Death of an Author

by E.C.R. Lorac, Martin Edwards (Introduction)

'I hate murders and I hate murderers, but I must admit that the discovery of a bearded corpse would give a fillip to my jaded mind.'

Vivian Lestrange – celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse – has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself, it appears that crime and murder is afoot when Lestrange’s housekeeper is also found to have disappeared.

Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim, as E C R Lorac spins a twisting tale full of wry humour and red herrings, poking some fun at her contemporary reviewers who long suspected the Lorac pseudonym to belong to a man (since a woman could apparently not have written mysteries the way that she did).

Incredibly rare today, this mystery returns to print for the first time since 1935.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Classics, Crime, British Literature, Audiobook, Historical Fiction

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Edith 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.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Detective novel mostly interesting for the setting (publishers, interesting club) and also the female author's attempts at feminism which are undermined by her truly wild internalised misogyny. The murder plot rather gives the impression she hadn't decided what the actual solution would be until the last chapter or so.

[Helga · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

Honestly, I don’t think the author herself knew who the murderer was and based on the endless confusing theorizings and conjectures of the armchair detectives, she also didn’t know how it was done.
Suspects are galore, as are the victims and because we actually don’t know which character has been murdered, we don’t know what the motive is. We aren’t even sure if a murder has indeed been committed and if it has, who is the victim.
All these facts are repeatedly mentioned by our clever detectives over and over again.
The book, except the somewhat mysterious beginning is one long dialogue between the detectives.
The who/why/how/where/when is explained in the last pages of the book... for the millionth time! 🙄

[Piyangie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Lorac mystery I read outside the McDonald series. I have enjoyed many in that series and was a little skeptical about how I would receive an independent mystery novel of hers. I'm happy to confess that I enjoyed it but not quite as I would of a McDonald case. I guess I'm a bit prejudiced, for I have come to like the Chief Inspector Robert McDonald as much as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. So when my main man is missing, I tend to be a bit sour. :) But this is a Lorac mystery after all, and it's impossible not to enjoy it.

Lorac's craftsmanship has always been on a higher level that you cannot fail to enjoy her work. Her work is well structured and the writing is neat. The story flows smoothly taking the reader through a pleasant guessing game. These qualities have kept her on top of the golden age mystery writers. Robert McDonald series shines bright, but even this independent work shows her flair.

The story was done well with an interesting plot. I especially enjoyed Lorac's humour in the story. Could an author's gender be revealed through her writing is the involuntary question raised here. Lorac must have had a lot of fun writing this, having written under pseudonyms and her identity and gender coming under similar probe.

I enjoyed reading the novel but certain flaws were pronounced through comparison with her McDonald series. Although it's unfair to compare, I couldn't stop myself from mentally referring to them. On a comparative note, I found that this mystery lacking in action. A lot of surmises were expressed through long conversations with the detectives. The line (which was later revealed to be the correct stance) was drawn up pretty early and I couldn't see many twists or turns being worked out.

Despite these flaws, however, I still enjoyed the story and can truthfully say that this independent mystery novel is yet another good mystery story by Lorac.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Behind the nom-de-plume…

Vivian Lestrange has become a publishing sensation with his literary mystery novels, especially his most recent smash hit, The Charterhouse Case. He is a recluse, however, refusing to meet journalists or even provide a publicity photograph. Eventually his intrigued publishers persuade him to meet them in person, and to their amazement he turns out to be a young woman! And then Vivian Lestrange disappears…

A very short blurb for this one because it’s so much fun I really don’t want to spoil it by giving too much away. It’s all about noms de plume and authors pretending to be someone other than they are, and the question raised again and again is whether it is possible to determine the sex of an author if all you have to go on is his or her writing. Lorac has her characters muse on whether we would know Dorothy L Sayers was female on the basis of her books alone? Is Conrad’s writing so masculine that no woman could have written his books? I loved this aspect because it’s a question I’ve often mulled, like most readers, I assume. Did anyone ever really believe George Eliot was a man, or do I just feel her books are unmistakeably feminine because I know she’s a woman? More recently, I don’t remember people saying Robert Galbraith’s first book couldn’t have been written by a man, but now that we know that’s a nom de plume for JK Rowling, it seems obvious they come from the pen of a woman. Of course, it has added piquancy because ECR Lorac is a gender neutral nom de plume and I have never been able to find a photograph of her. I know believe she was a woman because Martin Edwards tells me so, but I don’t know that her writing is distinctively feminine – her books are usually low on romance, for example. But then they’re also low on action thrills, often seen as the hallmark of male crime writers in that generation, and largely even still today.

