Joan Coggin (1898–1980) is another of those Golden Age authors who had a relatively brief writing career, about 14 years. She published a story for girls in 1935 under the name Joanna Lloyd and then published five more young adult books and four detective stories between 1944 and 1949. After that, she moved on to other interests that occupied the remaining 30 years of her life.
When Tom and Enid Schantz of Rue Morgue Press reprinted her detective stories in the early 2000s, they wrote a charming introduction that compares Lady Lupin Hastings, the hopelessly flaky lead of the mysteries, to Gracie Allen, the comedian. She reminds me of the vicar’s wife in the first Miss Marple mystery Murder at the Vicarage, published about 15 years earlier. Both of them are 20 years younger than their husbands, very pretty, and completely ill-suited to be a minister’s wife. Both are also kind and people are innately drawn to them.
The Mystery at Orchard House (Hurst & Blackett, 1946; Rue Morgue Press, 2003) is the second mystery with Lady Lupin. Set in the late 1930s in the years leading up to the war, Lady Lupin has been ill with influenza. To rest up she visits a childhood friend who has recently inherited a country house but no money with which to run it. To keep the house in the family Diana has turned it into a hotel of sorts. The residents are a varied lot, most of them with distinct peculiarities that drive much of the action and the humor.
Coping with their vagaries fills her friend’s days but she manages until the thefts begin. First a half-finished manuscript is taken, then a string of pearls, then other bits of jewelry and a notecase with about 10 pounds, which is about £445 in today’s money. Diana is in an accident that puts her in hospital for a few days, leaving Lady Lupin to manage the hotel and the police who are investigating the thefts. Lady Lupin’s perceptiveness comes to the fore and she and the police sergeant sort everything out neatly.
The mystery is only part of the story; the character sketches are wonderfully wrought and highly amusing. Lady Lupin’s inability to keep people straight has her believing that a prospective guest is a candidate for a housemaid position, resulting in a conversation that was a delight to read. Then there is the man sent to repair a gas heater; Lady Lupin mistakes him for one of the detectives. Their conversation is memorable.
The mystery itself is strong enough, although the personalities overrule everything else. Especially for mystery readers who need to laugh.