John Bude

 John Bude, pseudonym of Ernest Elmore, wrote approximately thirty crime novels, of which I have two: The Lake District Murder, published in 1935, and The Sussex Down Murder, published in 1936, both recently republished by the Poisoned Pen Press in their British Library Crime Classics series.  Both books are police procedurals following the investigations of Inspector, later Superintendent Meredith as he methodically unravels complicated crimes.

The Lake District Murder starts with an apparent suicide in a lonely country garage in the Lake District in England that eventually leads Inspector Meredith to uncovering an elaborate conspiracy which culminates in several murders.  

Grade:  A.  

In The Sussex Downs Murder, the bloodstained hat and battered car of a missing man, John Rother, are found abandoned in a lonely part of Sussex.  Later, bones turn up in bags of lime supplied by the missing man's brother from their jointly owned lime kilns.  Since the brother, William Rother, is known to have been at odds with his brother, who was believed to have been in love with William's wife, and since William is John's sole heir, William looks like the obvious suspect.  When William's body turns up in a chalk pit complete with suicide note, it looks like the case is over, until Superintendent Meredith patiently demonstrates that the easy answer is not always the right answer.  

Grade:  A.

Wish I had a couple more of John Bude's books.  

And, in the vein of "be careful what you wish for", it turned out that I did have another book by John Bude, The Cornish Coast Murder, his first attempt at a mystery novel.  This one, first published in 1935, seemed a bit more labored than the two others.  Julius Tregarthen, an unpleasant and overbearing local magistrate, is discovered shot dead in his house one stormy night.  It looks at first as if he was shot from the path along the cliff, but why were there three bullet holes in the windows, when one shot would clearly do the job?  The local vicar, a fan of mystery novels, helps the police inspector puzzle it all out.

Grade:  B.