Some of it is done slightly tongue-in-cheek, and I imagine probably reflected Lorac’s own experience within the publishing world. The men who claim that Lestrange’s books couldn’t possibly have been written by a woman clearly think that because the books are so good. How could a woman possibly put herself inside a male character’s head, they ask, dumbfounded, never wondering how male writers manage to think themselves into a female character. How could a mere woman understand so much about the less salubrious side of life, to come up with plots about vicious crimes and criminals? Lorac has other characters who answer those questions from the female perspective – i.e., that men really need to get over themselves and recognise that the days of women being pampered little Dickensian simpletons are long over. (I paraphrase!) Great fun!

The disappearance of Lestrange is investigated by two detectives – the local man, Inspector Bond, and Scotland Yard’s Chief Inspector Warner. They work very well together, although they both hold wildly different theories of what’s happened. Again I have to be vague to avoid spoilers, but Bond believes Lestrange could indeed be a woman while Warner is adamant that the books could have been written only by a man. This means both men are carrying out separate but joined investigations, each trying to prove his own theory but open to the idea that the other man may be in the right. I swayed back and forward all the way through, and wished I could have read Lestrange’s novel to see if I could tell his/her gender for myself!

The plot itself is convoluted to the point where sometimes I had to read bits again, but it’s very clever and it all works. If I have a criticism it’s that the ending is a bit of an anti-climax, but in this case I enjoyed the journey so much it didn’t bother me. One of the things I love most about Lorac is her unpredictability – she’s not afraid to try different things and often comes at her stories from an unusual angle. This one is delightfully different to her MacDonald books, and I loved it. I sound like a stuck record when it come to Lorac but… highly recommended!

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, a brilliant Lorac mystery! I missed my dear Chief Inspector Macdonald but I liked CI Warner very much as well as his sidekick Inspector Bond. At the beginning, it feels like there is no hope of unraveling the mystery. It’s so complex but slowly, slowly, the pieces fall into place and the race to the end is so satisfying.

Thank you to Jessica for being my Lorac buddy reader! We are having the best time with these. If you love Golden Age crime, I highly recommend Lorac.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun read: it's one of Lorac's best. And she gets in some digs about male writers (and the publishing world) toward women writers. Usually, her hero police officer is Robert MacDonald but in this book it is DCI Warner with sidekick Bond. As much as I love MacDonald, I loved Warner just as much (as well as Bond, who is the perfect complement: the usual creative superior supported by the more concrete, detail-oriented companion).

Vivien Lestrange, successful writer has disappeared. But no one is sure he ever existed. In fact, no one is sure that Lestrange is a man. So it's mystery upon mystery.

Excellent writing, well-paced plot and engaging characters. One of my favorite Lorac (who has become one of my top 3 favorite mystery authors).

Highly recommended.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fine little mystery, clear and nicely written, with nice characterization. It is one of Lorac’s few standalones. But what really drew me was this: in my recent review of a short story by R. Austin Freeman (“Wastrel’s Romance”, I offered a disquisition on the difference between the intuitive and the realistic schools: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Both approaches are (apparently) deliberately illustrated here, one in Warner (the intuitivist) from Scotland Yard’s CID; and the other in the local police Inspector Bond (the empirical school). This is especially useful in that it illustrates what is often most hard to grasp about the intuitivists — the use of pure deduction and reasoning (as opposed to the inductive approach of the procedural or empirical. The two detectors are friends and together they try to figure the crime in long dialogic sections where they sit and bat ideas around. It is really brilliantly handled. It is not a spoiler to say that neither approach would have succeeded on its own.

My first Lorac (listened to, I’m ashamed to say, rather than ‘read’), and one of only a few GAD novels apart from (Christie), so I cannot judge how this book *really* stands in comparison to others. So take my rating grano cum salis.

