MacDonald, Philip - The Choice / The Polferry Riddle / The Polferry Mystery (1931)

Review by Nick Fuller

2/5

One of the author’s most forgettable tales. The unprovable impossible murder of Mrs. Hale-Storford provokes the wholesale massacre of the cardboard cut-outs staying in the house, including by a good method which John Rhode would later expand on in In Face of the Verdict. Despite its extreme shortness, the book runs out of steam well before the end, becoming a thrillerish manhunt with much rushing about by rail and car, rather than ratiocination and deduction. The solution to the original “murder” is disappointing.