Hare, Cyril - When the Wind Blows / The Wind Blows Death (1949)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

While not the all-conquering masterpiece Barzun and Taylor believe this to be (and how can one really trust the judgement of critics who don’t like Tenant for Death, Suicide Excepted or An English Murder?), there can be little doubt that this is an extremely logical and well-constructed detective story. Although the murder of a Polish violinist in a small provincial town is far from exciting, there is great pleasure in seeing the unlikeable Insp. Trimble’s attempts to solve the case, and the unwilling Pettigrew’s solution, which very neatly ties together David Copperfield, Mozart, Henry VIII and a question of tempo.

Addendum by Barry Ergang

Hare has an excellent sense of character and pacing. His style is smooth and literate without being pretentious. There's an elegant simplicity to the plotting and structuring that makes it seem more complex than it really is--which is to say the author manages to confuse the reader without all of the melodramatic razzle-dazzle other Golden Age writers employed. He's a model of brevity.

I somehow guessed the culprit's identity from something that wasn't part of the solution.