The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham

Regular visitors to my blog will know I love relaxing with a good book, and then sharing a review here on my blog. Well I recently came across the website NetGalley whose purpose is to deliver digital advance reading copies (ARCs) to professional readers to help promote new and upcoming titles. I had a browse around the site before deciding to register.

Thinking about advance reading copies brought back happy memories of my introduction to adult fiction in my teens when I started reading Agatha Christie novels belonging to my Great Aunt. She had been a librarian and her shelves were stacked with plainly bound books that I discovered were advance copies. From Agatha Christie, I soon moved onto other murder mystery authors of the same period like Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham, borrowing them from my local library.

So when I spotted a Margery Allingham title on NetGalley that I hadn’t read, I knew this was what I wished to request first. It is The White Cottage Mystery which was Margery Allingham’s first detective story, originally written as a serial for the Daily Express in 1927 and published as a book a year later.

I downloaded the book from NetGalley to Kindle and settled down for a trip back in time.

Here is the book blurb.

Eric Crowther collected secrets and used them as weapons. Delighting in nothing more than torturing those around him with what he knew, there is no shortage of suspects when he is found dead in the White Cottage. Chief Inspector Challenor and his son Jerry will have to look deep into everyone’s past – including the victim’s – before they can be sure who has pulled the trigger. The fact that Jerry is in love with one of the suspects, however, might complicate things.

This book followed the traditional detective story approach with the death occurring in the first chapter. With the help of his son Jerry, Chief Inspector W.T. Challenor commences interviewing the suspects who all seem to have a reason to hate the victim and no alibis. Jerry is quick to jump to conclusions, but they gradually discover the secrets and eliminate the suspects. So who killed Eric Crowther? I have to say I actually correctly guessed in just chapter 3, but still loved reading the rest of the story, as I was expecting to be proved wrong.

The White Cottage Mystery is available to pre-order a paperback copy on Amazon, currently priced at £5.99, compared to RRP of £7.99 or if you can’t wait it is already available on Kindle. I do recommend this book.

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Disclosure.  This post is a review of an e-book I received for free.  All opinions are my own.