Evelyn Elder was a pseudonym used by Milward Kennedy, which was the writing name of Milward Rodon Kennedy Burge (1894 –1968). Burge was an English civil servant, journalist, literary critic, and author of crime fiction. He was London editor of the Empire Digest and reviewed mystery fiction for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
Kennedy wrote police procedurals with Inspector Cornford as the lead character and wrote some stories about Sir George Bull, a private investigator. He also collaborated with other members of The Detection Club on The Floating Admiral (Hodder, 1931) and Ask a Policeman (Barker, 1933). See Wikipedia for more information and a bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milward_Kennedy.
Murder in Black and White (Methuen, 1931) was Kennedy’s first book under the Evelyn Elder name. It was reprinted by Ramble House in 2009. It opens promisingly enough with a cocktail party at the home of Henry Evelyn, a sometime architect, who is hosting a number of his friends, some made wittier by the application of alcohol and some not so much. Evelyn receives a phone call during the party from Sam Horder, who has just returned from a trip to France. Horder is quite perturbed about his visit and wants to lay it all at the feet of Elder.
Horder’s arrival ends the party and he keeps his host up all night telling him of the events of the previous few weeks. I found young Horder’s manners sadly lacking. I am amazed at Elder’s forbearance. However, Horder visited Saint Andre on the southeastern edge of France, near the Mediterranean, during Carnivale to rest and sketch. He becomes embroiled with a local family of two brothers named de Vigny who live in an ancient castle with a complex architecture. Here the drawings of Austin Blomfield (1895-1967) are most helpful in understanding the murder that took place.
Louis de Vigny was shot by a rifle while standing in a narrow aperture where the angle of the shot was nearly impossible. None of the individuals nearby could have had a rifle and no weapon was discovered during the search afterwards. The police are stymied and had no reason to hold one individual more than another so after a few days, the entire group of about 10 is allowed to leave.
Horder’s blow-by-blow account leading up to the death is an intriguing portrayal of personalities; however as The Invisible Event blogger states in his review of the book (https://theinvisibleevent.com/2017/04/20/225-murder-in-black-and-white-1932-by-evelyn-elder/) Elder may have as well been writing with a stalk of celery when he described the movements of various characters around the admittedly complex castle grounds. I could not follow it and was relieved to learn it wasn’t just me.
The author states at the beginning of the book that the reader will have all the clues necessary to solve the case by the end of the third section. I failed utterly and was most impressed when Henry Elder figured it out.
This book is an interesting attempt at an impossible crime and is worth reading for the characterization and plot but the clues are not as evident as the author thinks they were.