Cornelia Lackland is a cantankerous old lady. When she is poisoned, there is no shortage of suspects as practically everyone connected to her had reason for wanting her dead. Dan Pardoe of Scotland Yard is called in to handle the case and he must sift through the stories of each of the suspects to determine who the guilty party is.

A fairly interesting golden age mystery ( )

Originally published in 1938, Postscript to Poison by Dorothy Bowers is this English author’s first book. In it she introduces Inspector Dan Pardoe whom she wrote about three more times. This story is about the investigation into the death of Cornelia Lackland who, while recovering from a lingering illness is poisoned. The suspects are limited to immediate family, servants, and the few people who visited the house around the time of her death.

Inspector Pardoe interviews all the suspects and as other elements come to light, the case becomes far more complicated than he had originally thought. With Cornelia’s cruel treatment of others, her constant changing of her will, anonymous letters floating about and long lost relatives turning up, the author keeps her readers guessing as to who the murderer could be. When another murder takes place, it seems to muddy the waters somewhat, but Inspector Pardoe persists and eventually reveals all.

I enjoyed this first novel and hopefully will read more by this author. Unfortunately there isn’t a large catalogue to choose from as the author died from tuberculosis when she was 46. ( )

My first of a Dorothy Bowers binge after hearing of her existence on the wonderful Shedunnit podcast. A fairly standard golden age mystery set in a small English town where two young women are kept dancing attendance on their bullying grandmother. Then the grandmother dies Inspector Pardoe is on the case to solve the mystery. I enjoyed this and looked forwards to reading more Bowers. ( )

This was very good mystery even though I guessed the culprit very early. I'm taking off a half star for two reasons: the first half droned on a bit that made the book longer than it should have been, and secondly, I had trouble seeing a picture of the characters in my mind's eye. It was otherwise well-written and I particularly liked this description of a sudden storm.

"From the first sly breeze preceding the first impact of thunder and crazy leap of lightning, through the surge and riot of contending wind and flogging rain that washed gardens into paths and paths into a mess of pebbles and sandy slush, to the last reluctant grumble of the clouds and rush of astonished gutters, less than an hour elapsed." ( )