Green for Danger

⚖The case for it

A postman delivers call-up letters to each future suspect in turn, and the whole cast is introduced before anybody dies. The wartime hospital is lived in rather than dressed: air raids interrupting dances, rationing, gallows humour between staff who have seen too much. The clues sit in plain view early and only click later, which is why readers report being “extremely delighted not to have figured out the who” in what one calls a “24-carat mystery.” Cockrill is a plodder rather than a genius, working by patience. A critic warns you to “prepare to be hornswoggled.”

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Cockrill is “least likeable detective ever written” to a real minority, and the narration seems to find him wittier than he reads. The doctors and nurses blur into one another. The romantic subplots are “hopelessly, relentlessly contrived,” with the constant darlings singled out as the worst of it. The resolution depends on suspects “saying and doing certain things at the exact right time,” which is neat rather than earned. And the interrogation stretch after the second death runs well past what one critic calls “the obvious moment for the finale.”

— the honest librarian

5h

honest hours

7

sittings