[Barb in Maryland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun! 4.5 stars.
Lorac introduces two new policemen--skeptical Inspector Bond, and imaginative Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Warner. Their conversations are marvelous, as they hash out the almost impossible case they've been handed.
Reclusive author Vivian Lestrange is reported missing by his secretary, Miss Eleanor Clarke. Also missing is Lestrange's housekeeper, Mrs. Fife. No one beyond Miss Clarke has ever seen Lestrange. Mrs. Fife is almost as invisible. Miss Clarke is certainly visible, but with a background that is difficult to verify. it's no wonder Bond thinks Miss Clarke is pulling a joke on them. But why would she do such a thing? And then there's the matter of a bullet hole in the window of Lestrange's study...
Lots of twists and turns in this one as clues arise and Warner (and Bond) keep revising their theories.

The world of publishing gives Lorac a nice playground for getting in a few digs at critics. All very amusing to this reader.
Martin Edwards' introduction is well worth reading for his take on the literary scene at the time Lorac wrote this book. He also gives us a plausible explanation for why Lorac never used Warner and Bond in another book. I really liked them and I would have liked to see them again. Oh well...

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise (multiple identities, pseudonyms, a missing author who may have never existed etc) and I loved the beginning with the very witty and interesting secretary of the author, but by the halfway point it got bogged down in a bunch of theories and stay that way until the very end. Most of the second half of the book is the two detectives talking to different people and to each other and regurgitating the same theories over and over. A few new clues appear and new events take place but not enough to shed much light on the events or to keep the pace brisk.

Maybe it's me. I keep getting stuck in books that have promising beginnings and then veer off into a slogfest...

[Lavins · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

A thoroughly enjoyable mystery book.
One of the best parts is that the book is solely focusing on the investigation. There is no personal drama in the life of detectives, the parents/friends of the victims are not some stack up, condescending people who only know how to belittle the policemen, basically the people that are trying to help them. Or even best, lying to everyone including the police.

The plot is a bit convoluted and one has to pay attention to details.

A great one!

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author E.C.R. Lorac was the writer of character-based detective/crime novels from the 1930s and 1950s. While her most popular series featured Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald, this novel does not. Instead, it features a Chief Inspector Warner and Inspector Bond of the Scotland Yard.

The story is about the disappearance of Vivian Lestrange, a celebrated author of a popular mystery novels and a total recluse. His housekeeper has also disappeared. The police wonder what happened to them, as do employees at Lestrange’s publishers Langston’s, managing director Andrew Marriott, and publicist Robert Bailley. Things get complicated with the appearance of Lestrange’s secretary Eleanor at the offices of her publishers, Langston’s. Eleanor has a claim to be the writer of the Lestrange mysteries. Who is Lestrange and has he been murdered are the questions that Scotland Yard must solve.

This is my second novel by Lorac. The first, Post after Post-Mortem, involved an academic family where a daughter was a writer, and her publisher was a character. This novel also features writers and publishers as characters and the emphasis on the literary and publishing world is even more pronounced.

What did I like? I liked the setting of the literary and publishing world. I also like the mystery of the author’s identity, especially as it spawned humorous and detailed conversations about whether a female or male wrote the Lestrange novels. Initially the conversations were between Andrew Marriott, managing director of Langston’s, his co-worker Robert Bailley and even one of their authors Michael Ashe. These discussions also included references to the relative merits of other authors such as Galsworthy and Hemingway, subjects of interest to me. Later, the sex of the true author is the key issue involved in identifying the alleged killer in debates between the Scotland Yard duo of Warner and Bond. The dialogue was clever and a great play on the real life questioning of the sex of author E.C.R. Lorac herself.

What didn’t I like? These same dialogues, while interesting, made up almost the entirety of the novel, so that most of the story’s scenes depicted 2 men talking. I realize that dialogue over the facts and theories involved in solving the mystery do make up a significant part of most mystery stories. But the length and domination of the dialogue seemed even greater than usual in this book, making the storyline and plot overly static, with much being discussed and conjectured but not much actually happening. The overly static nature of the story is why I rate this as 3 stars rather than 4 stars. However, I do enjoy Lorac’s cleverness and characters enough to continue reading on in her oeuvre.

