Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery

by Carol Carnac

Overview

Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction.

Crossed skis means danger ahead...

In Bloomsbury, London, Inspector Brook of Scotland Yard looks down at a dismal scene. The victim of a ruthless murder lies burnt beyond recognition, his possessions and papers destroyed by fire. But there is one strange, yet promising, lead—a lead which suggests the involvement of a skier.

Meanwhile, piercing sunshine beams down on the sparkling snow of the Austrian Alps, where a merry group of holidaymakers are heading towards Lech am Arlberg. Eight men and eight women take to the slopes, but, as the C.I.D. scrambles to crack the perplexing case in Britain, the ski party are soon to become sixteen suspects. A riveting piece of British crime fiction that spans from foggy London to the sparkling Alps, the double narrative of this golden age mystery twists and turns with alacrity, culminating in a thrilling denouement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728219950
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Series:	British Library Crime Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	254
Sales rank:	218,823
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

CAROL CARNAC was a pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894-1958), who also wrote as E. C. R. Lorac and was a prolific writer of crime fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s as well as a member of the prestigious Detection Club. Her books have been almost entirely neglected since her death and deserve rediscovery as fine examples of classic British crime fiction in its Golden Age.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/14/2020

Set in 1951, this intriguing entry in the British Library Crime Classics series from Carnac (1894–1958) centers on the case of a fatal fire. When Mabel Stein returns to her London neighborhood after a weekend visiting her sister in another part of the city, she runs into her delinquent son, Syd, on the street near the boarding-house she owns. Mabel is anxious to get home, but Syd says, “Better not go home yet.” He goes on to admit that he arrived at their house a little earlier to find it ablaze and decided to let it burn, believing it to be vacant, so they could profit from an insurance payout. Meanwhile, the firefighters at the scene find a man’s charred corpse in a room. Fingerprints on the coins used in the room’s gas meter provide Scotland Yard’s Det. Chief Insp. Julian Rivers, Carnac’s series lead, with an important clue. Another clue implicates a skier, which suggests a link to a party of 16 men and women who just left England for a skiing holiday in the Alps. Carnac keeps the reader guessing to the end. Fans of clever literate murder mysteries will hope for more Carnac reissues. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"[An] intriguing entry in the British Library Crime Classics series...Carnac keeps the reader guessing to the end. Fans of clever literate murder mysteries will hope for more Carnac reissues." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

From the Publisher