Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Let’s Choose Executors by Sara Woods

Starting in 1962, British author Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd (1922-1985) published 48 mysteries under the name of Sara Woods, three under the name Anne Burton, three under the name of Mary Challis, and three under the name Margaret Leek. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, she emigrated to Canada with her husband and there undertook her astonishingly prolific writing career, averaging two books a year, using her experience in a solicitor’s office as the basis for many of the plots.

Antony Maitland, the protagonist of the Sara Woods books, is a London barrister much like his legal cousin Perry Mason in that he is not content to simply practice law, he is compelled to investigate the cases that he undertakes. Maitland is surrounded by supportive family and friends who often ride shotgun with him on his investigations, since a war injury to his shoulder has left him unable to drive. He is devoted to his wife, with whom he grew up and married when they were still teenagers. (This is unusual, as most mystery protagonists are divorced, unhappily married, or desperately single.) His uncle with whom he practices law is often highly critical of Antony and his vagaries but deeply protective all the same.

While a number of his cases play out in London, Woods sent him to her birth place of Yorkshire to visit friends and to stumble into crime there often enough to give everyone a change of scenery. In addition, he is sometimes called to represent clients in Chedcombe, a rural village in central England, where he is practicing on the West Midland circuit when Miss Vera Langhorne, a local solicitor, approaches him to help her in Let’s Choose Executors (Harper & Row, 1966). She’s been retained to represent a young woman named Fran Gifford, who has been accused of murdering a wealthy resident who quite shockingly disinherited her family in favor of Fran in her latest will. The fact that some of the relatives were known to have quarreled with old Mrs. Randall seems to have carried no weight with the police and Crown Prosecutor, and Fran was arrested within days after the discovery that the death was not due to natural causes. Antony delves into the motive and alibis of the people around Mrs. Randall while the general populace of Chedcombe views his efforts as a big city mouse interfering with their country mouse ways. The family relationships are far more complex than they appear to be on the surface, yet the actual culprit turns out to be quite a surprise.

After this book Maitland finds cause to visit Chedcombe often, which happily makes Miss Langhorne, who is an interesting lady, a recurring character. One of the most entertaining aspects of these trips to Chedcombe is the suspicion with which the locals view Maitland and his efforts to find justice for his clients. This suspicion sometimes finds expression in violence of all kinds, including gunplay and arson.

I first encountered this series a good many years ago and it holds up well under the passage of time. I highly recommend these excellent, well-plotted legal mysteries with durable, convincing characters. No one has seen fit to re-issue them in any form recently, electronic or otherwise, so check thrift stores and eBay to locate reading copies.

·         Hardcover: 246 pages

·         Publisher: Harper & Row; First Edition edition, 1966

·         Language: English

·         ASIN: B002J9V9VY

Aubrey Hamilton © 2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.