Most Contagious Game

by Catherine Aird

Book Overview

When a London businessman retires early and buys a Tudor mansion, he's quite surprised--and perhaps even a little pleased (retirement being pretty boring)--to find a skeleton hidden in a secret room... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553206753
• ISBN13: 9780553206753
• Release Date: June 1982
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 181 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Only Catherine Aird Novel Without Sloan & Crosby; Still Superb

Thomas Harding, a London businessman, must retire early because of a heart attack. He buys a Tudor mansion and finds a skeleton hidden in a secret room in the house. Harding is delighted because retirement is a bore. Once the police declare the skeleton to be more than 150-years-old, they drop the case. However, Harding decides to take up the case. The police have their attention turned to a local, current murder of a beautiful, blond woman. Oddly enough, the two murders are related. This is the only Catherine Aird book that does not include 'Sloan & Crosby,' the infamous Calleshire police sleuths. This is the second book Aird wrote; however, Sloan and Crosby became so popular, that Aird never returned to the plotline without the famous couple. I've read almost all of Catherine Aird's books at least twice; I just love these old-school mysteries with large doses of humor. This one has less humor because she doesn't have Sloan trying to 'protect my pension' and Crosby falling into correct guesses. However, it is a delicious mystery, worthy of Aird's name. I was so sad when this mystery ended.

Highly recommended

I have re-read this book numerous time and considered it one of Ms. Aird's best. Well plotted with excellent characters.

Wonderful mystery tale

If you like Josephine Tey Daughter of Time or historical mysteries, you will love this book.

Catherine Aird is Great!

It's been awhile since I read a book written by Catherine Aird and I'd forgotten how great she is. Any true lover of mysteries cannot say their reading experiences are complete without at least reading some of Ms. Aird's works of art. This book is no different. I was expecting an addition the the Inspector Sloane series, but this book does not include him. Instead it is about a retired, semi-invalid businessman who had just moved to Easterbrook with his wife. They had purchased the old manor house. He soon discovers that the old house has many secrets, not the least of which is a one hundered and fifty year old skeleton in a Priest's hideout (left over from the Elizabethan age when practicing Catholicism was bad for the health). Thomas Hardy is the businessman and the new owner of the manor house and he sets out to try to solve the old murder. We are also treated to another story string - a more recent murder of one of the village residents. Hardy gets inadvertantly involved in solving that one too. Although this summarizes the storyline it does not do justice to Ms. Aird's incredible craftsmanship and her poetic style of writing. I am so glad that I've decided to read her again.

Where a skeleton in the cupboard isn't a figure of speech

It is in truth a most contagious game;Hiding the Skeleton shall be its name.- _Modern Love_, George MeredithThomas Harding always wanted to own a really old English country house, but he wanted to find it and fix it up himself. Alas, his working habits have brought him not only the money to buy the house, but a coronary thrombosis at 52; when his doctor caught him giving dictation from his bed, Dora Harding had to choose their retirement home without a lot of notice.Easterbrook Manor in Calleshire, though, has some features the land agents never knew about. While getting the wiring in the drawing room fixed, Thomas figures out that there's Tudor panelling behind the ugly plaster, and a priest's hole behind that. The biggest shock, though, was the skeleton in the plastered-over room. Since it's more than a hundred years old, the Calleshire force (not Inspector Sloan of Berebury, incidentally) aren't officially interested. (They have the murder of a young blonde last week from the church choir to worry about, anyway.) Suddenly Thomas isn't bored at all with country life, and this time Dora can join him in his work.The Calleshire police, usually represented by Inspector C.D. Sloan, have very little part to play. We're treated to a lot of English village characters from Thomas (ex-City gent)'s point of view. (His reaction to the rector's description of the parish's investments that maintain their charities is really good, especially when his half-hearted protest at being asked to be treasurer is met with a description of the old codger who used to do it.) We're also gently educated on the realities of a priest's life in Tudor England, and the atmosphere of the Napoleonic Wars countryside in which the murder took place. (No flashbacks, just a great storyteller's talent for conveying atmosphere).