A Couple of (John) Christmas Mysteries: The Studio Crime (1929) and Dead Man's Quarry (1930), by Ianthe Jerrold

British author Ianthe Jerrold (1898-1977) wrote two detective novels, The Studio Crime (1929) and Dead Man's Quarry (1930).  Both books were quite well-received, and on the strength of the first mystery the author was invited to become a member of England's Detection Club when it was officially formed at the beginning of 1930.

Ianthe Jerrold came from a literary family (she was a great-granddaughter of Douglas William Jerrold and a great-niece of William Blanchard Jerrold) and she turned to writing at a young age. Before her two detective novels appeared she had published poetry as a teenager in the 1910s and in the 1920s she produced four mainstream novels.  Her mainstream novels were praised for their narrative charm and appealing characters, qualities that enhance her detective fiction as well. Besides being engagingly written, Jerrold's detective novels are well-plotted, satisfying the exacting standards of the Detection Club at this time, as well as such purist puzzle sticklers as Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor (see A Catalogue of Crime).

The Studio Crime is set in London, where on a foggy night foul murder fells a malicious artist at his studio in St. John's Wood. Jerrold's amateur sleuth, John Christmas, happens to be on hand, at a friend's party at a flat on a lower floor; and he is soon investigating a baffling murder case involving a locked door, a cryptic message from a dead man, a vanishing lady and an intriguing individual in a fez. You might see certain resemblances to Golden Age murder master John Dickson Carr in all this.

the second John Christmas mystery

Dead Man's Quarry takes John Christmas to the countryside--the beautiful Welsh Marches, to be more exact--where the ever-clever amateur sleuth encounters a charming cycling party that at the moment is rather vexed because one of its members has gone missing. When a dead body shows up in a local disused quarry, the police find they have a case of murder on their hands. Convinced that the authorities are after the wrong person, Christmas starts a-sleuthing once again.

Dead Man's Quarry boasts such classic English mystery elements as quaint country villages, rustic inns and cottages, an ancestral manor house, a frontispiece map and an engaging (and ultimately poignant) love triangle.

Fans of England's Golden Age Crime Queens--Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh--should enjoy excavating Quarry, a notable precursor of the Thirties English manners mystery. Indeed, both Dead Man's Quarry and The Studio Crime are admirably accomplished detective novels, long overdue for recovery. The two novels will be available worldwide, in both paper and electronic editions, later this Spring, courtesy of Dean Street Press. And more is yet to come.