And So To Murder by Carter Dickson

Monica Stanton was a delightful 22 year old. She was the daughter of the Rev. Canon Stanton, and she had rarely left East Roystead. Monica was bored to tears with her life in East Roystead and with her duties as a clergyman's daughter. So Monica wrote a novel which contained all of her passionate daydreams, and it turned out that the book was a great success. Her father and her Aunt Flossie were pleased with her success and the check which she received until they actually read the book. They were shocked. Aunt Flossie sincerely wished that Monica had written a "nice detective story" instead.

When Monica received the offer to be a screenwriter for Pineham Studios, she jumped at the chance to turn her novel into a screen classic. However when she got to the office of Mr. Hackett, the producer, she found that she was supposed to write the screen play for the mystery novel And So to Murder by the author Mr. William Cartwright, and he was to write the screen play for Desire, her novel. She immediately conceived an intense dislike for Mr. Cartwright.

Monica was still thrilled to be at the movie studio, and incredibly excited to meet the actress Francis Fleur who had been the inspiration for Monica's heroine. Monica received a message to go to another part of the sets where she was almost blinded by sulphuric acid, but was rescued by the actions of William Cartwright. Later Monica would be shot at, and would escape another apparent attempt on her life.

The mystery for everybody at the studio was why any one would try to kill Monica who did not seem to have an enemy in the world. William Cartwright wrote a letter to Sir Henry Merrivale  at the War Office because Cartwright believed that that a German spy was involved in the activities at the studio. Cartwright was amazed when he received an invitation to meet HM at the war office where he was the head of the Military-Intelligence department in these days of the start of World War II. HM said that he was too busy to intervene but, of course, HM couldn't stay out of this puzzle.

I enjoyed this book very much. The first few chapters describing the effect of Monica's book on her family and her first day at the Pineham studios are hilarious. The problem of why any one would want to kill Monica is a very intriguing one.

This book was written by John Dickson Carr under the pen name of Carter Dickson. It was published in 1940 and is currently available as an e-book.