At
Merlin’s Furlong lived Mr. Aumbry, a wealthy, elderly art
collector; and at Merlin’s Furlong, just when he had changed
his will, Mr. Aumbry died—violently…Merlin's Furlong (1953)
1953 Michael Joseph blurb:
At
Merlin’s Furlong lived Mr. Aumbry, a wealthy, elderly art
collector; and at Merlin’s Furlong, just when he had changed
his will, Mr. Aumbry died—violently…
Not far away, at Merlin’s Castle lived Professor Havers, of Carford University, a man with an unsavoury reputation and a taste for witchcraft; and soon, at Merlin’s Castle, long before his appointed time, Professor Havers died—violently…
And at Carford, not long before, an unfortunate undergraduate, a pupil of Professor Havers, had died—violently also, since he appeared to have cut his own throat…
It was fortunate indeed that three other undergraduates, involved innocently enough in these bloody affairs, had as a friend a nephew of Mrs. Lestrange Bradley. Fortunate for them, for they certainly needed help; fortunately for Mrs. Bradley, since the case, with its flavour of witchcraft and the Black Mass, was one after her own heart; and most fortunate of all for the countless admirers of ‘the best woman detective in fiction’ who will find in Merlin’s Furlong all the ingredients of a vintage Gladys Mitchell crime story.
My review:
"I know something about most of the sins of this world, and in witchcraft I have always taken interest."
It is a good thing for the reader that Mrs. Bradley does take an interest for this book is one of the best Gladys Mitchell novels: first-class atmosphere, an interesting story well-told, a masterly use of red herrings, the perfect amount of witchcraft, and, most important, a properly deduced and clued solution. The ingredients of the story also contribute to the eeriness: the voodoo doll, the dolls' hospital, the Iron Age fort and its twice-buried corpse, the desecrated altar, and the bizarre cult headed by one of the victims. The reader wholeheartedly agrees with the New Statesman review on the back dust jacket: "For sheer unbridled imagination she is unrivalled in the detective field. May she long remain so."