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Overview: The first crime fiction book published by Dalton is the 1924 novel called The Kingsclere Mystery. She was 42 years old at that time. Before this, Dalton had released a contemporary novel in 1909 as well as a romantic novel in 1920. Both these books were well-received, but the genre of romance didn’t interest her much. She liked mystery stories that combined evocative settings, fleet narratives, and strong characterizations. It was unfortunate on the part of Dalton that she wrote crime novels of high literary quality, well before authors like Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Anthony Gilbert, Ngaio March, ECR Lorac, etc., but did not receive the fanfare that these authors got.
Genre: Fiction > Mystery/Thriller
The Case of Alan Copeland (1937)
The inhabitants of the quiet English village of Teene are a mixed bag. The schoolmistress is an artist manqué, her quick brain wasted for lack of opportunity. There is old Mrs. Simmons at the filling station, gloating over her discreditable past, and bullying her flighty young daughter. The fastidious Reverend Perry is more interested in his books than curing souls, and his niece dreams of romance but wakes to deadly realities. The prim, self-satisfied Miss Gort does most of the work of the parish; and the harassed poultry farmer, an artist once, is driven to desperation by an elderly nagging wife.
When one member of this little circle dies, natural causes are assumed; but eighteen months later the word “murder,” whispered at first, becomes officially suspected. The evidence against one person seems conclusive, and the police make an arrest. But the trial takes an unexpected turn—and a second victim of the unknown killer is saved only just in time.
The Art School Murders (1943)
Artists’ model Althea Greville was, in life, known as something of a femme fatale. But the phrase becomes only too literal. What initially appears to be red paint leads instead to Althea’s dead body, murdered in Morosini’s renowned school of art. Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard is called in, but two more murder victims follow, one of them a female student at the school, stabbed to death at a cinema. After many a twist, Collier selects the right piece in the puzzle to identify a murderer operating under cover of England’s World War Two black-out.
The Murder of Eve (1945)
Roger Fordyce, a little battered by an unhappy affair, visits the Albergo Del Castello, a splendid hotel located in a little town outside Rome. While wandering the grounds one morning, Roger believes he sees a dead body with long black hair floating in a water tank. The hotel-owner dismisses the corpse as the body of a mongrel dog, and Roger returns to England. Little does he heed the ripples now set in motion, which will have fearsome consequences for himself and many others.
Before long Roger is forced back to Italy, having joined forces with an unlikely band of amateur sleuths, including British writer Francis Gale, his schoolgirl daughter Anne, disgraced piano teacher Lily, earnest British embassy official Ronald, and the high-born Marchese Luigi de Sanctis.
Death at the Villa (1946)
It is the summer of 1943, and the height of the war in Italy. Alda Olivier’s quiet life at the Villa Gualtieri is violently disrupted when a wounded English paratrooper lands in the area. Alda shelters the handsome Englishman, Richard Drew, in an abandoned tomb, attempting to evade enemies and fascist forces who surround them. Soon, however, the poisonous machinations of those enemies lead to murder, while the war inevitably closes in on them all. Can a stalwart young Englishman come daringly to the rescue of a fair damsel in a tumultuous foreign land where he himself needs rescuing?
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