Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery

"I think this is my favourite novel from the 1940s. It’s not a wartime mystery written from the comfort of the 1960s, looking back; the author was writing as the war was still going on, and she didn’t know what was going to happen—what the outcome was going to be. I find that really interesting to think about. As you say, it’s set in the blackout. A group of friends are gathered in an artist’s studio one evening. They’re all doing different things: the artist has finally persuaded an actor friend to come and pose for a portrait, the artist’s sister is in the kitchen making dinner, and a couple of others are playing a chess game. That’s where the ‘checkmate’ of the title comes from. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It’s one of those classic murder mystery situations where technically all of those people could vouch for the other: on paper, they’re all within sight of each other. But once you start to unravel it, questions arise: Can the portrait painter really see the chess players? Was his sister in the kitchen the whole time? That kind of thing. The studio is in the garden of this very rundown house in North London. The whole street has been condemned for redevelopment, but there’s this one old man who has clung on in this house, he will not sell. So the whole street is abandoned, apart from that one house. This old man lives alone, in one room. He’s in bed, most of the time. And he gets shot dead on this evening. There’s no one around, seemingly, apart from this group out in the studio in the garden. That’s the setup. There’s one other detail about it that I find really interesting, which is that the murder is discovered by a special constable. A special constable was a kind of volunteer policeman who joined up to help with the shortage of police during the war, after men were recruited into the armed forces. They were often, I think, retired police officers, or people who’d worked in policing overseas. They had this odd status where the only thing they were really allowed to do is police the blackout. They’re not really supposed to solve crimes. So when the real Scotland Yard detectives turn up, there’s this odd professional tension between them, which is very peculiar to wartime. I’ve never really seen that in a detective novel anywhere else. The characters in the studio don’t like the special constable at all either, because he’s very officious and seems inclined to accuse people, which is interesting. Yes. The British Library has this imprint called ‘Crime Classics’ , edited by Martin Edwards. A lot of the books that they republish were previously unavailable—out of print, or very hard to get hold of. They’ve brought them back in a nice paperback range. If you’re looking for a classic murder mystery that isn’t by Agatha Christie , then that’s a good place to go."