Murder of a Lady

This murder mystery was published in 1933 by Anthony Wynne (pseudonym for Robert McNair-Wilson: 1882-1963), a pre-eminent and prolific author of "impossible crime/ locked room" types of mysteries.This book has been republished in the British Library's "Crime Classics" series.  

Physician Dr. Eustace Hailey has also gained some renown as an amateur sleuth with a record of solving tricky crimes and he is called upon while visiting a friend in the Scottish Highlands. The Procurator Fiscal calls upon his host late one night to say that Mary Gregor, the sister of the laird of Duchlan, has been murdered, but was found in a room locked from the inside and inaccessible any other way. Hailey makes a preliminary inspection but is displaced from participation in the investigation when Inspector Dundas is sent from Glasgow. What he does continue to do, however, is look into the life of Mary Gregor, who everyone claims is a saint. As it turns out, her sainthood had a dark side and many people had reason to hate her. That still doesn't explain how she was murdered, but when the first and then a subsequent inspector  are also murdered, Hailey undertakes a risky plan to reveal both the means and the person who committed the crimes. 

Booklist says the murder(s) are "cunningly concocted" and Publishers Weekly concludes, "Those who like black-and-white films, in which ladies and gentlemen dress for dinner and everyone has frightfully good manners, are in for a treat." Kirkus likewise lauds, "This classic British mystery, first published in 1931, has enough complex plotting and red herrings to win a new generation of fans for the largely forgotten Wynne."

Murder Between the Covers

Of course I could not resist picking up a used copy of this title, a mystery with bookstore employee Helen Hawthorne as the protagonist. This is actually the 2nd installment (of 15 books to date) in the "Dead End Job" mystery series by prolific mystery writer Elaine Viets. Helen works a dead-end job in each book, many of which Viets claims to have worked in herself. Viets has written several other mystery series, which she says allows her to appeal to a wide variety of reader preferences. This series is her "funny and traditional" one.
In this book, Helen is working as a cashier at the Page Turners bookstore in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, getting paid off the books and keeping her head down to avoid an abusive ex-husband and the long arm of the law. We don't find out what she's done until midway through the book. She is living in a funky, run-down old apartment, infested with termites and run by a very colorful landlady. She has rather eccentric neighbors, but her philosophy is live and let live. No one is surprised when her misogynistic boss, book store owner Page Turner III, gets murdered. He had a lot of enemies--ex-wife, ex-employees, etc., but Helen is upset when her neighbor Peggy is accused of the murder. She decides to try and find out who did it to keep her friend out of jail.