Murder in the Museum
By John Rowland
3/5
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About this ebook
When Professor Julius Arnell breathes his last in the hushed atmosphere of the British Museum Reading Room, it looks like death from natural causes. Who, after all, would have cause to murder a retired academic whose life was devoted to Elizabethan literature? Inspector Shelley's suspicions are aroused when he finds a packet of poisoned sugared almonds in the dead man's pocket; and a motive becomes clearer when he discovers Arnell's connection to a Texan oil millionaire.
Soon another man plunges hundreds of feet into a reservoir on a Yorkshire moor. What can be the connection between two deaths so different, and so widely separated? The mild-mannered museum visitor Henry Fairhurst adds his detective talents to Inspector Shelley's own, and together they set about solving one of the most baffling cases Shelley has ever encountered.
John Rowland
JOHN ROWLAND (1907-1984) was a publisher, journalist, civil servant, and Unitarian minister whose detective novels have long been neglected.
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Reviews for Murder in the Museum
36 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this book. A mild-mannered, shy man who lives with his sister and longs for an exciting life while working as a librarian at the British Museum discovers a dead man in the reading room. The police are called and it's murder. While telling his sister that evening about the interesting day he had, she recalls a similar murder 6 months ago and he decides to tell the inspector and insert himself into the case and help.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yet another in the British Library series and another great one from John Rowland.Keep them coming!I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Poisoned Pen Press via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Wow, this was really not good. I started listening to it on audiobook, and meant to DNF it, but my phone doesn't unlock while I'm in the car and I kept forgetting to pick a new book before driving off again. By the time I got home last night I was 90% finished and thought 'to hell with it', grabbed my print copy, and just finished it off. What I didn't like:Henry Fairhurst: He's sort of the co-MC of the book, along with Inspector Shelly. He's a damp, hen-pecked, Walter Middy sort of fellow; whingey too. Henry's sister: every horrible stereotype about single women, crammed into one book. Truly a horrible character I would not be able to resist smacking in real life. Inspector Shelly: the other MC of the book, the Scotland Yard Inspector that goes around not only theorising before the facts, but telling all involved in the case that they are the facts, never mind silly things like official coroner reports, or post-mortems, or blood analysis. Shelly says the man died of cyanide poisoning, then by golly, that's what he died of. And speaking of cause of death: The cause of death: A man does not fall asleep in the British Museum Reading Room and peacefully die from cyanide poisoning mid-snore. The author was a contemporary of Agatha Christie; I hope she smacked him upside the head with his own book before setting him straight. Cyanide is a nasty way to die and I'm certain his snoring would have been the least offensive thing everyone in the Reading Room that day would have had to witness. The writing: Rowland writes as though he imagines his reader to be an idiot, the result being his characters all sound like idiots. There are some very Dick and Jane moments in this book. The plot: Let me put it this way: I read cozies, and I thought it was preposterous. What I liked:The cover. The title. The British Museum setting, which ended after page 24. I gave each 1/2 star, but it was all downhill from there.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The victim of the Murder in the Museum is a Shakespeare scholar, who held a theory that "Shakespeare’s plays were written by two people together— one was Shakespeare himself and the other Kit Marlowe". So obviously I was pleased when he was killed. At least he wasn't an Oxfordian; I would have had to stop reading, because the death wasn't brutal enough. This is a reissue of a Golden Age mystery which involves poison, kidnapping, and a cross-country high-for-its-time-speed pursuit; it features some of the good aspects of the subgenre – a clever detective, some nice writing; and also several of the not-so-good ones – like the mores and mindset of the time, which means that whenever someone who is Jewish comes on the scene or is spoken about, it's jarring. (Be warned.) I'm not sure if I'll hunt out more John Rowland novels – this one didn't win me over completely – but I'm certainly not sorry I read it. There's much worse out there. Much. The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5'Murder in the Museum', as its title suggests, opens in the Reading Room of the British Museum, where Henry Fairhurst, a timid, pince-nez wearing henpecked man, is playing one of his favourite games – the Sherlock Holmes game - where he tries to guess the occupation of the other users often getting it amazingly wrong.‘It is possibly unnecessary to add that Henry’s detective-story reading was usually to be found in the more blood thirsty shelves of the local lending library.’However, when Fairhurst goes to wake a sleeping man, whose snoring has recently been reverberating around the hushed room, he discovers that the man, Professor Julius Arnell, is dead. It initially appears to be natural causes but it is swiftly deducted that he has been poisoned with cyanide. Who would want to murder a retired academic whose life was devoted to Elizabethan literature? There are a number of possible lines of enquiry. Arnell was a wealthy man, so could his money have been enough to motivate those who stood to inherit it, his daughter Violet and nephew Moses Moss, to hasten his demise? Additionally, Arnell had also disapproved of his daughter’s engagement to a local science teacher who he thinks is only after Violet’s inheritance. Or perhaps the motive is academic rivalry?Fairhurst is an amusing character who despite his mild and meek manner, is keen to get involved in the case and manages to inveigle himself into the investigation, he was:‘plunged deep in a daydream in which he outwitted Scotland Yard as well as the cleverest brains in the underworld.’Up until this point the story was enjoyable. Fairhurst’s role is quite funny but as the tale hastens towards its climax some of his information felt just too convenient to ring authentic, as if the author either ran out of ideas or simply got bored and sloppy. It becomes ridiculously prosaic complete with a man hunt,a kidnapping and a shoot-out.This book was first published in 1938 so it is not surprising that this isn't as hard edged as modern crime novels, nor is the idea of amateur sleuths terribly original but whilst there is a certain elegance to the prose, overall I found this rather disappointing. It started off OK but soon fizzled out.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First published in 1938, this is a vintage style mystery. When Henry Fairport sees a man die in the British Museum Reading Room, he's determined to help the police solve the murder. I liked the style of this and will look for more British Library Crime Classics.