So this was not really my thing but that’s a personal taste thing more than anything. The mystery is fine, I just find I don’t like American-set mid twentieth century Murder mysteries the way that I do British-set ones. There’s an interesting set of characters but I didn’t always find it easy to remember who was who. Fine, but I probably won’t looks for any more of them.

A Time to Die was the second ‘Mark East’ novel published and is the second I have read. Unfortunately, I read this one after number 3 in the series (Death of a Doll) and it isn’t quite in the same league as its successor which is an exceptional piece of mid-twentieth century crime writing.

But there are many positives to this book: A Time to Die is a quality ‘noir’ novel; carefully and logically plotted and very well constructed. Like a later Hilda Lawrence novel I have read, the writing still feels fresh (it was first published in 1945) and frequently subtle and humorous. Although of its time it certainly isn’t ‘dated’ but it is in the very best sense a real time capsule, revealing a way of life and community that has all but disappeared.

However, the main problem I had was that this story follows hot on the heels of the first Mark East book and refers frequently to the happenings of that title, some of which are vital to the plot of this novel and are often not fully explained. The author appears to have treated A Time to Die very much as a continuation of the previous novel’s storyline and not a standalone piece, with much of the character development done in the previous novel also. So at times I felt a little like a bystander, observing the story and trying to fill in some gaps rather than being immersed in it.

Eventually, however, I got over the problem of not reading the first novel first and allowed myself to become interested and involved in the characters and the murder investigation (which doesn’t have an obvious solution). And without giving the plot away, the final section of the book really is gripping, with a genuine sense of desperation and peril.

So, A Time To Die proves to be another very good crime story from Hilda Lawrence. An author certainly worth reading, but probably worth reading in order.

Deliciously Dark, Fiendishly Funny.....
A restful holiday for Detective Mark East? Surely not - particularly when the choice of location is a previous scene of crime. Deliciously dark and fiendishly funny classic crime of the Golden Age, perfectly plotted with wonderfully colourful characters and a thoroughly likeable protagonist. A wholly satisfying read. Just perfect.

This is the second of Hilda Lawrence’s three mystery novels featuring the private detective Mark East, but the last one I have read. Having previously enjoyed the first book, Blood Upon the Snow, and the third, Death of a Doll, I was hoping that this one would be just as good. It was originally published in 1945 and has been reissued by Agora Books as part of their Uncrowned Queens of Crime series.

Like Blood Upon the Snow, A Time to Die is set in the small town of Crestwood, near Bear River. Mark East, having solved a crime there the winter before, has returned in the summer to spend a few weeks with the friends he made during his previous visit. He’s looking forward to a nice relaxing break this time, but on the evening of his arrival he is invited to a charity supper at the church where two fellow guests – a child and an old woman – are struck by arrows during an archery contest. When, later that night, the Beacham family’s governess goes missing, it seems that the two incidents could be related. Aware that his peaceful holiday is quickly becoming much more eventful than he’d anticipated, Mark is reluctant to take on the case, but changes his mind when a body is discovered…

Of the three books in the Mark East series, I think this one is the weakest, but I did still find it entertaining. The plot is quite complex, or at least it seems to be at the beginning when I felt I was wading through a jumble of confusing and unconnected events and struggling to follow what was happening, but once things begin to fall into place and we learn a little bit more about the background of the missing governess, the story becomes much more compelling. The novel has a huge cast of characters (more than necessary really; a lot of them could probably have been left out without having any impact on the story), which means there are plenty of suspects and I didn’t guess who the murderer was before the solution was revealed.

If you haven’t read any of Hilda Lawrence’s novels yet, I would recommend reading Blood Upon the Snow before this one if you can. Many of the characters we meet in this book were introduced in the previous one and it’s also interesting to revisit the same community in two different seasons and see how life in the town has changed now that the cold, snowy winter weather has been exchanged for blazing summer heat. One thing that disappointed me, though, was that Beulah and Bessy, the two elderly spinsters who play important roles in solving the mysteries in the other two books, hardly appear at all in this one – I think we only see Bessy once or twice. It’s a shame because seeing them carrying out their own amateur detective work in parallel with Mark had been one of the highlights of this series.

Not my favourite by Hilda Lawrence, then, but I’m glad I discovered this series and I just wish she had written more than three of these books!

