Inspector Cockrill #2

Green for Danger - Christianna Brand

Christianna Brand presses a lot of buttons. The setting of this 1944 mystery is an English military hospital, so readers with a history of surgery will gulp at the prospect of murder in the OR. The stress of wartime has frazzled characters already overworked and miserable over deprivations of food and heat. As if medical murder and home front fatigue were not enough, we have the Blitz: sirens screaming, bombers droning overhead, crammed shelters, bombs falling and wreaking havoc, the bravery of the English. This novel is worth reading for the atmosphere alone.

But it’s also a refined puzzle of a whodunit. A mail carrier dies on the operating table of a military hospital. The death is ruled an accident but the head nurse, in a drunken tirade, claims that it was murder and that she has hidden the evidence. She's found stabbed to death. Suspects can be narrowed down to six, three doctors and three nursing staff. Romantic feelings and the accompanying jealousy are tedious at the beginning but they turn out to be crucial to the unfolding of story.

Inspective Cockrill, who will call to mind Fat Andy Dalziel in Reginald Hill’s novels, gets on the case only to find that he knows but can’t prove whodunit. How to force a confession? By putting them all under pressure. The suspects are all well-drawn personalities. Brand makes us see that the characters like and respect each other enough to tolerate faults – and that makes the reveal all the more painful.

It’s so well-written. Brand describes people and places vividly. The characterization, dialogue and twists are convincing as are the solution and motivation. The action scenes are exciting. It’s understandable that a film version was made in 1946, starring Alastair Sim as Cockrill and Trevor Howard. Directed by Sidney Gilliat, it is regarded by mystery fans and film historians as one of the greatest screen treatments of a whodunnit.

“You have to reach for the greatest of the Great Names (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen) to find Christianna Brand’s rivals in the subtleties of the trade” said Anthony Boucher, a well-regarded critic for the New York Times. Groan at the great names on his list, but don't miss reading this exceptional classic.