Murder Among Us

Written by Ann Granger

Narrated by Judith Boyd

When an ambitious hotelier announces that he will be converting Springwood Hall into a smart country hotel, it is greeted with a chorus of local disapproval led by the fearsome Hope Mapple - head of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Bamford. So the grand opening, to which all are invited, promises to be a lively affair, and particularly since Hope is planning a disruptive protest "streak". However, Hope is to be unwittingly upstaged by the discovery of a recently murdered body on the premises. Chief Inspector Markby and his guest Meredith Mitchell's summer treat has suddenly become a horribly sobering crime scene...

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Nov 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781846322013

Ann Granger

Ann Granger is a British author of cozy crime. Born in Portsmouth, England, she went on to study at the University of London. She has written over thirty murder mysteries, including the Mitchell & Markby Mysteries, the Fran Varady Mysteries, the Lizzie Martin Mysteries and the Campbell and Carter Mysteries. Her books are set in Britain, and feature female detectives, murderous twists and characters full of humor and color.

Reviews for Murder Among Us

[astray1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. I always like Meredith and Allan, but especially appreciated the setting of this book. Good plotting and quite kindly people, usually. Very good, gripping yet warm coronavirus lockdown reading.

[Mari Melting · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An old fashioned murder mystery which whilst having a cozy feel about it does pack a punch. Enjoy the mature relationship between the two main characters.

[alexlubertozz-893592 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read an out-of-print edition of this book and was amazed at how good it was. It's a genre mystery set (and written) in 1938 England. Part of the Nigel Strangeways mystery series, this was written by Cecil Day-Lewis under the pen name Nicholas Blake. Day-Lewis was a poet laureate of England and the father of Daniel Day-Lewis. The Beast Must Die (which, as a title, makes sense when you get to the end--it's from a bible passage--but otherwise makes you think the book is something else) concerns a distraught father whose young son is killed in a hit-and-run accident. The father (a writer of mysteries under a pseudonym) is obsessed with trying to discover the identity of the hit-and-run and driver and exact revenge. The first half of the book is his diary, and the second half is written in the third person and unravels the mystery of what really happened in the diary. Great book, but sadly out of print in the U.S. I'm going to look for the other Nigel Strangeways mysteries.

[tomdonaghey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Beast Must Die (1938) by Nicholas Blake. This is a novel or revenge gone awry. When his young son is killed by a hit and run driver, Felix Lane knows he must avenge the boy. But no one saw the car or the driver and the police are at a loss. He sets out on his own. This businessman turned mystery writer thinks through the logic of the situation, narrowing down the suspects from all people who drive in England to a very select few.But it is a turn of luck when splashing though one of many deep, water filled ruts which make up a great portion of the country roads that he gets his break. He follows up which leads him to the movie industry and a beautiful young woman.Te first portion of the story is a diary written by Lane. He details the search, the clues and the thread that leads him to the driver. And it outlines the steps he took to get near the murderer. It ends at the point where he it set to destroy the monster that killed his son.The second section is told directly by Lane as he sets about confronting the killer, only to have his plan thwarted at the last moment.The last section introduces Nigel and Georgia Strangeways as the amateur detectives on the case. They have been called in by Lane because Inspector Blount of The Yard is looking into the case. Blount has been called in because Lane’s intended victim has been murdered only a few hours after Lane’s failed attempt. Lane looks to the official eye as the most likely suspect due to the circumstances. It is up to the Strangeways’s to untangle the problem The Beast Must Die is the best of all the Strangeways novels, of which there are seventeen. This is a dark twisted tale of plotting and revenge, of callous actions and unintended results, and it is a jolly good read.

[garrison0550 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not really a murder mystery type reader, but I really liked this book. Good writing, great story, totally worth a read!

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Clever mystery with plenty of twists. I did suspect the guilty party at several points and was strongly tempted to skip to the end & check but refrained. I'm glad I didn't cheat because Blake (or Cecil Day-Lewis to use his real name) did keep me second guessing myself and threw several very plausible red herrings across the trail.

I would recommend it to any fans of the Golden Age mysteries such as those written by Agatha Christie, Margerie Allingham, Josephine Tey, Rex Stout, etc. One thing I like about this style of crime story is it is relatively short without a lot of extraneous stuff about the detective's home life or romantic problems.

[cmbohn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book opens with a twist - the narrator confesses to be planning a murder. The reader soon learns that the narrator is Frank Cairnes, also known as writer Felix Lane, and the man he is planning to murder is the hit and run killer of his only son, Martie. Cairnes doesn't know who the man is yet, but he makes some pretty accurate deductions and soon has his victim in his sights.You might think with a beginning like that, the rest of the book would be rather anticlimactic, but it's not. The first part is written in as a diary that Cairnes keeps, but the rest of the book is sort of catching up to what really happened. It seems that the reckless driver, George Rattery, was indeed murdered, but did Cairnes do it or did someone else beat him to the job? Nigel Strangeways comes in to investigate and finds plenty of motives for murdering Rattery, but the evidence is inconclusive about the identity of the murderer.This was a good solid mystery that I really enjoyed. I liked the beginning and had fun following along and trying to guess, Did he really do it? (I guessed wrong, but I don't think that will help you!)

[tendulkar01_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest crime novels ever written