Murder at the College

Once a month a committee gets together in a scholar’s rooms to pass judgment on requests for church alterations, memorials, etc. They are art experts and architects charged with protecting the aesthetics of local churches. Usually they all lunch together, except this time Mr. Hatton, architecture expert, stays in the rooms to “write letters.” After lunch, he is discovered to have been murdered.The author, Victor Whitechurch, was a clergyman with very definite ideas of what a detective story should be. It should be a problem to be solved by fact-finding and shrewd police methods. It should not be a thriller — and Whitehouse in his preface assures us (rather charmingly) that he has strictly avoided “thrills” in this book.What Whitehouse does give us is the very intelligent and determined Detective Sergeant Ambrose who has a wonderful eye for minutiae. A burnt match, a broken shoelace, as well as many hours of investigation will help him catch his murderer.The reader examines along with Sergeant Ambrose a long list of likely suspects, from artistic and scholarly types to a willful old squire with a terrible temper.Murder at the College May offer no thrills, but it’s an entertaining fair-play Golden Age mystery with a likable detective and a good puzzle.

This is a story than becomes more interesting as it developed. I've enjoyed Victor Whitechurch's Thorpe Hazell stories, and this one, while it's beginning is less coompelling, becomes an excellent read.

Some modern writers write in the style of the Golden Age writers but this is the real deal. I loved it. I won't reveal the surprise but I was definitely taken aback. A great mystery. Highly recommend!

I see several reviewers comparing this novel to those of the golden age. It actually IS a golden age novel, first published in 1932.

The author leaves the potential reader in no doubt about what is being offered in this, his final detective novel, first published in 1932.'The true "Detective Story" is a "problem," the problem of how some particular crime was committed and who committed it, a problem which, while often demanding smaller problems, should not deviate from the main question in hand. "A Crime, and its solution." That is the description of the real "Detective Story."... The problem is gradually worked out on the ordinary lines of shrewd police investigation and methods. Every detail of the investigation, as it arises, is made plain to the reader —as he reads, he knows just as much about the case as the detective knows—no less. The author has tried to "play the game" fairly, and, in order to do so, he has strictly avoided "thrills."'The story is a little more interesting than the plain fare suggested by this Foreword, although it is pretty easy to work out the whodunit and why, well in advance of the police. Not that the detectives portrayed here are stupid, just rather too painstaking and slow-acting for their own good.The setting is in a university town, with excursions to London and France, but the emphasis is firmly on police procedure in the capable hands of the "modern" and "well-educated" Superintendent Plestow and DS Ambrose. The narrative is business-like, although the pace of the investigation is rather leisurely, given that a man has been murdered.Very readable, but not remotely challenging or puzzling.3.25 stars.

This is a beautiful book. Arguably the very first police procedural perfectly reissued. Would make a great gift and looks lovely on my shelf

I spotted the murderer even before the crime was committed - but that didn't detract from the gentle charm of this story. The college setting can't help but evoke Dorothy L Sayers' Gaudy Night, and Whitechurch, though a talented writer, lacks Sayers' power of description. However, as a tightly plotted though relatively simple story, this novel plunges the reader into the golden age of detective fiction, complete with stereotypical characters. The squire, the parson, the don, the office worker, the upper-class policeman who cuts through the confusion of clues to solve the mystery.. they are all here and unsurprisingly stick to their allotted squares.As a pure puzzle mystery, this is a great example of the genre, and if you only read one Whitechurch novel I'd recommend this one as the best of his work. It's light on description and on subplots, but it zips along and not a word is wasted.

This is an enjoyable 'puzzle whodunnit' story. Mr. Whitechurch lays his cards on the table from the beginning. He has not written a thriller. He has presented us with a conundrum to solve. The challenge is to get to the answer before the final denoument.Mr. Whitechurch is scrupulously fair - the reader is presented with all the clues that the detectives have. No leaps of imagination are required to find a deus ex machina in the plot. Cold, hard logic provides the solution to the puzzle.I got the 'who' quite easily but the 'how'-dunnit escaped me!A pleasant read that engaged my 'little grey cells'.

This is the first time that I have read a book by this author. I very much like the 'no frills' approach to the writing of a crime story which enables the reader to investigate the crime along with the investigating officer. A very well thought out, detailed plot. A little like a short PD James story!I must admit that I also love the period in which it is set. It is such a pleasure to read an entire book without the story being overdone with expletives so typical of many books today.