The Bay Psalm Book Murder by Will Harriss

Will Schofield was murdered in the garage of his apartment building. He was apparently stabbed to death by two young hoodlums. No one could understand why Will, a librarian for forty years, had been murdered for fourteen dollars, and or why the thieves had left an extremely valuable manuscript of The Bay Psalm Book on the floor of the garage by Will's body.

Cliff Dunbar had been a professor at Los Angeles College, and was a good friend of Will's. He was approached by Will's daughter, Pearl, who asked him to investigate the murder of her father. Will didn't see what he could find that the police had not already discovered, but he agreed anyway. First off,  he discovered that the primary witness to the crime had been lying about several important points in her testimony.

Then Cliff began to examine The Bay Psalm Book itself. This book was the first book to be published in the colonies in 1640. This copy had been presented to the Los Angeles College library by Perry Winthrop who was currently running for senator in California. Winthrop said that this book had been in  his family's library in Massachusetts, and that he had brought it with him when he moved to California. This gift not only gained him publicity for his campaign, but also a three hundred thousand dollar tax deduction. The book had been verified by two experts, but Will had his own doubts about its authenticity. Will hired Mona Moore who was an expert proof reader to compare this copy of The Bay Psalm Book with a photocopy of genuine copy of the book. Mona almost immediately found points in which the copies differed.

Will's investigation had two different paths.  He and Mona continued with trying to determine the authenticity of The Bay Psalm Book. Will also started looking into the election campaign of Perry Winthrop. Something uncovered in these investigations resulted in a two attempts on Will's life before the murderer of Will Schofield was found.

This book was quite a good read, but I must admit that I found the analysis of The Bay Psalm Book to be the most interesting part of it. Bibliophiles will certainly enjoy this part of the book. This book was published in 1983, and won an Edgar award for the Best First Novel. Harriss wrote one more book featuring Cliff Dunbar, and one more mystery novel. Harriss was a senior research editor of the Rand Corporation. He also wrote short stories and scripts for television and movie scripts.

Death of a Mystery Writer by Robert Barnard

Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs was a very successful author of mystery novels. In his personal life, Sir Oliver was a difficult person for both his family and for other people whom he came in contact with. He was snobbish, overbearing, and insulting. He tried to control the members of his family with a stern hand, but was not very successful. His wife Eleanor had put up with his tantrums for many years. His older son Mark was an alcoholic who was unable to keep a job. Recently, Mark had declared in the local pub that his father should be shot. His younger son Terrance was into popular music. His only daughter Bella was his favorite child. She worked for a magazine, The Gardening Gazette.

The family had gathered to celebrate Sir Oliver's birthday, and Sir Oliver had promised Eleanor that he would be on his best behavior. In addition to the family, Ben Woodstock, a young author, and his wife had been invited for the occasion. Ben was hoping that Sir Oliver would help him to find a good publisher. The meal had gone well except for Mark who got drunk. Actually, Mark was drunk when he arrived at the dinner table, and proceeded to get drunker.

After the dinner was finished, the family moved to the study for coffee and drinks while Sir Oliver opened his gifts. Mark only moved because Terrance and Bella took firm hold of him and practically carried him to the study, and when Mark got there, he sat in a chair and went to sleep. Sir Oliver offered his guests his favorite liquor, lakka, which was made from Finnish cloudberries. Eleanor described it as disgustingly sweet and everybody turned it down. Sir Oliver drank his lakka, and fell down dead.

An autopsy showed that Sir Oliver had been poisoned. Chief Inspector Meredith arrived to solve the mystery of how poison could have been put in the lakka when the liquor cabinet was kept locked all the time because of Mark's drinking habit. The reading of the will created new hostilities in this disfunctional family. One son inherited just about everything while Lady Eleanor and two of the children each inherited the rights to one of Sir Oliver's mysteries. Lady Eleanor had the rights to a mystery titled The Black Widow. The curious thing was this novel had never been published, and nobody could find a copy of it.

I very much liked Chief Inspector Meredith. He has a pragmatic approach to solving the crime, as he interviews the family, their employees, members of Sir Oliver's publishing company, and even people from Sir Oliver's past.  This methodical approach paid off in finding the murderer and The Black Widow.

This book was published in 1978. In Great Britain the title was Unruly Son. Robert Barnard published his first mystery novel, Death of an Old Goat, in 1974, and wrote over 40 more mystery novels. He was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger by the Crime Writers Association in 2003 for lifetime achievement.