Another British Library Crime Classic...

A locked train compartment.

A mysterious red light in the Blackdown Tunnel.

A gun under the seat.

A missing ticket stub.

Sir Wilfred Saxonby found dead.

Was it suicide....or murder?

"If you find a man dead in a locked railway carriage, with the weapon which killed him within a couple of feet, the suggestion of suicide is bound to be pretty strong. But, all the same, there are certain objections to the suicide theory ....  We don't know enough about Saxonby and his affairs. We may find that he had a reasonable and sufficient motive for committing suicide. It is equally possible that we find that somebody had a reasonable and sufficient motive for killing him."

So begins Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard's investigation into Sir Wilfred's death. There are a lot of questions to answer, but each answer only leads Inspector Arnold to more questions. And more suspects. I'm glad it wasn't up to me to figure this mystery out; I had no clue as to who did what, or why. Arnold and his friend, Desmond Merrion, an amateur criminologist, did a very good job of ferreting out every last detail of the crime. I enjoyed the way this mystery unfolded piece by piece. I thought it was very reminiscent of those puzzling murders that Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot seems to figure out so easily. Miles Burton's Death in the Tunnel is both well-written and entertaining. It's not exactly a suspenseful page-turner, but I liked it all the same. It was well worth the 25¢ I paid for it at the library's used book sale last year.

Happy Reading!