's Corner is a gripping mystery novel set in a quaint English village where secrets simmer beneath the surface. When the body of a local recluse is discovered in the marshes near Dyke's Corner, amateur sleuth Alice Smithson finds herself entangled in a web of lies, deceit, and long-held grudges. As she delves deeper into the investigation, Alice uncovers a network of suspects, each with their own motive for murder. With the help of her sharp wit and keen observation skills, Alice navigates through the twists and turns of the case, unraveling the truth amidst a backdrop of picturesque countryside and hidden betrayals. Death at Dyke's Corner is a classic whodunit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
233 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
About the author
E.C.R. Lorac
79 books192 followersEdith 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 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 7, 2024
Another complex and satisfying mystery from Lorac starring my new favorite, Robert Macdonald of Scotland Yard.
This opens on a foul, rainy winter night as two young men round a sharp bend (the corner of the title) and almost collide with a parked Daimler; an oncoming truck almost hits them. They all check on the driver, but he’s dead; a local doctor passing stops and confirms the death, and meanwhile one of the young men feels ill from the smell of exhaust in the Daimler. Turns out the dead man is locally reviled as the “English Woolworth”, putting his modern one-stop shops all over the country - running smaller tradesmen out of business. He was also a serial philanderer and foul-tempered bully, leaving behind a resentful son and long-suffering wife.
Before long, with such a high-profile deceased and an accident that looks not so accidental, the Yard and Macdonald are called in. As usual, following him around on his investigation, I appreciate his decency, doggedness and intelligence. His internal musings on the case are always interesting, and show the variety of people and situations he has to deal with as he tries to put together motive, means and opportunity. Lorac also gives us good scenes of several locals involved, either as witnesses, suspects, or both, as they navigate through the suspicions, gossip and consequences of a local murder.
Another knotty, satisfying Golden Age police procedural from Lorac.
This opens on a foul, rainy winter night as two young men round a sharp bend (the corner of the title) and almost collide with a parked Daimler; an oncoming truck almost hits them. They all check on the driver, but he’s dead; a local doctor passing stops and confirms the death, and meanwhile one of the young men feels ill from the smell of exhaust in the Daimler. Turns out the dead man is locally reviled as the “English Woolworth”, putting his modern one-stop shops all over the country - running smaller tradesmen out of business. He was also a serial philanderer and foul-tempered bully, leaving behind a resentful son and long-suffering wife.
Before long, with such a high-profile deceased and an accident that looks not so accidental, the Yard and Macdonald are called in. As usual, following him around on his investigation, I appreciate his decency, doggedness and intelligence. His internal musings on the case are always interesting, and show the variety of people and situations he has to deal with as he tries to put together motive, means and opportunity. Lorac also gives us good scenes of several locals involved, either as witnesses, suspects, or both, as they navigate through the suspicions, gossip and consequences of a local murder.
Another knotty, satisfying Golden Age police procedural from Lorac.
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November 17, 2024Unfinished due to e-reader shenanigans
March 31, 2024
Although the first Inspector Littlejohn did not appear until a year after the 1940 publication of this novel, it was Bellairs of whom I kept thinking. Probably the small town setting, the petty concerns of the small shopkeepers and the machinations of Conyers the nasty businessman and owner of the “English Woolworths” whose murder is at the heart of the investigation ,served to spark the connection.
This is neither Lorac at her best nor Robert Macdonald’s finest hour.Part of the problem is that Macdonald is very much on his own:-
“He had sometimes played a lone hand before when conditions or emergencies rendered it necessary. Being essentially sane, a very rational member of a dogged yet cautious race, he had no opinion of foolhardy heroics, and held that detective work was a matter for co-operation rather than for individual exploit, with all the additional hazard and chances of complete defeat which the detective incurs when he is out of touch with his department.“
Yet it is precisely by foolhardy heroics and individual exploit that this case is cracked and the murderer arrested.
Lorac is ever-readable, and is usually strong on characterisation, but here she failed to bring the cast to life. The plot is too soon focused on the local shop owners and the final explanatory chapter is both dense and rather unconvincing.Maps would certainly have helped and , although my detective instinct twitched at one small clue, I do not think that the reader could really do much more than hazard a guess at the perpetrator.
Rather below par at 3.5 stars
November 4, 2024
A bit of a template whodunnit - a wealthy, despised man is found dead in his car after a collision, which of course turns out to be a murder before the collision.
I didn’t find this to be one of E.C.R.s best - lots of characters, fairly lightly developed and lacking some of the scene setting that makes many of her books so enjoyable.
