Reading: The Lake District Murder

I picked up John Bude's 1935 The Lake District Murder from the display of British Library Crime Classics in Waterstones a couple of weeks ago because we were about to go to the Lake District and it seemed like ideal holiday reading, especially when I looked at the map opposite the title page and saw that it was set in Keswick, where we were staying. It's a straightforward murder mystery of the evidence-and-alibis school Dorothy L Sayers was imitating in Five Red Herrings (set just the other side of the Solway Firth); unlike Sayers, Bude's crimesolvers are all police officers, principally Inspector Meredith of the Keswick station, who starts a murder investigation when he suspects that an apparent suicide may not be quite what it appears.

The Lake District Murder is a careful, thorough police procedural (although I was a bit surprised at the amount of subterfuge, covert investigations on private premises and indeed outright breaking and entering employed by Bude's police officers in pursuit of clues - I'm not sure that the modern police force would approve at all). It's an enjoyable enough read though felt a bit plodding in places, and Bude's writing style is a little clunky with a tendency to over-use exclamation points; I suspect that if I hadn't been visiting Keswick at the time I would have enjoyed it rather less than I actually did.