Tour de Force

"Christianna Brand is probably better known these days as the author of the Nurse Matilda books, the template for Nanny McPhee. But Brand was an established crime writer, and an early member of the Crime Writers Association, who wrote a whole series of novels featuring Inspector Cockrill. I have to say, Cockrill is a blank slate as a detective, he doesn’t have the character or eccentricities of Poirot or Miss Marple, but he’s perfectly pleasant to read about. Her books are more interesting for the actual plot mechanism, and sometimes the setting, than for the character. In this one, he’s on holiday, on an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy . It’s left deliberately vague which one. In classic summer holiday mystery fashion, a murder is committed among the resort group that he’s in, and the interesting twist is that he’s initially the suspect when the local police start investigating the crime. He’s right there, he has the means and the motive—so part of the reason that he jacks in his holiday and starts investigating is because he needs to prove that he didn’t do it. Then, of course, it becomes an interesting investigation in its own right. He’s also a very reluctant holidaymaker. He didn’t want to go in the first place, so that all adds to the drama: he didn’t want to go, then he ends up being involved in a murder investigation, potentially being framed as the suspect. You are supposed to feel for him. Nothing has quite gone to plan."