Mystery and Crime Hilton, James: Was it Murder?. V1. 30 Oct 2010

[weatherwax]

James Hilton (9 September 1900 – 20 December 1954) was an English novelist, and author of several best-sellers including Lost Horizon (which popularised the mythical Shangri-La) and Goodbye Mr. Chips.

"Was It Murder?" like "Goodbye Mr. Chips," takes place in that most traditional and confounding of English settings, the public school. Colin Revell, impudent Oxonian and sometime sleuth, returns to his alma mater Oakington to puzzle over a schoolboy's "accidental" death. The accidents multiply in frequency and horror as Colin idly pokes about the Gothic quads, and the tightly modulated suspense ripens with a generous foretaste of Hilton's later acclaimed talent: finely perceived, individual characters, overwhelming atmosphere, and full complement of adventure and romance.