Mon 12 Apr 2021
An Archived Mystery Review by Gloria Maxwell: C. H. B. KITCHIN – Death of My Aunt.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
C. H. B. KITCHIN – Death of My Aunt. Malcolm Warren #1. Leonard & Virginia Woolf, UK, hardcover, 1929. Harcourt, US, hardcover, 1935. Perennial Library, US, paperback, 1984.
Twenty-six year old Malcolm Warren is a London stockbroker. He is suddenly summoned to his Aunt Catherine’s home for a weekend — ostensibly to advise her about some investment. In the midst of his discussion with his aunt, she starts to choke, just after taking a dose of “Le Secret de Venus,” a very unique tonic.
Thus begins an investigation into the murder of rich Aunt Catherine. Several relatives stand to inherit sizeable fortunes, and Catherine’s arrogant assumption of “infinite wisdom” had offended many of them. However, motive seems only as important as opportunity. And opportunity and motive seem to point directly at her second husband, Hannibal.
The investigation uncovers the fact that the marriage was anything but ideal and Catherine was in the process of further revising her will and reducing Hannibal’s portion. With the finger of justice pointed at Hannibal, only Warren seems to accord him the possibility of innocence.
A fast-moving narrative combines with strong characterization to equal a classic mystery from the Golden Age.
Editorial Notes: I probably do not remember this totally correctly, but I believe that when she wrote this review, Gloria Maxwell was a librarian somewhere in the Midwest. About eight years ago I was able to get in touch with her, at which time she agreed to allow me to reprint her reviews for The Poison Pen here on this blog. I have lost touch with her since, but at the moment I am assuming that that permission still holds. She wrote quite a few reviews for Jeff Meyerson’s zine.
As for Malcolm Warren, this was the first of four appearances in book form. Gloria also reviewed the third in the series, Death of His Uncle, in the same issue of TPP, and you’ll see it here soon.
April 12th, 2021 at 6:48 pm
[…] Comment: Be sure to also read Gloria’s preceding review, Death of My Aunt, also by C. H. B. Kitchin, and the first of the Malcolm Warren […]
April 12th, 2021 at 7:35 pm
Done about as smoothly as this sort of thing can be done. Above average on all counts.
April 12th, 2021 at 7:54 pm
Whoever was in charge at Perennial at the time did readers in the US a big favor in getting this one published over here for the first time.
April 13th, 2021 at 2:04 am
Steve,
Matching the details you provided, I found Gloria Maxwell died at age sixty-seven in 2015. She had been the Penn Valley Community College Library Director, Kansas City MO, and after her retirement, she was an adjunct history instructor there. This links to an obituary detailing a full life:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/142374804/gloria-jean-maxwell
To give some insight to her writing outside reviewing mystery fiction, this is a list of more academic reviews:
https://emro.libraries.psu.edu/resultsk.php?search=Reviewed%20by%20Gloria%20Maxwell,%20Reference%20Librarian,%20Penn%20Valley%20Community%20College,%20Kansas%20City,%20MO
This catalogues a sixty-page report The 1933 Kansas City Union Station Massacre she delivered at a conference in 1987:
https://kchistory.org/islandora/object/kchistory%3A67985?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=ed52ae172882e03cdb53&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=3&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=7
April 13th, 2021 at 9:39 am
Thanks very much, Daryl. A great job of online research! It’s nice to know a bit more about her and to have a sense of closure. No, change that. Make that a lot more. And I’ll most certainly continue to post her reviews here, in memory of a very accomplished lady.