Saltmarsh Murders

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‘Gladys Mitchell’s classic The Saltmarsh Murders’ (Nicholas Blake’s description) was first published in 1932. It was the fourth detective novel in a series of sixty-six; Gladys Mitchell (1901-83) increased her output from one to two books a year in the final period of her life. All her detective fiction features the same central character, the redoubtable Mrs Bradley (later Dame Beatrice), a distinguished psychiatrist who, for maximum effect as an investigator, combines ‘extraordinary pothouse accomplishments’ with an old-fashioned elegance of speech.

There is nothing ordinary about Mrs Bradley or the way she goes about her investigations. She looks like a reconstituted pterodactyl and behaves like the Cumaean Sibyl. It is her habit to keep suspects on the alert by poking them in the ribs. Her percipience is frightening and her humour prodigious. From the moment of her first appearance, in Speedy Death (1929), she imposed herself on author and audience alike. Gladys Mitchell, actually, had intended to create a male detective but in the course of writing this novel she found herself vanquished by Mrs Bradley. The irresistible old lady moved to the forefront of the action and has stayed there ever since.

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