Death On The Cherwell

by Mavis Doriel Hay

Overview

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behaviour among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cosy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe. The police assume that a student prank got out of control, but the resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play, and take the investigation into their own hands. Soon they uncover the tangled secrets that led to the bursar's death - and the clues that point to a fellow student.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785413186
Publisher:	Ulverscroft Large Print Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mavis Doriel Hay (1894–1979) published three detective novels in the 1930s that are now extremely rare. Hay’s The Santa Klaus Murder is also published by the British Library.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. The Bursar Comes Down the River

II. Miss Cordell Faces Publicity

III. The Lie of the Land

IV. The Blood Feud

V. Trespass by Night

VI. Lunch at the Mitre

VII. Author of “Dust”

VIII. “Nippy”

IX. The Man Who Saw Burse

X. The Mystery of the Ferry House

XI. Scotland Yard Confers with The League

XII. Jim Lidgett

XIII. Braydon Visits Sim’s

XIV. Pamela, Niece of Burse

XV. Unconsidered Trifles

XVI. Gwyneth Calls on Aunt Sophia

XVII. Pamela at the Back End

XVIII. Scotland Yard Goes up the River

XIX. A Man Gets Free

XX. Denis Mort Gives a Verdict

Editorial Reviews

10/13/2014
Originally published in 1935, this Golden Age mystery from Hay (1894–1979) offers a mesmerizing plot and credible characters. When four first-year students at Oxford's Persephone College gather on the gently sloping roof of a boathouse overlooking the river Cherwell to form a secret society, they notice Myra Denning, the college bursar, lying in a canoe drifting down the river. Upon pulling the canoe to shore, the four undergraduates—Sally Watson, Daphne Loveridge, Gwyneth Pane, and Nina Harson—find that Miss Denning is dead, perhaps drowned. While none of the four was particularly fond of the bursar, they all do what they can to help the police in what becomes a homicide case. Investigating on their own, Sally, Daphne, Gwyneth and Nina manage to unearth secrets that lead to a dramatic conclusion. Readers will be grateful that this classic wasn't lost for present and future mystery lovers to enjoy. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Death on the Cherwell is my idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon book. It’s a shame that Hay only wrote three mysteries but I’'s lovely to have them now all back in print in this beautifully produced series of British Library Crime Classics.

I Prefer Reading blog

It’s light entertainment but almost everything about it is delightful and as a piece of golden age detective fiction it feels very fresh.

Desperate Reader blog