Mysteries set on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day are not as common as those set around Christmas, which seems to be a particularly lethal time of year. However, The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder & Stoughton, 1945) fits the current need admirably, especially because the setting is in a country house, a time-honored place for murder.
Patricia Wentworth was the pen name of Dora Amy Elles (1877-1961). She is most known for her traditional mysteries featuring Miss Silver, a former governess, now private investigator. Just how Miss Silver managed this transition is not spelled out in the books but it’s something I would like to know more about. However, by the time the series opens, she has established her practice and has something of a reputation among the police and the upper echelons of English society.
In the seventh outing of her career Miss Silver is called in to help the Paradine family. It’s the end of 1941 and England is focused on the war with Germany. The head of the family James Paradine announced at the family gathering on New Year’s Eve that someone had betrayed him and he would be waiting in his study until midnight for that person to confess. Early the next morning his body is found on the grounds below the balcony outside his study. The evidence suggests that he was pushed.
The family members each have a favorite suspect–the relative they like the least–and few have a solid alibi, despite the murder clearly being committed in the middle of the night. Despite the cold more than one of them was wandering around outside. Fortunately one of them encounters Miss Silver in the nearest town, where Miss Silver is buying wool to knit another garment for her niece’s children. Miss Silver is a prolific knitter of children’s apparel; in each book she completes at least one sweater or pair of socks. Miss Silver agrees to assist the family in sorting through the evidence and wonky alibis.
By this title Wentworth had settled into a groove for these books: a victim more vulnerable than he or she supposes, a romance gone awry because of or at least affected by the murder, well developed characters with plenty to hide. The books written in the 1940s had the additional backdrop of World War II and England’s deep national commitment to the war effort.