A bit slow to start but really picked up the pace after awhile, a real old fashion mystery with lots of twists and turns. Hadn't read this author before but will try to find more by Hilda Lawrence to read.

Having read numbers one and three by Hilda Lawrence featuring the same main characters, I was excited to read this second in the series. It didn't disappoint. I confess I did struggle with some of the language and phrases, it being set in rural America in the mid forties. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed catching up with the cast again didn't really guess the killer until the end.

The strength of this book lie in the author’s capacity to recreate the thought processes of the main character - and some of the minor ones. She fills the reader in at times by creating a scene through the eyes of a minor character, then taking us back to the main line of narrative. It’s an effective technique. I, unlike some other reviewers, also thought the relationship between Mark East and the local sheriff and officials was respectful and well established. There is also many twists and turns, all within the boundaries of standard procedure to eliminate possibilities.

The weaknesses, I think, are the failure to sufficiently develop the cast of minor players and a tendency to convolution. On the former, I found it impossible to keep the cast of minor players differentiates. There were too many of them and they had the feel of ‘first guest’ , ‘ second guest’ on an extras’ roster. A better sense of place might have helped reduce the complexity of the plot.

As this volume is early in the series it remains to be seen it some of these limitations were overcome as the author hit her stride.

My thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

Hilda Lawrence's 'A Time to Die' is set in small town America in August 1944. It is a heatwave & a storm is coming.
Hilda Lawrence only wrote a handful of novels & has sadly been almost forgotten. Although published long before I was born this book has a refreshingly timeless feel & is deserving of a new generation of readers.
Mark East is visiting old friends for a vacation when a murderer strikes. Reluctantly he unravels a mystery dating back to 1930. It is a gripping & unpredictable plot that benefits from mounting tension throughout. The characters are drawn with striking originality.
A real gem for golden age crime lovers.

Terrific story from Hilda Lawrence set in a small American resort her hero Mark Eden is on holiday ,in the place he solved his last case.! A missing person case becomes a murder and Mark is asked by his friend the local sheriff for help.The murder victim worked as a nurse/nanny for one of the wealthy families holidaying at the resort and as Eden looks into her background he starts to uncover her secrets and those of the influential guests it becomes more and more difficult to get leads on the murderer But Eden is a determined man and as he comes to believe that the young daughter of one of the hotel guests ,the one the murder victim worked for is under threat the stakes become much greater and solving the case becomes a matter of urgency.
The plot is enthralling the characters well drawn and the tension is racked up and you fear for the child as much as Eden does.
This felt like watching an old black and white movie with Robert Mitchum or some such as Mark Eden.The ending came as a complete surprise with the unmasking of the killer had me completely.
This book is a sequel to Blood in the Snow,That,s my next read. Most enjoyable Miss Lawrence is a real find.

I loved Hilda Lawrence's Death of a Doll and Blood on the Snow, and this is the same mixture of 1940s hardboiled writing and a Golden Age of detective fiction story. The period detail is great, and the sense of impending doom at the end as they work out the identity of the murderer is very effective. The use of recurring characters and their ongoing relationships with Mark East are great and really add to the interest. As it is set in 1944 the background of the mountain holiday village in the 1940s is fascinating, with small hints of how the war is beginning to affect even rural America.

The plot of this book is brilliantly played out by the author. It builds up over the course of the story and keeps the reader guessing and puzzling until the very end. I had not read any of Hilda Lawrence's books before and am delighted to have been introduced to her by Crime Classics _ perhaps there will be more in the future and others can appreciate this great mystery writer.

A Time to Die is the latest offering in the Crime Classics Review Club and I read it thanks to Agora books. It’s the second Mark East book and at first I was confused by the setting (a holiday resort) and the large cast of characters. An apparently good and harmless woman is first missing, then found murdered. This leads East on a trail which leads to a lunatic asylum. He plays his cards close but is desperately trying to protect a child he believes to be in danger. She is, and the ending is very tense. Curiously, I’d previously read Lawrence’s Death of a Doll and found I could remember it in some detail but that Mark East had made absolutely no impression; I couldn’t even have told you it was ‘a Mark East mystery’. So, for me, Hilda Lawrence wrote good mysteries starring a private investigator with no personality.

‘It was five o’clock in the afternoon and the burning August sun still registered contempt for time.’

