Under the pseudonym of Cyril Hare, the county court judge Alfred Gordon Clark wrote a number of classic detective stories which are characterized by a dry wit and an insider's knowledge of the often bizarre workings of the English legal system. His two recurring characters are Inspector Mallett, a Scotland Yard detective who first appeared in Hare's debut novel Tenant for Death in 1937, and the unassuming, gentlemanly barrister Francis Pettigrew, who plays a significant role in Tragedy at Law, Hare's own favorite among his books. Tragedy at Law is indeed a fine and witty novel and Hare provides in it a subtly rounded portrait of the likeable, slightly melancholy Pettigrew but, seen simply as a crime novel, it is arguably less effective than some of Hare's other books. In When the Wind Blows, for example, Pettigrew is married and living in a small town in the imaginary southern county of Markshire where he and his wife are leading lights in the local orchestra. The novel's plot is set in motion when the orchestra’s performance of Mozart's Prague Symphony is rudely interrupted by the murder of its first violinist. Pettigrew proves a reluctant detective. The energetic, slightly dim Inspector Trimble is on the case and the retiring barrister has no wish to interfere but his help and his legal expertise eventually turn out to be essential to unmasking the guilty man. Hare provides both motive and opportunity for the murderer with great ingenuity, he puts his knowledge of the law to good use, as always, and the background of music-making in a small provincial town, with all its small rivalries and rows, is sharply but affectionately sketched. Before his death, at the relatively early age of 57, Cyril Hare went on to write other Pettigrew novels and to create another offbeat central character, the learned Czech academic Dr Bottwink, in An English Murder. But When the Wind Blows remains the best introduction to a crime novelist whose work deserves a wider following.

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