Bush, Christopher - The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939)
One of his better efforts, and so far the only Bush mystery I have managed to read in its entirety. Previous attempts left me bored and I abandoned those books before I reached the end.
This is a golf mystery in which the game itself plays a vital part in the solution of the crime. Ex-con turns up shot dead in a pile of manure beside a blazing woodshed. Someone wanted him out of town. Permanently. On hand are a trio of Bright Young Things with vandalism on their minds, a pompous grocer who sports a showy waxed moustache, a vicar who is a whiz on the links, a seemingly innocuous butler flying under the radar, and an actress with a remarkable gift for vocal mimicry.
Ludovic Travers is newly married to Bernice Haire who helps out in a kind of Pam North manner playing golf with the ladies and cleverly gathering information about the denizens of Pettistone to report back to her husband. Travers does an impressive job of destroying several faked alibis, a skill that is Bush's trademark in this very uneven series. Nice variety of detective skills from a trio made up of Travers, Colonel Feen Pettistone's chief constable, and George Warden of Scotland Yard who is called in by Travers to assist. Warden does so very reluctantly and only when Travers challenges him to a bet.
This one is hard to find, but well worth your attention should you be lucky enough to come across a copy in your library or buy one that doesn't cost a small fortune.
Full review at my blog Pretty Sinister Books.
J F Norris
See also: http://prettysinister.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/case-of-green-felt-hat-christopher-bush.html
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