Portrait of a Murderer: Anne Meredith

First sentence: "Adrian Gray was born in May 1862 and met his death through violence, at the hands of one of his own children, at Christmas, 1931."

So we know at the beginning who will die, and not too long after that we learn who did it. Thus this is an inverted mystery, a format I generally enjoy.

The family of Adrian Gray have all arrived at his home by Christmas Eve. We first get several chapters with brief overviews of the various children, their marriages, and how they relate to their father. There is little if any love between the father and his children, although some of them admire him and several of them depend on him for their income.

My thoughts:

This is much more a character study than a mystery, but that was fine with me. I often read mysteries less for the puzzle element than for the interaction of the characters, either the investigators or people who are affected by the murder.

In this case we learn quite a lot about a once-wealthy man and his offspring, and most of the family is at best unlikable, some are despicable. Their prime concerns are money and status. The inter-family squabbles are all aimed at getting the patriarch to advance them some money. They soon learn that the old man's money situation is tighter than they realized; then it gets really competitive.

I have had problems before with books populated by mostly unsympathetic characters, but that did not spoil this book because the family relationships were interesting and some of the characters had redeeming qualities. The part I enjoyed most was the background of the killer and how he became who he was. There were later portions of the story that I liked quite a bit but don't want to go into detail about that and ruin the story.

This book turned up on a list of country house mysteries at crossexaminingcrime, and I passed the list on to my husband, who purchased the book. This is his review at Goodreads:

I was drawn to this classic (1933 vintage) murder mystery due to its “English country house at Christmas” setting. but it actually has little to do with the holiday or with a country house. That said, the book is cleverly plotted with some well-drawn characters (most of whom - including murderer and victim - are of a rotten, ruined, tainted family). The book kind of falls down with a pat ending but I found it an entertaining read. Interestingly, the title actually has two meanings.  

Also see reviews at:
crossexaminingcrime, Clothes in Books, and BooksPlease.

Anne Meredith was a name used by Lucy Beatrice Malleson; she also wrote under another pseudonym, Anthony Gilbert. In the edition I read, there is an Introduction by Martin Edwards.


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Publisher:    Poisoned Pen Press, 2018 (orig. pub. 1933)
Length:        243 pages
Format:        Trade paperback
Setting:        UK
Genre:         Mystery

Source:        Borrowed from my husband.