Weekend at Thrackley

June 4, 2018
In this slight entry in the British Library Crime Classics series, first published in 1934, Melville (1910–1983) mixes Wodehousian humor (“Girls rarely, of course, look their best immediately after they have been knocked down by large Rolls-Royce cars”) with murderous mayhem. Failed would-be author Jim Henderson, who rarely manages to get out of bed for breakfast, gets an intriguing letter from Edwin Carson, a stranger who claims to have known Jim’s late father. Carson invites Jim for a weekend getaway at his Surrey home, Thrackley; motivated by the prospect of free food and free drink, Jim accepts the offer. He’s pleased to find an old school chum, Freddie Usher, is also on the guest list. Freddie, who informs Jim that Carson is the world’s leading authority on precious stones, explains that he was included so that Carson could assess the Usher family jewels. Other guests have brought their jewels—which become the target of a thief. Melville keeps the action moving, but the lightness of the plot and characters doesn’t bear the weight of an 11th-hour reveal.

June 1, 2018
A World War I veteran with no job and no prospects is invited to a tony Surrey housewarming by a man who claims to be the best friend of his late father. If this sounds too good to be true, it is, in spades.Shortly after arriving at Thrackley together with Freddie Usher, his equally idle but much wealthier chum, Jim Henderson realizes he has an unusual distinction among the half-dozen weekend guests. Marilyn Brampton writes grim sex novels; her husband, Henry, is a painter of some note; Catherine Lady Stone is a pillar of useless philanthropic organizations; the one-named Raoul is a featured dancer in the West End production Soft Sugar; and Freddie is the languid possessor of some first-class diamonds. All the other guests invited by Edwin Carson, an accomplished gemologist who talks of nothing but his passion, are awash in precious stones; only Jim is stone broke. So why has Jim, who can't remember ever seeing Carson before in his life, been invited to round out the party--unless Freddie is right and Carson's goal is to find an unemployed husband for Mary, his attractive daughter? After pages and pages of upper-class blather over breakfast and bridge, a tète-à-tète in which Carson casually mentions where he and Jim's father first met strikes a false note Jim squelches but doesn't have the wit to pick up on, and it's not until he recognizes one of Carson's servants as someone he's seen before that the country-house trappings fall away and Melville (Quick Curtain, 2017, etc.) switches abruptly to florid, and considerably less convincing, melodrama.Even so, Melville's debut, originally published in 1934, goes far to bear out the wisdom of the guest who complains, "I hate these harmless, potty people. They're always up to something."

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Starred review from May 1, 2018
This story about guests gathered at a country house for the weekend, originally published in 1934, anticipates Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which appeared five years later. Like Christie's novel, a seemingly genial house slowly morphs into a prison, and the guests are subjected to greater and greater shocks. Melville weaponizes his country house, using a claustrophobic elevator and wine cellar to great effect. As with Christie, Thrackley starts with a baffled guest?a down-at-the-heels gentleman, Jim Henderson, who is invited to leave his London boardinghouse for a shooting and fishing party at a grand estate in Surrey by the owner, who claims to have known Jim's father. The estate, forbidding on the exterior but cheery inside, is almost the opposite of its gracious yet malevolent host, who, with his sinister butler, drops some accidental hints about his real purposes. British crime novelist Martin Edwards provides his usual insightful introduction to this latest addition to the British Library Crime Classics series, letting readers know that Raymond Chandler was a huge fan of this novel. Bubbly social satire sets off a clockwork plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2018
A World War I veteran with no job and no prospects is invited to a tony Surrey housewarming by a man who claims to be the best friend of his late father. If this sounds too good to be true, it is, in spades.Shortly after arriving at Thrackley together with Freddie Usher, his equally idle but much wealthier chum, Jim Henderson realizes he has an unusual distinction among the half-dozen weekend guests. Marilyn Brampton writes grim sex novels; her husband, Henry, is a painter of some note; Catherine Lady Stone is a pillar of useless philanthropic organizations; the one-named Raoul is a featured dancer in the West End production Soft Sugar; and Freddie is the languid possessor of some first-class diamonds. All the other guests invited by Edwin Carson, an accomplished gemologist who talks of nothing but his passion, are awash in precious stones; only Jim is stone broke. So why has Jim, who can't remember ever seeing Carson before in his life, been invited to round out the party--unless Freddie is right and Carson's goal is to find an unemployed husband for Mary, his attractive daughter? After pages and pages of upper-class blather over breakfast and bridge, a t�te-�-t�te in which Carson casually mentions where he and Jim's father first met strikes a false note Jim squelches but doesn't have the wit to pick up on, and it's not until he recognizes one of Carson's servants as someone he's seen before that the country-house trappings fall away and Melville (Quick Curtain, 2017, etc.) switches abruptly to florid, and considerably less convincing, melodrama.Even so, Melville's debut, originally published in 1934, goes far to bear out the wisdom of the guest who complains, "I hate these harmless, potty people. They're always up to something."

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.