The Dead Do Not Praise

Though it features the murder of a prickly headmistress, Bell's second British mystery (after Murder at St. Oswald's ) fails to hook its reader. Sarah Bland, the highly unpopular head of Heath Lees High School in Yorkshire, is bludgeoned to death in her office while faculty and students, numbering in the hundreds, are at morning prayers. Inspector Browne and Sergeant Hunter, both with children at the school, and ambitious Constable Mitchell, a recent Heath Lees graduate, narrow the suspect list to eight, none of whom can provide a decent alibi. Included are the English master who says he was enjoying the favors of his young wife, a hypochondriac history teacher accused of making untoward advances to a student's sibling, and a contemptuous, power-hungry school secretary. Bell's multitude of characters are too slowly developed, their motivations unconvincingly established and her setting devoid of local color. (Dec.)