Best country house whodunnit?

[Bellevilles]

I love a country house whodunnit and am looking for some new ones. Please recommend your faves- thank you!

It's an old classic, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Knives out!

It isn't a whodunnit, but my favourite country house novel is Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley. Then of course there are P G Wodehouse's Blandings novels. Still, not whodunnits, so I'll bow out now.

Definitely not a cosy mystery, but I remember Be my Enemy by Christopher Brookmyre as being a good read. Not sure it's quite what you are after as it's more 15 rated than Agatha Christie style! I'm sure I've read lots of others but struggling to remember them now so will follow with interest.

www.wob.com/en-gb/books/martin-griffin/second-stranger/9781408725221?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwjeuyBhBuEiwAJ3vuoRAs7OHCoKw77qwbBwiLFTk68SyAFGi1nj7Ee-38iN_BUxRbmyR_shoCZGIQAvD_BwE#GOR013398075

I read this recently and loved it.

Oh, just remembered, I listened to Alyssa Maxwell Lady and Lady's maid books a while ago, they may fit the bill.

Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer, this will fit your bill. Many of Agatha Christies' books are set in country houses also.

Following for interest.

A Man Lay Dead
Death and the Dancing Footman
Spinsters in Jeopardy (set in a French chateau)

All by Ngaio Marsh.

The closed group of suspects is essential to the Golden Age whodunnit and the country house mystery was a good way of achieving this, as the butler would go round at the end of the night closing and shuttering all the windows and locking and bolting all the doors, so if the host or a house guest were to be murdered during the night you could be confident that the murderer was another member of the house party. Two brilliant examples are And Then There Were None and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. My other top favourite Agatha Christie novel is Murder on the Orient Express which is obviously not a country house mystery but not a million miles removed - rich people and servants in a luxurious setting.

Others to consider:
Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie
Dancers in Mourning, Margery Allingham

One I haven't read but I saw the TV adaptation, which I enjoyed:
Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz

The Magpie Murders and Moonflower murders by Antony Horowitz. They are whodunnits based around works by a fictional author who wrote Agatha Christie style books. You get a book within a book - a contemporary murder is solved by using clues from the fictitious authors work, which you also get to read in full. Less complicated than I’ve made it sound but very much country house style whodunnits.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a classic country house whodunnit; I love it.

I was going to suggest Dorothy L Sayers' Clouds of Witness and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, but see someone got there before me.

I love The Moonstone. I read it in one long extremely satisfying go during a half-term when I was 11. I expect a lot went over my head back then, but I've re-read it a couple of times in the half-century (gulp) since then. I much prefer it to The Woman in White, personally.

I think they're differently brilliant. The Moonstone is terribly satisfying as a 'read in one gulp' novel, though. But it doesn't have a giant, charming villain who plays with his white mice all the time, and is the only person to appreciate the brilliant Marian Halcombe, who is about a million times more interesting than her wet half-sister.

4.50 From Paddington. I think this was one of the first Christie's I read.

The Hawthorne series by Anthony Horowitz (and how prolific is that man!) are a lot of fun as they feature him (AH) as a character in his own books. The latest one (Close To Death) is a classic locked room type mystery.
Also recommend the Anthony Berkeley books, which were some of the first.

Whodunnits set in schools and institutions are also fun and have a similar feel.

Cat Among the Pigeons, Agatha Christie (set in a prestigious girls' boarding school)
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers (set in a women's college at Oxford)
Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey (set in a physical training college for young women - she had attended a very similar place herself)

I wish she'd written more with Lucy Eyelesbarrow!

Death of a Nightingale by PD James is one of those, with a twist I really didn't expect.

Thirteen Guests - J Jefferson Farjeon

The Crime at Black Dudley - Margery Allingham

Portrait of a Murderer - Anthony Gilbert

The Santa Klaus Murder - Mavis Doriel Hay

Lots of the British Library Crime Classics are locked room/country house mysteries. They have a short story collection called ‘Murder at the Manor’.

Of course! Shroud for a Nightingale, I think?

P. D. James wrote a few books that might qualify as country house murders. Terrific writer.

Not exactly country house murders but Dorothy Simpson's novels have a similar 'feel'.

Yes to
Agatha Christie obviously , especially And then there were none
P D James, often set in an institution rather than a house but with a closed set of suspects
Dorothy Simpson
Ngaio Marsh

Snow by John Banville is very good