Suicide Excepted (Perennial Library ; P/636)

Rating:
Summary: Good plot, Surprise Ending, Somewhat Thin Characterizations
Review: The British Imperial Insurance Company repudiated liability for payment for the death of Mr. Leonard Dickinson as his policy had been in effect only eight months. Clause 4a clearly specified that death by suicide was excepted from coverage during the first year of the policy. Mr. Dickinson's wife, his son Stephen, and daughter Anne all considered suicide highly unlikely. The police investigation eliminated the possibility of accident. Stephen, Anne, and her fiance, Martin Johnson, undertake a private investigation to uncover evidence of murder.

The plot, setting, and characters in Suicide Excepted were as one might anticipate for a traditional English rural murder mystery. The death occurs in a locked room at Pendlebury Old Hall, a manor house converted to a bed and breakfast hotel. By happenchance, Cyril Hare's fictional detective, Inspector Mallett of Scotland Yard, was also a guest at Pendlebury that weekend. Is it really murder? Who might be the suspects? What might be the motivation? The characterizations are a bit thin, something like what is found in an Agatha Christie story. However, we do learn enough about the suspects to develop credible theories, but the ending is likely to be a surprise.

Cyril Hare is a pseudonym of judge Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark. A previous reviewer indicated that Suicide Excepted (1954) is representative of Cyril Hare's other stories. I would rate it as about 3.5 stars. Dover Publications has also reprinted several other Inspector Mallet mysteries.