That said, it was an easy read that keeps you guessing
I didn’t find this to be one of E.C.R.s best - lots of characters, fairly lightly developed and lacking some of the scene setting that makes many of her books so enjoyable.
That said, it was an easy read that keeps you guessing
August 6, 2026
A nation at war or not? Hard to say.
Mystery writers walked a thin line during WWII. Authors of "light fiction" were encouraged to continue writing, since governments felt civilians and soldiers alike needed escape from the realities of a brutal war. On the other hand, paper supplies were limited, so books of even best-sellers like Agatha Christie couldn't be published in normal quantities.
Some mystery writers ignored the war completely, setting their stories in pre-war times. Others used wartime conditions as plot drivers, as did this author in her "Murder By Matchlight", where the London blackout made life even harder for detectives like Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald.
In this book, the author gives a brief nod to the war, but only because she needed to provide a clue about gas masks, which were distributed to civilians at the beginning of the war. Who would know the limitations of those gas masks and who wouldn't? That's a question Macdonald must answer before he can find a killer.
The action starts on a dark night on a deserted country road, where two young men are involved in an accident with a stalled luxury car and a speeding delivery truck. Of course, auto accidents kill, but this victim was murdered. Someone arranged for him to be gassed, then placed his body in a "stalled" car on a sharp curve. The murderer hoped the police would write the death off as an accident, but the locals smell a rat and call for Scotland Yard.
One of my favorite things about Golden Age mysteries is the tradition that the murder victim must be a person mourned by no one. Not that I'm in favor of murder, but if someone has to be sacrificed, why shouldn't it be a real stinker? Morton Conyers fills the bill.
He's a ruthless businessman whose large, modern stores are replacing Mom-and-Pop stores in big cities and small towns. The "English Woolworth," is his nickname. Some small business owners are happy to sell up and retire, but others fight.
He's also a wash-out as husband and father, being a determined philanderer who humiliates his wife and enrages his son. His hobby makes him the target of outraged fathers, brothers, and boyfriends. No shortage of suspects when Mr Conyers is done to death.
One suspect is his son, who ad0res his mother and hates his father's cruelty to her. Was he angry enough to follow his father on a dark, wet night and kill him? There's also Conyers' driver, fed up and leaving. He had the best opportunity to tamper with the car to produce the deadly carbon dioxide fumes. There's the boyfriend of Conyers' latest conquest. He's not happy to see his GF wearing an expensive watch given her by a man old enough to be her father. Her father isn't thrilled, either.
There are business rivals, especially the small business owners driven out by Conyer's sharp tactics. In the market town of Strand, four business owners have opposed Conyer's attempts to buy their premises and replace them with a "big-box" store. One of them is as big a bully as Conyers but not as powerful.
The local squire and his pretty daughter are involved. He because anything that threatens the locals is of concern to him and she because she's in love with young Lewis Conyers and wants him cleared of his father's death.
There's an interesting conversation between these two and Inspector Macdonald. Colonel Digby Merryl hates change and resents the intrusion of an outsider like Conyers. He wants to see the old-time, family-owned businesses continue. His daughter gives a spirited argument in favor of change. The present owners are poor businessment who only have businesses because they inherited them.
They make no effort to accommodate their customers, continuing to stock the same products, aware the locals have little choice but to buy from them. Anne Merryl also claims Conyers is a generous employer, while the old timers bully their clerks and pay them poorly. She's right on all counts.
It's an interesting look at this author's politics. In one of her post-war mysteries ("Fire in the Thatch") she bemoans the loss of farm land and woodlands to the suburban neighborhoods built after the war. Most of us prefer woods and forests, but those new houses meant working class people could move their families into better, healthier homes. As Anne Merryl says, change isn't bad for everyone.
The four business owners are united in one way. All agree that rumors of a murder being committed on their ancient square of buildings will harm trade. The hardest part of any police investigation is trying to get accurate information. Civilians lie (or fail to tell the whole truth) for all kinds of reason. Here the reason is to avoid disruption of trade.
They band together to lead Macdonald down the Primrose Path, arguing Conyers was far away from their properties when he was killed. For one of those men, involvement in the murder may be a strong incentive to keep police from finding out Conyers visited there on the night he was murdered. But which one?
It's a clever mystery and I was kept guessing until the very end. As always, Inspector Macdonald uses information and intuition and experience to figure things out. The key to the puzzle lies in the character of Morton Conyers himself, as it often does. Conyers WAS a skirt-chaser, but he was a businessman first. Only serious business (not monkey business) would take him out on a raw night.
