The Dead Shall Be Raised and Murder of a Quack

Det. Insp. Thomas Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is the model of a calm, rational policeman, as shown in the two novels by Bellairs (1902–1982) in this solid entry in the British Library Crime Classics series. In The Dead Shall Be Raised (1942), the body of iron worker Enoch Sykes is dug up near the spot where, 27 years earlier, he was believed to have murdered his friend Jeremy Trickett, a fellow iron worker, before fleeing and disappearing. Now it’s clear that someone else killed the two of them, so Littlejohn must solve a double murder anchored in the past. In Murder of a Quack (1943), Nathaniel Wall, a bonesetter beloved by all except competing orthodox doctors, is hanged from his own medical apparatus, and Littlejohn must hunt for the motive in order to discover the killer. The two mysteries with their village settings are prosaic—no car chases, no master criminals—but assured prose, well-drawn characters, and the atmosphere of 1940s wartime England make them well worth the reader’s time. (Oct.)