Brian Allsop wants to write a murder mystery but he wants a first-class victim. The ideal victim is someone who nobody would ever think of killing, an innocent for whom the motive would never be discovered. He finds that in his neighbour, Arthur, a man of seemingly impeccable morals and generally rather dull.

Brian sets about following Arthur and learning everything there is to know about him. He is the world expert in Arthur – and then Arthur actually does get killed. And who has better motive than the person who’s been stalking him…

Olive Norton was… well, I’ve no clue, really. She wrote a lot of books, mostly under the pseudonyms Bess Norton or Kate Norway. At least one of these is a children’s book about ponies, but there seems little information about how many of these books are mysteries or thrillers. And on the strength of this one, I’m not going to rush to investigate…

First of all, this is a very short book – 126 pages in paperback – and it does feel like a long short story, rather than a novel. And it’s not much of a mystery.

We know who kills Arthur, so once this happens, the second half of the book deals with whether they will get away with it, with something that could generously be called a twist at the end, but not one worth waiting for (not that one has to wait long). The writing’s perfectly fine, but I do have issue with the narrator who is deeply in love with his wife, but still feels the need to boink the local lush every now and then.

So short book, short review. Not worth tracking down…