Nothing Like Blood

 Nothing Like Blood (1962) by Leo Bruce (Rupert Croft-Cooke)

Mrs. Helena Gort, a friend of Carolus Deene's mother, brings him a tale of disturbing incidents in a guesthouse by the sea. Helena has gone to Cat's Cradle in search of a quiet place to work on a revision of one of her books. ber friends had stayed there the year before and described it as a quite, charming little house. But when she arrived she found a disturbing atmosphere with all of the inhabitants on edge...as if they were expecting something very unpleasant. She learned that a sick, disagreeable woman had recently died. She had been expected to die at any time, so her doctor had no trouble signing a death certificate labeled natural causes. 

Then her will was read and it was revealed that she had disinherited her husband and left all her money to her oldest friend and the Jerrisons, the couple who do the cooking and the odd jobs around the guesthouse. The guests begin looking at one another warily and there is talk that perhaps the death wasn't so natural as it seemed...but nobody wants to get mixed up with the police. They can't avoid it, though, when Sonia Reid goes plunging off her balcony in the high tower room. Witnesses in a boat just off the shore from the house insist that she was all alone on the balcony and that it looked like she just dove off. Was it an accident....or suicide....or maybe murder? 

Helena has kept a diary since her first night at Cat's Cradle and she gives it to Carolus to read. She wants him to come to the house and investigate because she believes something very nasty is going on...and after he finishes the diary, Carolus is sure she is right. But will he be able to untangle the clues in time to prevent another unpleasant death?

Here's another of my academic-adjacent mysteries with Carolus Deene, history instructor at a boys' school who gets involved in mysteries as a side-gig. Sometimes because of his own curiosity, sometimes because he just happens to be there, and sometimes because friends invite him to the mystery party. I know among the Leo Bruce readers out there that Sgt. Beef is favored over Deene, but I have my soft spot for academic sleuths and generally I like the Deene books better. This one is a little rougher on the edges--more suspense, a bit more sinister, and Mrs. Mallister (the first to die) is really a quite nasty old woman. The mystery is good and solid and this was a quick read, so ★★★ for a solid mystery. But not my all-time favorite Deene book.

First line: "The Coroner's Inquest called it suicide," said Mrs. Gort.

Last line: "It was a star performance," said Carolus, and it was his last comment on the affair.
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Deaths = 2 (one poisoned; one fell from height)