''Murder at Lilac Cottage'' is a 1940

detective novel Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...

John Rhode Cecil John Charles Street (3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964), who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a ...

, the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of the British writer Cecil Street. It is the thirty third in his long-running series of novels featuring

Lancelot Priestley Dr. Lancelot Priestley is a fictional investigator born in July 1869 in a series of books by John Rhode After 1924, Dr. Priestley took over from Dr. Thorndyke as the leading fictional forensic investigator in Britain, and featured in 72 novels ...

, a

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

armchair detective An armchair detective is a fictional investigator who does not personally visit a crime scene or interview witnesses; instead, the detective either reads the story of the crime in a newspaper or has it recounted by another person. As the armcha ...

.Reilly p.1257 In the '' Times Literary Supplement '' reviewer Maurice Willson Disher noted "With both ingenuity and originality at command, he will keep puzzle-solvers guessing until it pleases Dr. Priestley to explain why clues are not what they seem." while

Ralph Partridge Reginald Sherring Partridge, (1894 – 30 November 1960), generally known as Ralph Partridge, a member of the Bloomsbury Group, worked for Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf, married first Dora Carrington and then Frances Marshall, and was the ...

gave it a broadly positive review in the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

''.

Synopsis

In a largely peaceful village in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

during the early stages of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the body of the young man who owns Lilac Cottage is found dead. The only clue that the investigating officers of

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

can find is a

five pound note 5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 5, five or number 5 may also refer to: * AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era * 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era Literature * ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram * ''5'' (comics), an awar ...

, but it lures Priestley to the trail. A second murder takes place nearby soon afterwards, puzzling to most, but to Priestley it confirms the theory he is already developing.

References

Bibliography

* Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford University Press, 2003. * Magill, Frank Northen . ''Critical Survey of Mystery and Detective Fiction: Authors, Volume 4''. Salem Press, 1988. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1940 British novels Novels by Cecil Street British crime novels British mystery novels British thriller novels British detective novels Collins Crime Club books Novels set in London Novels set in England {{1940s-novel-stub