Detective Mark East is taking a two-week holiday: one week in Bear River with Perley and Pany Wilcox, and one week in nearby Crestwood with Bessy Petty and Beulah Pond. They had helped him on an earlier case during winter. But now, in the heat of summer, he is feeling some regret.

As he walks down the Main Street, he sees a sign in the window of J T Spangler, Photographer:

‘THERE IS A PICTURE OF A MURDERER IN THIS WINDOW. GUESS WHO?’

He asks Mr Spangler to remove the photograph. Mark East thinks the photograph should be removed because it reminds people of things that should be forgotten. Mr Spangler wanted to keep it because it helps his earnings. The photograph is removed, but not the sign.

Mark East is then collected by his host’s son, Floyd.

That evening, they attend a Covered Dish Supper. One of the guests is wounded by an arrow, another is missing. Mark East really does not want to get involved in the missing person case, but when a body is discovered, he cannot walk away.

It seems clear that the murderer is one of the guests staying at a nearby hotel, but which one and why?
I really enjoyed this mystery. Nearly every guest has a secret (or two), and Mark East must sift through those secrets to identify the murderer. The tension builds: others may also be at risk as Detective East gets closer to the truth. In a book peopled with interesting (and complex) characters, I did not work out who the murderer was until close to the end.

This book was first published in 1945 and is the second of three books to feature Detective Mark East.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Agora Books for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I liked this story, it was like a comfortable pair of socks- warm, comfy and a joy to have! I viewed this almost as guilty pleasure and It felt nI’ve to read a mystery with a bit of “old school” about it!

Evocative, like watching an old movie, excellent dialogue with the quaint attraction of golden era detective novels.
The characters provide a peek at what seems, to a British reader, an earlier and charming American way of life and thought.

kept me guessing!

A Time to Die was an unusual murder mystery for me as it starred a 1940’s American private investigator and I usually prefer British-based Golden Age novels. I liked the descriptions of the moneyed classes enjoying the sweltering summer away from the city, but the majority of characters didn’t really come to life for me and I kept getting confused about their relationships with each other. This book is part of a series however, and I haven’t read any of the other books, so perhaps some of the confusing characters were introduced more fully in the first book.

The protagonist PI Mark East seemed to be quite a boorish bloke who ordered all the other characters around, even the police! Everyone seemed to defer to the man, even though he showed little interest in the case at the beginning and took no one into his confidence, even when they were in danger, He did manage to discover the murderer eventually, which is to his credit, but I didn’t find the murderer’s motives very convincing.

I’m glad I gave the book a chance, but I don’t think I will be seeking out more Mark East mysteries.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

A Time to Die by Hilda Lawrence was first published in 1945 and features her series detective, Mark East, with his faithful female sidekicks of mature years: Beulah Pond and Bessy Petty. Agora have reprinted it as part of their excellent Uncrowned Queens of Crime series. The trio also appear in Lawrence’s books “Blood Upon the snow” and “Death of a Doll”, although the women play a less prominent part here than in the other two books, with Bessy only appearing in two chapters.

There is also less humour in this book. I was going to say that I found it darker, but that’s unfair: the other books are still about unpleasant murders. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that East (and we) can’t spot the killer in this book until the last few pages. (I can boast that I guessed correctly a few chapters from the end, but I confess it was a guess and I had no real evidence.) We are almost certain that the murderer is one of a handful of guests staying in a hotel and Lawrence builds the tension beautifully. We suspect everyone, simply because they are all equally likely / unlikely to be guilty. They know they are suspected and that East is watching them without pretending to do otherwise.

The novel starts with East returning on vacation to the area where he handled murders in Blood Upon the Snow. Several of the cast were in the previous book and there is a strong feeling of us being reacquainted with old friends. His arrival coincides with a supper at the church. Firstly, a girl is injured during a competition involving a bow and arrows; then an old lady is shot with one of the arrows. Overnight, it’s realised that a governess is missing. East is convinced she has simply walked out but the hotel guests try to persuade him that she wouldn’t do that.

This is a very good read although, as with Blood Upon the Snow, Lawrence has a young child as one of the characters and it’s a shock to realise that she’s only nine rather than a teenager. Don’t get me wrong: she’s integral to the story and is a very likeable engaging character. It’s just that her language and demeanour, as described, would be more appropriate to a girl a few years older.

I do wish Hilda Lawrence had written more Mark East books…

#ATimetoDie #NetGalley