Untimely Death

Untimely Death is a beautifully crafted piece of work. Unlike many recent thrillers, Cyril Hare relies on his ability to craft a plot, develop characters and fashion dialogue, rather than the shock, schlock and glock approach often seen in modern fiction.

Untimely Death brings together two of Cyril Hare's most popular characters, the lawyer Francis Pettigrew, and the now retired Inspector Mallett of Scotland Yard. The plot also intertwines two uncertain deaths with two more definitive deaths. The first questionable death involves a nearly forgotten, possibly suppressed, childhood memory of Francis Pettigrew of an encounter with a dead body at an isolated location known as Bolter's Tussock near Exmoor. Pettigrew is vacationing with his wife, Eleanor, in the countryside. Coincidentally, their lodging is not far from where his old friend Inspector Mallet lives. Pettigrew's thrifty innkeeper is the father to Mrs. Gorman. The Gorman clan squabbles in the best of times and the impending death of severely ill, wealthy Gilbert Gorman adds fuel to the fire. Revisiting Bolter's Tussock out of curiosity, Francis Pettigrew unexpectedly again makes an equally vague and uncertain sighting of a dead body. A trick of memory, a delusion, a haunting? I especially enjoyed a later chapter as the author, Cyril Hare, actually a retired judge himself, paints an amusing portrait of a civil suit in the Chancery Court VI with the honorable Mr. Justice Pomeroy presiding. The discussion of an obscure point of law - Jack Gorman's will barred the entail, that is, created a base fee - is adeptly handled with humor. Lord Pomeroy becomes decidedly intrigued with the Jack's will, comically so. The mystery itself is not unfairly challenging, but regardless I missed some obvious clues, the subtle meaning of the title, and other indications pointing to the solution. This leisurely mystery warrants another reading. My second reading will be more careful and, now aware of the culprit, I expect to more readily uncover the evidence. Untimely Death was first published in 1958 in Great Britain as He Should Have Died Hereafter and was reprinted by Harper Perennial books in 1992. I learned interesting tidbits about English life in the mid-twentieth century, such as the increased difficulty in acquiring a driver's license under the recently passed Road Traffic Acts. I previously reviewed Suicide Excepted (1939), another enjoyable mystery by Cyril Hare.