Strange Case of Harriet Hall : An Inspector Collier Mystery

“We’ve managed to head off the Press men so far. But that won’t last. We can’t escape publicity, and the reading public enjoys murders.”

Harriet Hall, living in her isolated cottage outside the village of Larnwood, might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but why did someone feel the need to kill her on the eve of the arrival of her young niece, Amy? Why had the likeable Deene family seemingly been so in thrall to the late Harriet? The innocent in this classic murder mystery have every reason to be grateful for Inspector Collier of Scotland Yard’s involvement, given the incompetent behavior of the local Chief Constable. But as Collier’s investigation deepens, the case gets stranger still. Finally, however, the guilty are punished – though readers will have to read through to the book’s final, quietly devastating chapter to see just how.

The Strange Case of Harriet Hall was originally published in 1936. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Katherine Dalton Renoir ('Moray Dalton') was born in Hammersmith, London in 1881, the only child of a Canadian father and English mother. The author wrote two well-received early novels, Olive in Italy (1909), and The Sword of Love (1920). However, her career in crime fiction did not begin until 1924, after which Moray Dalton published twenty-nine mysteries, the last in 1951. The majority of these feature her recurring sleuths, Scotland Yard inspector Hugh Collier and private inquiry agent Hermann Glide. Moray Dalton married Louis Jean Renoir in 1921, and the couple had a son a year later. The author lived on the south coast of England for the majority of her life following the marriage. She died in Worthing, West Sussex, in 1963.