Emma Page was the pseudonym of Honoria O’Mahony Tirbutt (1921-2018). She wrote 14 classic British police officer books about Detective Chief Inspector Kelsey and Detective Sergeant Lambert of the Milbourn CID between 1980 and 2000. The second one in the series is Every Second Thursday (Walker, 1981).
By all accounts Vera Foster was a vain and neurotic woman occupied by her ill health and her memories of her father, whom she had worshipped and who died nearly ten years previously. She inherited his finance and loan business and her husband Gerald, who had been her father’s senior clerk, naturally took over the management of the firm, as Vera did not know anything about it. Just as naturally they married shortly thereafter and Gerald devoted his time to expanding the company and building up his professional network. Vera’s contribution was to sign whatever he set in front of her and to protest Gerald’s trips for work. He was supposed to be home waiting on her.
Housekeeper Alma Driscoll is the only live-in servant. Miss Edith Jordan recently joined the household to provide short-term nursing care to Vera during a flare-up of sciatica. She had a no-nonsense approach to her patient, which did not go over well with Vera who wanted to be pampered and sympathized with. With nothing to occupy her mind and chronic ill health, no one was surprised to find Vera committed suicide during one of the rare nights that she was alone in the house.
Kelsey and Lambert were called in to investigate the death and agreed with the coroner’s ruling of suicide. Until Kelsey saw Miss Jordan and Gerald Foster exchange a look and a nod as they left the inquest. That almost imperceptible glance convinced Kelsey that Gerald had engineered his wife’s death, even though he was known to have been miles away at the time. Kelsey embarked on a determined quest to discover how the murder was committed.
A kind of inverted mystery as well as a police procedural, we know almost from the beginning who did it, the uncertainty lies in Kelsey’s finding a way to prove it. A howdunnit rather than a whodunnit. Kelsey’s persistence in the face of universal resistance says a great deal about the stalwart inspector. His imagination and investigative skills and Page’s robust prose make this a good way to spend three or four hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Recommended.