Lorac's Inspector Macdonald is one of my favorite detectives and I'm glad her series of mysteries featuring him was a substantial one. I'm enjoying them.
Mystery writers walked a thin line during WWII. Authors of "light fiction" were encouraged to continue writing, since governments felt civilians and soldiers alike needed escape from the realities of a brutal war. On the other hand, paper supplies were limited, so books of even best-sellers like Agatha Christie couldn't be published in normal quantities.
Some mystery writers ignored the war completely, setting their stories in pre-war times. Others used wartime conditions as plot drivers, as did this author in her "Murder By Matchlight", where the London blackout made life even harder for detectives like Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald.
In this book, the author gives a brief nod to the war, but only because she needed to provide a clue about gas masks, which were distributed to civilians at the beginning of the war. Who would know the limitations of those gas masks and who wouldn't? That's a question Macdonald must answer before he can find a killer.
The action starts on a dark night on a deserted country road, where two young men are involved in an accident with a stalled luxury car and a speeding delivery truck. Of course, auto accidents kill, but this victim was murdered. Someone arranged for him to be gassed, then placed his body in a "stalled" car on a sharp curve. The murderer hoped the police would write the death off as an accident, but the locals smell a rat and call for Scotland Yard.
One of my favorite things about Golden Age mysteries is the tradition that the murder victim must be a person mourned by no one. Not that I'm in favor of murder, but if someone has to be sacrificed, why shouldn't it be a real stinker? Morton Conyers fills the bill.
He's a ruthless businessman whose large, modern stores are replacing Mom-and-Pop stores in big cities and small towns. The "English Woolworth," is his nickname. Some small business owners are happy to sell up and retire, but others fight.
He's also a wash-out as husband and father, being a determined philanderer who humiliates his wife and enrages his son. His hobby makes him the target of outraged fathers, brothers, and boyfriends. No shortage of suspects when Mr Conyers is done to death.
One suspect is his son, who ad0res his mother and hates his father's cruelty to her. Was he angry enough to follow his father on a dark, wet night and kill him? There's also Conyers' driver, fed up and leaving. He had the best opportunity to tamper with the car to produce the deadly carbon dioxide fumes. There's the boyfriend of Conyers' latest conquest. He's not happy to see his GF wearing an expensive watch given her by a man old enough to be her father. Her father isn't thrilled, either.
There are business rivals, especially the small business owners driven out by Conyer's sharp tactics. In the market town of Strand, four business owners have opposed Conyer's attempts to buy their premises and replace them with a "big-box" store. One of them is as big a bully as Conyers but not as powerful.
The local squire and his pretty daughter are involved. He because anything that threatens the locals is of concern to him and she because she's in love with young Lewis Conyers and wants him cleared of his father's death.
There's an interesting conversation between these two and Inspector Macdonald. Colonel Digby Merryl hates change and resents the intrusion of an outsider like Conyers. He wants to see the old-time, family-owned businesses continue. His daughter gives a spirited argument in favor of change. The present owners are poor businessment who only have businesses because they inherited them.
They make no effort to accommodate their customers, continuing to stock the same products, aware the locals have little choice but to buy from them. Anne Merryl also claims Conyers is a generous employer, while the old timers bully their clerks and pay them poorly. She's right on all counts.
It's an interesting look at this author's politics. In one of her post-war mysteries ("Fire in the Thatch") she bemoans the loss of farm land and woodlands to the suburban neighborhoods built after the war. Most of us prefer woods and forests, but those new houses meant working class people could move their families into better, healthier homes. As Anne Merryl says, change isn't bad for everyone.
The four business owners are united in one way. All agree that rumors of a murder being committed on their ancient square of buildings will harm trade. The hardest part of any police investigation is trying to get accurate information. Civilians lie (or fail to tell the whole truth) for all kinds of reason. Here the reason is to avoid disruption of trade.
They band together to lead Macdonald down the Primrose Path, arguing Conyers was far away from their properties when he was killed. For one of those men, involvement in the murder may be a strong incentive to keep police from finding out Conyers visited there on the night he was murdered. But which one?
It's a clever mystery and I was kept guessing until the very end. As always, Inspector Macdonald uses information and intuition and experience to figure things out. The key to the puzzle lies in the character of Morton Conyers himself, as it often does. Conyers WAS a skirt-chaser, but he was a businessman first. Only serious business (not monkey business) would take him out on a raw night.
