"They must be found, gentlemen. Alive or (unthinkable thought) dead, they must be found. The Assembly must do nothing else until this sinister mystery is unravelled. We must employ detectives. We must follow every clue."
Miss Longfellow said, "My! Isn't it all quite too terribly sinister!" (Rose Macaulay, Mystery at Geneva 110)
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Rose Macaulay by W. W. Seaton
Shadowland Mar-Aug 1923 |
In catching up with U-Ghent professor Kate Macdonald's podcast
Why I Really Like This Book,
I was intrigued by the
episode on Dame Rose Macaulay's
Mystery at Geneva (1922). I was familiar with
Macaulay (1881–1958) as a satirical novelist (for example,
The Towers of Trebizond) and an inspiration to younger Somervillians Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby, but did not know about this mystery sidelight that features Macaulay's feminist commentary and a journalist investigating disappearing delegates from the League of Nations. "A mystery without distinction," sniffed the
Bookman. "[... E]veryone will enjoy Miss Macaulay's running fire of lively and humorous comment upon the human comedy and the fools we mortals are," countered N. P. Dawson in
Shadowland. "A fascinating novel," adds Kate (whose specialties include thriller writers
John Buchan and
Dornford Yates).
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