Murder in Stained Glass - Margaret Armstrong

This is one of the reissued Queens of Crime mysteries.  Margaret Armstrong is new to me.  I read it on my Kindle.  While I was doing that, I was wondering when it was written.  You know how it is:  on a Kindle, it's not easy to flip to the front or around in the book.  Anyway, it was published in 1939.    It sometimes feels more modern than that.

The narrator, a Miss Trumbull, goes to stay with an old school friend, Charlotte Blair, in the village of Bassett's Bridge, Connecticut.  She says she doesn't "enjoy visiting - most spinsters like their own homes better than other people's".  I'm not a spinster, but I like my home better, too.  Charlotte has always been a bit strange and she seems to have become stranger, birdwatching at night and having  odd spells, when she stays in her room for days.  The villagers think she's bizarre.  But her young cousin, Phyllis, who is staying with her, is charming and lively.

Anyway, Miss Trumbull, after making all sorts of excuses, goes to Bassett's Bridge and gets wrapped up in a murder.  A famous stained glass artist, Fredrick Ullathorne, works in the village.  He's currently working on a window for a New York City cathedral.  They all go to take a look.  And then he disappears, and bones and a false tooth of his are found in the ashes of the kiln in his studio.

Miss Trumbull needs to know what happened, especially when suspicion falls on Charlotte and on Phyllis's fiance, Leo, the artist's son.  She figures it out and is almost murdered herself.  There's quite a twist at the end.

I liked Miss Trumbull and I liked the description of the life she and her friends led, going to plays and the opera and teas in the city.  I believe there is one mystery that didn't get solved, but, on the whole, this is a satisfying and nice mystery.

The Claverton Affair - John Rhode

I'm pretty sure I first read about John Rhode at In Search of the Classic Mystery.  This blog reviews tons of mysteries, old and new, but mostly old.  I found The Claverton Affair, a Perennial paperback for $2.50 at one of my local used book stores.  It always feels good when you discover an elusive  book at such a low price.

Dr. Priestly hasn't seen his old friend John Claverton for almost a year, so he gladly visits him at Claverton's request.  Claverton has been ill, but he seems to be recovering nicely.  He wants to tell Priestly something but never gets around to it because his doctor, another old friend, arrives.  Claverton dies suddenly only a few days later.

Because of an earlier gastric attack, Priestly is concerned that Claverton has been murdered with arsenic.  But testing reveals no arsenic, or any other poisons.  His will surprises his heirs.  He leaves the bulk of his estate to a woman and her daughter.  No one has ever heard of them.  He further stipulates that one of his other heirs will inherit more money if he marries the mysterious daughter.

Claverton had asked his niece, a nurse, and her mother, from whom Claverton has been estranged, to come nurse him through his illness.  They move in, although Claverton refuses to see his sister.  They both inherit something, but not what they had hoped for.  Dr. Priestly suspects them of, if not murdering Claverton, speeding along his death.

It takes a while, but Dr. Priestly figures out who murdered Claverton and how.  I had begun to suspect 'how' fairly early in the book, not all the details, but the general gist of it.  I wasn't sure, though, who had done it.  

I enjoyed the book and will gladly read others by Rhode if I happen on them.