Lorac's Inspector Macdonald is one of my favorite detectives and I'm glad her series of mysteries featuring him was a substantial one. I'm enjoying them.
November 9, 2023
A Disappointing Read
Lorac is a new favorite of mine, but this book is not her best. Her characters are usually finely drawn, but here I had to flip back to see what character she was referring to.
Lorac is a new favorite of mine, but this book is not her best. Her characters are usually finely drawn, but here I had to flip back to see what character she was referring to.
January 11, 2024
I like “Lorac” and her Inspector Macdonald but this one is ridiculously over complicated. It’s good on the manners and mores - some of them nasty! - of 1930s small town England though.
May 19, 2025
The story starts out stoking the fear I always have in British country lanes: coming around a blind turn in a too-narrow lane, a car almost hits another stopped in the worst possible place- and then both are hit by a large truck going too fast to stop. It quickly becomes evident, however, that the driver of the stopped car was dead before the crash, and there are plenty of people who wanted him that way. The Sam Walton of his day, he was disliked for his habit of buying out small shop owners and razing their properties to build new, modern markets that drastically changed the villages he targeted. But he was also a cheat, a womanizer, and fairly awful to his family. As in other Lorac mysteries, Detective MacDonald takes the case officially while random groups of interested citizens (in this case, the two men who first discover the stopped car, and a separate cabal of small business owners) act as amateur sleuths and alternatively help turn up clues and mess things up royally. There are lots of red herrings, but also lots of interesting twists, and I certainly didn't figure out the murderer before MacDonald did. If you like Sayers, Marsh, Allingham, and/or Christie, Lorac's works should be on your list.
November 14, 2024
E.C.R.Lorac's Inspector MacDonald mysteries are always a complicated affair, and this is no different.
One has to pay attention not to miss all of the so-called minor details.
Of course the inspector is good at this, which is why he comes to the right conclusions. He is also an astute judge of human character.
The middle-aged wealthy man who is murdered has few admirable qualities and many enemies.
As you can determine, the plot is not original and all of the above are often characteristic of many golden age mysteries.
But Lorac does such a good job of writing a believable plot and stimulating the reader's imagination I didn't mind at all. For me the main character, in this case MacDonald, has to be admirable, and he certainly is.
So all in all, Death at Dyke's Corner does not disappoint a lover of the golden age mysteries.
One has to pay attention not to miss all of the so-called minor details.
Of course the inspector is good at this, which is why he comes to the right conclusions. He is also an astute judge of human character.
The middle-aged wealthy man who is murdered has few admirable qualities and many enemies.
As you can determine, the plot is not original and all of the above are often characteristic of many golden age mysteries.
But Lorac does such a good job of writing a believable plot and stimulating the reader's imagination I didn't mind at all. For me the main character, in this case MacDonald, has to be admirable, and he certainly is.
So all in all, Death at Dyke's Corner does not disappoint a lover of the golden age mysteries.
February 7, 2025
Golden age British mystery
It was a dark and rainy night, when a murder, at once simple and complicated is executed. Enter the capable Scottish CID detective to the small market town. Although the fourth book featuring Inspector Mcdonald, it can stands alone. Well-drawn characters and an excellent sense of place add to the appeal of a well-crafted tale.
As ever, if you're reading this review on GoodReads you won't find this on Amazon itself: A monopolistic business cancelled and unpersoned 30 years of reviews on a whim - with no recourse.
Highly amusing given the motivations for the killing of the thoroughly obnoxious Amazonian financier of this particular tale. La plus ca change...
It was a dark and rainy night, when a murder, at once simple and complicated is executed. Enter the capable Scottish CID detective to the small market town. Although the fourth book featuring Inspector Mcdonald, it can stands alone. Well-drawn characters and an excellent sense of place add to the appeal of a well-crafted tale.
As ever, if you're reading this review on GoodReads you won't find this on Amazon itself: A monopolistic business cancelled and unpersoned 30 years of reviews on a whim - with no recourse.
Highly amusing given the motivations for the killing of the thoroughly obnoxious Amazonian financier of this particular tale. La plus ca change...
July 19, 2024
Rating 3.5
Another enjoyable entry in the series.
The conclusion did appear and resolve itself very quickly but that didn’t really diminish the overall reading experience for me.
I find ECRL writing easy to read, the books are always enjoyable, her ability to draw the location and people in such a way that I always feel like I have met them or at least seen the places being described.
Haven’t read a novel so far that I would describe as bad, just that some are better than others.
This is probably mid table but a better than average read for me.
Another enjoyable entry in the series.
