Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

Aaand we're off to our next forget-the-pandemic weekend read!  A corpse has been discovered as a surplus-to-inventory item, and the arrival of Inspector Mallett is imminent.

If I didn't know otherwise, I'd never believe that this was Hare's first published book -- the writing is incredibly assured and has the same gently mocking tone as in the two other books by Hare I've read so far.  No wonder he would later (in Tragedy at Law) introduce a character like Francis Pettigrew -- having met Mr. Pettigrew in that book, Hare's narrative tone in all of his books makes me think I might at least have caught a glimpse of the author himself there, though he'd probably be the first to (rightly) protest that one should beware of equating the (any) author with one of their characters.

RL will be interfering with my reading pleasure for the next several hours, but I'm hoping to be back and joining the good inspector soon!