"When Last I Died"

If you are a fan of traditional, Golden Age mysteries and you have never met Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, it really is time to make her acquaintance. Mrs. Bradley, a psychiatrist, was the literary offspring of Gladys Mitchell, a writer whose work was frequently ranked as being the equal of mysteries by Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers.

You can get a good idea of Mrs. Bradley's - and Mitchell's - abilities by reading "When Last I Died," which is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here. This 1941 mystery begins with Mrs. Bradley becoming suspicious of a diary supposedly written by a woman accused, and acquitted, of murder. There are entirely too many errors in the document for Mrs. Bradley to accept it as legitimate. Her investigation will uncover a number of extremely horrific murders, involve some ghost-busting activities in a supposedly haunted house, and provide quite a few surprises along the way. There are surrealistic touches, familiar to Mitchell's fans, and a fair amount of sardonic humor turns up in the course of this story. "When Last I Died" is considered one of Mitchell's best books - and I would have to agree.