The Devil and the C.I.D.

E C R Lorac was a very clever writer with an erudite Scotland Yard detective and very interesting characters, The dialog and descriptions are first rate and so is the plot which is very complex...diabolical in fact. However, the publishers need to do a much better job of editing and/or printing. There are numerous examples of misspelled words, and substituted words which are wrong. This is an expensive book (particularly as it is a paperback) and the publisher should take more care to produce a really good book instead of one that has so many errors. Frankly the original cover would have been better than the rather lurid one that was actually used. I have read a number of Lorac's titles, and hope that someone who can do justice to her books will publish more of them!

The devil keeps cropping up in the narrative with phrases like “devil of a mix up,” the Devil’s own bad luck,” “the Devil’s claimed his own,” and “What the devil are you suggesting?”No wonder, since the case starts out with Chief Inspector Macdonald finding a dead man dressed as Mephistopheles in the back seat of his car. There was a thick fog that night to cloak wicked deeds. And to further the confusion, there were at least four red devils at a costume ball that night in London.Macdonald is not a typical policeman. His grandfather was a Scots theologian, and Macdonald, like the old hair-splitter, has a strong reasoning faculty. He’s also quite cultured, conversant with the fine arts and classical music. Happily he is tall and strong, able to deliver a knockout punch when needed.The case is tremendously complicated, and gets more so as more men die suspiciously. Macdonald has to sum up the chronology of events for his superiors in the last chapter, which helps clarify events for the reader too.This is a vintage mystery, first published in 1938, and feels old fashioned, but pleasantly so. E. C. R. Lorac is a minor crime writer of her period, but well worth reading.

I recently stumbled upon Lorac when reading one of the numerous blogs out there that discuss detective fiction, mysteries, etc. A quick look on my bookshelves revealed that I had a copy of Murder by Matchlight that features one of her series characters, Inspector MacDonald. I ended up buying The Devil and the CID, one of her four novels that have been reprinted by Ramble House. The story moves briskly (the book is only 196 pages), and the story line is pretty clever, i.e., how did that corpse end up in the back seat of MacDonald's car and who is it anyway? It's definitely Golden Age detective fiction at its best.

Perfect book. I will buy more from the seller.