Bush, Christopher - The Case of the Amateur Actor (1955)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

Amazingly fresh and readable, considering the late date: perhaps Bush had a second wind? The plot concerns three murders resulting from the suicide of a literary agent’s secretary-receptionist, two of which seem to be unconnected until Travers’s chance discovery of a photographic competition (chance pars in papers are a favourite device of Bush’s) puts him on the right track. The device is borrowed from Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies (a character named Alton appears in both works), but is used to great effect: detectives and reader are sent haring down the wrong track, but the murderer turns out to be another individual altogether.