Death at Breakfast

By: John Rhode

Narrated by: Gordon Griffin

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

A classic winter's crime novel by one of the most highly regarded exponents of the genre.

Victor Harleston awoke with uncharacteristic optimism. Today he would be rich at last. Half an hour later, he gulped down his breakfast coffee and pitched to the floor, gasping and twitching. When the doctor arrived, he recognised instantly that it was a fatal case of poisoning and called in Scotland Yard.

Despite an almost complete absence of clues, the circumstances were so suspicious that Inspector Hanslet soon referred the evidence to his friend and mentor, Dr Lancelot Priestley, whose deductions revealed a diabolically ingenious murder that would require equally fiendish ingenuity to solve.

©1936 Estate of John Rhode (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"One always embarks on a John Rhode book with a great feeling of security. One knows that there will be a sound plot, a well-knit process of reasoning and a solidly satisfying solution with no loose ends or careless errors of fact." (Dorothy L. Sayers in The Sunday Times)

" Death at Breakfast is full of John Rhode's specialties: a new and excellently ingenious method of murder, a good story, and a strong chain of deduction." ( Daily Telegraph)

"John Rhode well deserves his reputation as a constructor of almost flawless detective story plots. To read any of his tales is a very agreeable intellectual exercise." ( Daily Mail)

It Is What It Is

Obviously one reads this book precisely because it is Golden Age of British Mystery writing so one gets what one pays for. In an era when this genre was highly popular this was certainly one of the finer works. It takes a bit of self-discipline to enjoy it as much as one might have done 100 years ago, but once you accept the highly stylised narrative and understand that you as the reader are being teased along and fed bits of the story as tastily as possible it becomes a very enjoyable nine hour listen.

slow moving story

the narrator did well, but the story was slow, and I had guessed 'whodunut' about halfway through. it seemed to take a long time to wrap the story up

An almost entirely perfect murder mystery!

An intellectually stimulating British "Whodunnit". It's all about the mystery. No extraneous plot elements. No personal or psychological trauma heaped on the detecting protagonists. No inter-office politics at Scotland Yard. Perfect!

A Finely-Spun Work of Who-Dunnitry.

In reference to another Golden Age mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed, one reviewer used the word “safe”, by which I took it that the story included no foul language, transgressive attitudes, disturbed psychology or bedroom scenes. Those being my top reasons for patronizing this particular vein of criminal literature, I’ll apply the same word as a crowning compliment. This story is eminently safe, sane, and a finely-spun work of who-dunnitry. And as usual, Gordon Griffin's performance just makes the clue-collecting even more enjoyable.

A bit too long in the toothe

This story could have been a lot shorter. Loved the Narrator but the inspector was made to look a bit stupid and after a while I found that irritating. Like another person’s review, I too got “who did it” way way way before the end, and that was boring.

Humdrum

The plot is intricate, but the solution was obvious at least halfway through the book.