Friday's Forgotten Books - Spence At Marlby Manor

Born in 1939, English author Michael Derek Allen had a career in education, first as a teacher and then as a university administrator at the University of Bath, and also served a brief stint working for the New York Herald Tribune. When he retired from all his various day jobs, he started his own small press, Kingsfield Publications, and turned his hand to writing novels full-time under the pen names Michael Bradford, Anne Moore and Patrick Read.

Allen has penned mostly standalone novels and short stories, but he did write three books in a series featuring his police detective Superintendent Ben Spence. The third and final book in that series was Spence at Marlby Manor, dating from 1982, in which wealthy Lady Dinnister of Marlby Manor begins to suffer from "accidents" she suspects are actually attempts on her life. When Lady Dinnister's companion Emily Fosdyke dies from arsenic poisoning, it's only natural she thinks she herself was the intended victim.

Detective Ben Spence agrees with the Lady of the Manor after interviewing a houseful of servants and family members that are all-too-eager to sell off Marlby Manor and inherit Lady Dinnister's considerable fortune. Chief among them is an artist son-in-law; a handsome but unmotivated grandson in love with a secretary neither Lady Dinnister nor Emily Fosdyke deemed good enough for him; and a selfish, greedy granddaughter and her husband who tend to live well beyond their means. But, as Spence and his assistant, Inspector Laruel, take a closer look, they uncover undercurrents of malevolence coming from an unexpected source.

Although Publishers Weekly was a little critical of the book's "awfully implausible murderer-catching traps to snare the culprit," the publication's reviewer ultimately deemed it "comfortable, mildly beguiling entertainment in the traditional style." It deviates a bit from the traditional police procedural into more of the classic whodunit format. Michael Allen's last novel of any sort was in 2006, and his blog, the Grumpy Old Bookman, listed by The Guardian as one of the top 10 literary blogs worldwide in 2005, unfortunately appears to be inactive.

Comments

[J F Norris]

I bet I read this ages ago, but I don't remember the author's name or the detective. I used to buy almost all of those SCENE OF THE CRIME and MURDER INK paperbacks when I was a teenager. They were chosen by the Carole Brener and Dilys Winn, owners of the bookstores that gave the imprints their name.

[BV Lawson]

Sounds like you had a great time reading as a teenager! Growing up in a small town, I was limited to what the local public library had to offer and what my high-school librarian mother could scrounge up for me.

[Yvette]

Never heard of this one. But I'm finding out that there are TONS of books I've never heard of. So lots of catching up to do.

This one sounds like something I'd enjoy reading. I love these sorts of mysteries. :)

Thanks for the introduction.