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written, interesting pair of detectives (Scotland yard detectives), and Lorac has a lot of fun with her premise of having writers as the main protagonists that might as well be wholly fictional or at least to a great part an invention of other protagonists of the story that may or may not be writers themselves. In a way it’s a sort of meta-fiction about the interplay of facts and fiction, and how facts engender fictions about them, and how fictions or hypotheses give mere facts a meaning and transforms them into parts of a narrative. This sounds a bit brainy and tedious, but the novel isn’t that at all. It’s really fun to read and trying to guess what really has happened to the dead author. And who’s responsible for it.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death of an Author is a swift-paced, highly twisty mystery. I really enjoyed Lorac's writing and how she played with the social perception of authors, the ancient game of discerning an author's gender by their writing. The final chapters were quite a race and I couldn't put it down. Really looking forward to more by Lorac!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-1/2 Stars

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

No-one has ever seen mysterious author Vivian Lestrange - until one day the publisher of this best-selling crime writer is surprised by a young lady who says that she is the person behind the books which everyone had thought were produced by a man. Then Vivian Lestrange vanishes, leaving only a window with a bullet hole behind…

E.C.R. Lorac must have had a lot of fun with the start of this book and its discussions of whether it’s really possible to tell whether there is a male or female author behind the words on the page. She must surely be drawing on some of her own experiences as a female author hiding behind initials that many readers must have assumed were those of a man. The book fairly fizzes with energy as layer upon layer of confusion around Vivian Lestrange’s identity grows.

But I always prefer Lorac when she has introduced us to the full array of suspects and victim(s), not when, as here, there turns out to be a connection to a story we only see at second hand. We don’t really meet some characters who are important to the plot but hear about them and trace them with the detectives through their painstaking following of evidence. It’s a really clever book but for this reason I didn’t find that it sustained the brilliance of the opening all the way through.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don't mind dealing with proper criminals, but heaven defend me from any more novelists, sir," he groaned.

This was great fun—the best I've read from E.C.R. Lorac so far. I've found her to be a solid plotter without any very great character depth or stylistic brilliance, so I think the strong point of this novel is that its fantastically clever and multi-layered plot takes center stage and shines there. A reclusive author has been reported missing by his secretary, but the trouble is, he's managed to be so reclusive that the police can't find any proof beyond the secretary's word that he actually existed. Are they investigating a real disappearance or trying to discredit an amazingly detailed fabrication? The two inspectors on the case have differing opinions on this point, but work together trying to sort out the case on both lines simultaneously—and as new evidence turns up, the possibilities become even more convoluted.

My one tiny criticism is that I felt the final chapter or two wrapped things up a bit too quickly—after so much of the book was spent working out deliciously detailed theories of the crime, I felt the actual solution deserved just a bit more exposition. And kudos to Lorac for a couple of tiny red herrings that had me almost sure of an incorrect solution right up to the final reveal!

[Saturn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based.
I really liked how the way you had to view all of the different clues was affected by the fact that multiple people of interest were involved in the crime fiction. I liked the little chase scene at the end.
I didn't like how all of the discourse regarding female authors never really went anywhere. Commentary about what women were and were not capable of portraying was a big part of the first half, but the second half kind of did away with all of that. I guess it could be seen as a commentary on the author's career (as a woman writing about crime in the 1930's), but I don't even know enough biographical information about ECR Lorac to contextualize this part of the book with her experience in the literary world.

[Lady Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent whodunnit that will keep the reader guessing until the end.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have enjoyed each book by this author I've read. This one really held my attention with the vivid characters, the hunting for information, the discussion that centered in the book of the author hidden by a pseudo-name. Here you have two detectives working on the case and each one takes a different stance on one of the people involved (telling the truth or lying.)

Really don't want to give anything away, but it is a real gem of a complicated mystery that with each layer peeled back and viewed: provides insight but also more questions. And the great thing about this- is that a woman wrote THIS mystery. :) You'll understand the point here if you read it.

Great reprint from British Crime Library Classics.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favourite book of Lorac's to date. A very unusual plot with red herrings galore which is difficult to review without spoiling. Warner and Bond are likeable coppers. Miss Clarke is particularly strong female character. The writing is excellent as usual. I would have given it five stars but the ending was a bit sudden and a little unsatisfactory.

[EuroHackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A whirlwind tale about revenge, murder, mayhem, and identity. I read this all in one day; I believe having longer periods between sections would've made the ending seem even more muddled than it was. This is a tale that twists around on itself many, many times, and there are so many moving pieces that it's enough to make your head spin.

