The Boat Race Murder: A Golden Age Mystery

by R.E. Swartwout

Every year between Putney and Mortlake, teams from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge battle it out in the great Varsity boat race. At Hammersmith, the Cambridge team are training hard, under the guidance of their coach, Major Horace Lampson. Success in rowing depends on a small group of dedicated athletes working closely together to secure their prize. And yet, beneath the surface, resentments and rivalries simmer. When one of the crew is brutally murdered, Inspector MacNair finds that he must probe precisely such dark undercurrents if he is to find the culprit...Originally published in 1933, this is a vintage murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction.

209 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 15, 2022

Reviews

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only mystery by this author who died at the young age of 45 of cancer. The story begins just before a big race between Cambridge and Oxford, and the crew are finishing a practice. Then you follow the crew into the large home where they are staying at this time. There is a lot of banter and pent up anger, and of course a number of the crew are a mystery buffs and there is a great deal of dropping mystery author's names and titles. Later there is a death and the how etc... are quite odd.

Once the local police determine this is not their case, Scotland Yard's detective McNair (who is a fan of mystery fiction as well- I'm figuring so is the writer) enters the scene. Once McNair enters the pacing gets way better and by the end it's much much better- so don't let the start fool you.

Lots of twists and information that changes the perception of the crime. Lots of action at the end.

Also- there was one book that was mentioned and I wondered if it actually existed or if the author listed is a spoofed name- Death in the Dark by Aloysius Adamson. (There is a 1930's book called Death in the Dark but by a different author.) If you read a lot of Golden Age Mysteries the beginning of the book will amuse you.

[Teresa Tignola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una gara di canoe a Cambridge nel 1930 o giù di lì. Abbiamo il nostro gruppo. Una squadra, quella di Cambridge appunto, che si prepara per una gara importante e discute intanto di assassinii e di cosa si proverebbe ad uccidere qualcuno (un po' macabro oserei, ma ognuno si fa i pensieri propri, no?💃🏻) durante la cena.
La mattina dopo, come ogni "vecchio" mystery che si rispetti, trovano ovviamente uno dei loro canoisti morto nel bagno della sua stanza ed in una maniera davvero strana.

Da qui parte la storia vera e propria che a leggerla mi ha fatto sentire un po' sulle montagne russe, devo dire la verità. Una serie di misunderstandings che non sono poi così tanto misunderstandings, un detective che sembra aver preso la licenza dalle patatine a volte e il team dei canoisti che...beh, sono tutto un programma già da soli.

Però mi è piaciuto. Un twist finale che non mi sarei mai e poi mai aspettata e lasciatemelo dire; QUESTI sono veri "crime books". Chiedo venia, ma in alcuni libri che stanno uscendo ultimamente si capisce il colpevole già dopo la prima parola del primo capitolo!