Fri 17 Mar 2023
An Archived Mystery Review: DERMOT MORRAH – The Mummy Case Mystery.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
DERMOT MORRAH – The Mummy Case Mystery. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1933. Published first in the UK as The Mummy Case (Faber & Faber, hardcover, 1933). Perennial P884, US, paperback, 1988. Coachwhip Publications, softcover, 2014.
An inquest convened at Beaumont College, Oxford, quickly decides that the death of Peter Benchley, famous Egyptologist, was due to accidental fire. Two junior fellows have inquiring minds, however, and they begin an unofficial investigation on their own.
Was the fire deliberately set? Is the body Benchley’s, or his recently acquired mummy? If it’s his, where’s the mummy? On page 136 [of the Perennial edition] they come up with a list of sixteen key questions, then follow it with 40 pages of clever deductions. The good humor is equally fine.
March 17th, 2023 at 1:31 am
From his Wikipedia page:
“Dermot Michael Macgregor Morrah (26 April 1896[1] – 30 November 1974) was a British journalist for The Times and an expert on the British royal family.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermot_Morrah
For whatever reason, this was his only work of mystery fiction. I don’t remember much about it now, but according to my much younger self, it’s a good one.
March 17th, 2023 at 7:15 am
I read The Mummy Case Mystery last year and it immediately became one of my favorite academic Golden Age mysteries. It’s a shame Dermot Morrah didn’t write more mysteries, but these donnish crime writers were seldom prolific.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:49 am
Even though I’ve had ample time to search out a copy and read it (see link to an earlier review below), I still haven’t. Too many books…
March 17th, 2023 at 10:39 am
An earlier Mystery*File Review of this work:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=3112
March 17th, 2023 at 1:14 pm
A review I’d long ago forgotten about. Thanks, Bill!
March 17th, 2023 at 7:25 pm
An excellent book, once hard to find, but fortunately today much easier to find than it once was.
If memory serves there is at least one other book by the writer available in Ebook form.
March 17th, 2023 at 7:32 pm
He was an expert on, and wrote quite a few books about the British monarchy. No other works of fiction, though, but I might have missed them. Or it, as the case may be.