No Wind of Blame
by Georgette Heyer (Hodder & Stoughton, 1939)
audiobook read by Ulli Birvé (Bolinda, 2014)
The (supposedly ingenious) murder doesn’t occur until Heyer has spent one third of the book establishing a turgid and disagreeable dramatis personae. Inspector Hemmingway appears only three fifths of the way through and, though a lively protagonist, cannot stem the stultifying tide.