The conclusion did appear and resolve itself very quickly but that didn’t really diminish the overall reading experience for me.
I find ECRL writing easy to read, the books are always enjoyable, her ability to draw the location and people in such a way that I always feel like I have met them or at least seen the places being described.
Haven’t read a novel so far that I would describe as bad, just that some are better than others.
This is probably mid table but a better than average read for me.
June 30, 2025
This is a good story, but it's available in other editions. Don't buy this one. First, it has a lot of weird, rather distasteful, sometimes creepy, and completely irrelevant girlie pictures from the 30's sprinkled throughout. Why? No clue. They're pretty tame compared to contemporary stuff, but what are they doing here? Second, at the end there's a copyright notice in which the compiler of this odd edition claims copyright over the work. But clearly the compiler is not the author. There are other perfectly fine editions of this clever novel. Buy one of those.
September 16, 2024
I’m a huge fan of Lorac and her wonderful detective Macdonald and here, although complex and twisting in all directions, she offers a rattling good read with an almost Paul Temple like denouement. I can see why some reviewers feel it isn’t her best, and Lorac is wonderful when she describes settings in the Lune Valley for example. But her grasp of small town life is as good as rural goings on in my view.
April 29, 2024
Good story but overcomplicated plot
Most of this book is very good but the plot ends up very complicated- it would be near impossible to work out whodunit. Not helped in this edition by the omission of the map of the fictitious locality, though you can find it by searching online. A plus point of the edition is the rare photo of the author on the cover.
Most of this book is very good but the plot ends up very complicated- it would be near impossible to work out whodunit. Not helped in this edition by the omission of the map of the fictitious locality, though you can find it by searching online. A plus point of the edition is the rare photo of the author on the cover.
May 1, 2024
While being very well written, as always, with brilliant descriptions of the characters and great dialogue, this is not one one of her best. The plot is clever and different but vastly overcomplicated.
If the clues were there, I didn't spot them (though I may have been a bit dim) and I had no idea whodunnit until the last knockings.
If the clues were there, I didn't spot them (though I may have been a bit dim) and I had no idea whodunnit until the last knockings.
June 27, 2024
3.5 stars
If you like vintage mysteries from the golden age, filled with elaborate plots and characterizations, E.C.R. Lorac might be just the ticket for you. Her Inspector MacDonald is a fine lead character and her books are intelligently written and consistently entertaining.
If you like vintage mysteries from the golden age, filled with elaborate plots and characterizations, E.C.R. Lorac might be just the ticket for you. Her Inspector MacDonald is a fine lead character and her books are intelligently written and consistently entertaining.
July 10, 2024
Another winner from Lorac
A well written mystery with fully developed characters, a complex plot, and a very surprising revelation of the guilty party. I very much enjoyed the book and definitely recommend it.
A well written mystery with fully developed characters, a complex plot, and a very surprising revelation of the guilty party. I very much enjoyed the book and definitely recommend it.
May 9, 2025
At a hairpin bend known as Dyke's Corner 3 vehicles meet. In the stationary vehicle a dead man is found, believed to be unliked businessman Morton Conyers. Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard is brought in the investigate the killing.
An entertaining historical mystery
Originally published in 1940
An entertaining historical mystery
Originally published in 1940
July 21, 2025
Another Great E.R.C. Lorac Mystery
I know, I say it in all of my reviews of Lorac’s mysteries. You just can’t beat the quality of them. The plot is so interesting, the characters so well drawn out. And forget about knowing who the murderer is. For me at least, it is impossible.
I know, I say it in all of my reviews of Lorac’s mysteries. You just can’t beat the quality of them. The plot is so interesting, the characters so well drawn out. And forget about knowing who the murderer is. For me at least, it is impossible.
January 21, 2026
Other than one instance of "stuck in it's time" - the time being 1940s rural England, so the slur is against the Roma in quite a nasty little scene - the book was interesting, the plot convoluted, and the solution satisfying.
June 2, 2025
Tons of clues. Not a bunch of red herrings. Convincing solution. Interesting characters
July 4, 2026
Pretty average mystery...until the twist.
August 10, 2026
From an engagingly promising beginning to a somewhat phantasmagorical ending as the author had to juggle too many details and it all fell down.
July 27, 2024
Lorac is an excellent writer and is so good at characterisation and describing the countryside and villages. I loved the social commentary in this book about a how a modern store with more variety and offering better paid jobs would spoil the local shops and village life. Very interesting and the mystery was very, very good too and exciting towards the end.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews