I reviewed GDH Cole's Toper's End here last year, but have only just now located my English edition, with the frontis floor plan of Excalibur House, where the drunkard Rowland Moggridge is found dead from poison. I've always liked this one because of the three floors. What are your favorite murder mystery floor plans?
Predict a toper's end for me.
They ask: "How long, O sorrow,
Wilt thou remain wine's devotee?"
--Yehuda Halevi
"How long, O sorrow,
ReplyDeleteWilt thou remain wine's devotee?"
Autocorrect strikes again!
LOL, thanks. People come and go, but typos stay with us forever.
DeleteFor some reason, the one that always springs to mind if from Crispin's CASE OF THE GILDED FLY - but cannot tell you why it struck my fancy.The most recent book I can think of that has used it would be the first of the Evadne Mount pastiches by Gilbert Adair
ReplyDeleteRuth Rendell has a street plan in The St. Zita Society. I'm a pushover for maps in mysteries, I have to admit.
DeleteI love the map of the study with all the Egyptology in Van Dine's Scarab Murder Mystery. Although it isn't a map the family tree in the Collins first of Virgil Markham's 'Shock' is really good - it folds right out and for the last family member has the word 'Murdered' in a shaky hand!
ReplyDeleteClint
Wow, now that does sound cool. I have "Shock" but only in pb, and I don't believe it has that. I've written about Markham, he was a great one for that stuff.
DeleteVan Dine has some of the great fold-outs, love the ones in Bishop Murder Case too.
In Clayton Rawson's "Death from a Top Hat" (at least in my edition) there's a photo of a little model of the apartment that presumably Rawson had constructed.
ReplyDeleteHe has great touches like that in his books!
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