The basic premise is that reclusive novelist Vivian Lestrange is 'outed' as a woman (much to everyone's surprise, because how could a mere woman write such erudite and clever plots!). Three months after this, the self-same woman strides into a police station and claims that she works Lestrange as his secretary and that he, along with his housekeeper, have disappeared without a trace. She denies being Lestrange, even though she had presented herself as such to the publishing house as well as another author, explaining that she only did this at the behest of Lestrange. She knows how it sounds, but she's counting on the fact that at least one of the investigators knows that sometimes truth really *is* stranger than fiction.

The novel, as Martin Edwards clearly posits in his introduction, is a standalone work that is basically this author, ECR Lorac, thumbing her nose at her contemporaries. It was indeed believed that no woman could ever be as clever as a man when it came to crime novels, and that many of the most famous ones we know today wrote under masculine pseudonyms so that their work could be published, Lorac herself among them. Even Agatha Christie contemplated using a male name to publish her work. With this work, Lorac proves she is just as clever as any male author could be, spinning an incredulous tale that also takes potshots at authors who "hide" behind pen names. It is a glorious muddle, and one that proves her point very nicely.

[Diane Shearer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, my goodness gracious. What an experience. This is not my first Lorac novel but it’s the first one I’ve really understood. Considering it’s basically 300 (?) pages of people talking, it actually got my heart pounding. Also considering that we see only the aftermath of the crime and never meet the principals, what she has written here is extraordinary. The forward certainly sets the stage for a better understanding of this author and how she thinks. I assumed she was a man when I’ve read her books in the past. Which is hysterical considering the underlying question of this novel. I recommend the audiobook on double speed, without which I would probably have been bored. It’s a little slow in the middle.

[Adam Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Latest ECR Lorac reprint from British Library Crime. It’s one of her early stories, and shows in as much as it’s quite different from some of the later, more setting driven mysteries.

It’s great fun though - no Macdonald, but the detectives are humorous and the mystery is clever. Lots of commentary on no doubt Carol Rivett’s own feelings about how female authors were treated too!

[Najia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it!!!

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you know when a reclusive author vanishes?

[Jessica Janeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love a well thought out revenge murder mystery, and this one delivered! 👏🏻. This read has a mystery within a mystery, and an interesting villain origin story! Highly recommend.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun.

[Abigail Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve found I enjoy Lorac’s rural mysteries more than the ones set mainly in London or some other urban environment (it usually is London). The London ones seem to have a somewhat harsher and darker tone, whereas in the rural ones, there’s often a good deal about the setting or about farming to soften the edges of the murder mystery. We also don’t have MacDonald in this one, to my surprise, but some fellow named Warner whom I didn’t cotton onto as much. Nevertheless, I did find the set up very intriguing and enjoyed the ride as the reader is made to keep guessing who the real author of the fictional bestseller is, and whether Miss Clark is telling the truth or pulling the leg of the police. The question that stands at the center of the mystery is whether there’s an infallible way to differentiate a man’s style of fiction writing from a woman’s. I think Lorac, writing under so many pen names, must have been having a bit of fun with this one, and I do wonder what her own opinion on the question was. It’s interesting how she pokes here at the concept of the modern woman and how different men and woman are or are not in their mental outlook and capacity. Normally I find her mysteries to be pretty straightforward, not much pontificating, but DEATH OF AN AUTHOR is rather more meta in its approach while remaining a fun yarn.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot is good but execution is not.This is one of those Loracs where two eloquent and highly critical and sometimes cynical characters exchanging pros and cons ad infinitum takes up most of the pages(Crossed skis, and mill race) . They discuss all and every permutation of the possible interpretations of the clues and surmises and then the author gives up and solves it with an act of god .Here the solution is decent as is the original plot but it does not feel right when you slog through a Ngaio marshy dialogue desert to find the issue is about to be solved by a Croftsian haystack search and then ultimately finish with sayersque Hallelujah !!

This one is apparently very well liked(Mostly because of the debate on writing style and male conceits ) but I find Lorac was at her best when there is some atmospheric setting to enliven the plot(Matchlight,Checkmate ,Belfry,Thatch etc.). I am not going to buy any more Loracs sans the foggy wartime background .

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great puzzle of a story with lots of twists and great chase of an ending! As good as any Agatha Christie!