A Forgotten Murder

A Forgotten Murder has all the ingredients for an intriguing English-country-house mystery: a small group of guests; a reunion at Oxley Manor; and a secret from the past — the unsolved disappearance of two persons some twenty years earlier. Amateur detectives Sara Medlar and her two sidekicks have come to Oxley Manor to find out if the two missing persons are alive or dead, and, if dead, whether or not they were murdered. Of the other attendees, four were present at the time of the disappearance, but they have not seen each other since.

After a promising start involving the discovery of a skeleton in an unused well, the story moves into a slow-paced account of the interactions among the main suspects and their histories over the last twenty years. Also, a sub-plot budding romance between the two assistant detectives evolves. All of this leads up to an intricately woven solution, which plays out in a much magnified variant of the Poirot, everyone-in-the-drawing-room denouement that is too contrived to be convincing. Nonetheless, A Forgotten Murder is a comfortable, entertaining read, especially for those who enjoy the interplay among characters. This is a story that keeps its surprises, and there are several, right to the end.