JOHN BUDE – The Lake District Murder. British Library Crime Classics, UK, softcover, 2014. First edition: Skeffington & Son, UK, hardcover, 1935. No US edition.

   One positive statement I can make about this recent reprint of an old obscure British mystery is that it describes both the time and place of its setting in very enjoyable, if not loving detail. The Lake District is located in the northwest corner of England, up not too far from the Scottish border. In 1935 at least, it was filled with small picturesque villages and shopping centers and long stretches of isolated roads, populated by only the occasional petrol station.

   And it is in one of these petrol stations that the body of one of the two co-owners is found dead, an apparent suicide — the man seems to have shut himself up in a shed with the engine of a car running.

   Suicide is the obvious conclusion, of course, but Inspector Meredith, second on the scene, has his doubts. The man’s dinner was prepared and sitting in his kitchen waiting for him. An autopsy soon proves the inspector correct.

   The problem is that all of Meridith’s suspects have iron-clad alibis, and it takes the rest of book to work out in detail how they managed to pull off the murder, which was planned to the smallest of details. Except for the meal, of course!

   And mind you, if you were to slog your way through the middle 80% of the book (a verb chosen quite carefully on my part), you will learn far more than you want to know about the wholesale petrol delivery business, including the size of hoses, nozzles, storage tanks, and rate of delivery. How on earth could a delivery truck deliver on a given day 200 more gallons of petrol than the tank in the truck could hold?

   It is a puzzle but it is also a matter easily explained, once it is decided that the impossible really is impossible, but the solution to that small enigma only produces another, nor is there still enough evidence to insure a conviction. Until that is, a small boy’s find puts Meredith on the right track, a small boy not mentioned before, I reluctantly have concluded, and if Meredith had remembered the incident at the time of the inquest, much of the huge amount of dogged down-to-earth pre-forensics lab police work may have been avoided.

   Are my quibbles outweighed by the fascinating trip back in time and place that a book such as this provides? You’ll have to answer that question for yourself. I know I’ll never read this one again, but all in all, I’m happy to have had the chance to read it for the first time.