Post After Post-Mortem

First published in 1936, this workmanlike mystery from Lorac (1884–1959) opens at Upton House in Oxfordshire, England, home of the Surray family, “whose intellectual attainments are famous.” Richard, the eldest of the five Surray offspring, is a respected psychiatrist, and his sister Ruth is a renowned novelist, whose new book, her mother believes, is going to take Ruth’s name “into every corner of the civilised world.” The younger siblings are no less gifted, each in their own way. Then, to everyone’s shock, Ruth is found dead in her room from an overdose of barbiturates, and an inquest determines that she died by suicide. Richard arrives back at his apartment in London to find a letter from Ruth, posted on the evening before she died, in which his sister seems to be in high spirits and definitely not suicidal. He calls Scotland Yard’s Chief Insp. Robert MacDonald, who agrees to look into the woman’s death. Clean prose makes up only in part for murky motives, one-dimensional characters, and the lack of humor. This entry in the British Library Crime Classics series works best as a literary artefact. (Feb.)