ELSPETH HUXLEY – Murder on Safari. Inspector Vachell #2. Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1938. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1938. Perennial Library, US, paperback,1982. Viking, US, hardcover, 1989.

   Superintendent Vachell of the Chania Police [in Kenya] is brought in when Lady Baradale’s jewels turn up missing, then finds murder on his hands when the lady is found dead, near a pond full of hippos but shot between the eyes.

   [A replica of a] small isolated English village taken to an extreme – one hundred miles from the nearest civilization. Most satisfying. The only whodunit (outside of Carr?) with footnotes to [point out] the clues – all fairly stated and still not much more.

— Reprinted from Mystery.File.3, February 1988.

   

      The Inspector Vachell series —

Murder at Government House, 1937.
Murder on Safari, 1938.
The African Poison Murders, 1939.