Answer in the Negative

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Pub Date 20 Feb 2020 | Archive Date 04 Mar 2020

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Description

At The National Press Archives on Fleet Street, archive assistant Frank Morningside has become the recipient of nasty poison pen letters and cruel practical jokes. With Frank disliked by many, his superior Toby Lorn is concerned by the number of potential suspects. And when the nature of the letters becomes even more vulgar, things take a sinister turn.

Toby calls on his friends Sally and Johnny Heldar, two amateur sleuths, to investigate. Posing as researchers, Sally and her husband Johnny go undercover to scout out the myriad of suspects at the archive. But just as the Heldars begin to make some progress, Morningside is found dead in his office, bludgeoned by a box of glass negatives.

When another suspicious death occurs within the company, the Heldars fear they may be in over their heads.


Answer in the Negative was first published in 1959 and is part of Agora Books’ Uncrowned Queens of Crime series.

At The National Press Archives on Fleet Street, archive assistant Frank Morningside has become the recipient of nasty poison pen letters and cruel practical jokes. With Frank disliked by many, his...


A Note From the Publisher

If you enjoyed reading Answer in the Negative, we'd really appreciate seeing your honest review on Amazon. Thank you and happy reading, Agora Books.

If you enjoyed reading Answer in the Negative, we'd really appreciate seeing your honest review on Amazon. Thank you and happy reading, Agora Books.


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ISBN 9781913099480
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Featured Reviews

Answer in the Negative by Henrietta Hamilton was a great read about a husband and wife sleuthing team in 1950's London. The plot moved swiftly, there were many intriguing suspects and the ending was satisfying. Besides the mystery, it was really interesting to get an insight into the way newspaper cuttings and photos were handled before computers and to get a peek into class warfare going on in Fleet Street

I hadn't hard of the author before so I was glad to rediscover a lost gem. I hope the publisher will republish some of her other works as I became quite fond of Sally and Johnny.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

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This is a very good classic crime story with amateur but excellent detectives.

Toby Lorn calls on his friends, Sally and Johnny Heldar to help. He works at the National Press Archives, and an archive assistant, Frank Morningside, is getting nasty letters and having tricks played on him. Someone has gotten the key to his office so they can leave the messages easily with no one seeing.

Sally and Johnny agree to help, and begin watching the office in the guise that they are doing research on the archives. They are being helped by Brigadier Camberley, who has been doing some research in the archives. When Morningside is found dead in the doorway of his office (from a box of glass negatives falling on his head), Scotland Yard is finally called. Chief Detective-Inspector Lindesay arrives on the scene. However, he lets Sally and Johnny continue to help. There are many suspects to watch - young Teddy, the errand boy who is somewhat unruly; Michael Knox, the hot tempered Irishman; Serena, Morningside's former fiance, the boss Silcutt, as well as possibly Toby, himself.

Then, Miss Quimper, the woman who was in charge of the negatives, is found in a bombed out cellar hole right across from the Archives building. Things get really dicey. They check everyone's alibis again and set up time tables, but are still stymied. Sally and Johnny have a meeting in their apartment, and suddenly they realize the killer is someone they never suspected, and figure out how and why.

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I hadn’t heard of Henrietta Hamilton. Nor, it appears, have many people. Agora simply state “Henrietta Hamilton was an English writer known for her crime-solving husband-and-wife duo, Sally and Johnny Heldar. She was previously published by Hodder and Stoughton.” Julian Symons didn’t mention her in Bloody Murder. Martin Edwards is similarly silent in the Golden Age of Murder. However, Allen J. Hubin’s brilliant crimefictioniv.com tells us that Henrietta Hamilton was a pseudonym of Hester Denne Shepherd, 1920-1995. She published four novels between 1956-1959, all featuring a husband and wife team, Johnny and Sally Heldar. That’s all I can discover.

So kudos to Agora Books, then, for offering this novel by a little-known author, over sixty years after it was first published. Was it worth the wait?

Yes, I think so. Hamilton evokes a world that must have been disappearing even then, with Nanny looking after the children all day and Sally Heldar simply popping up to kiss the children good night. There are bombsites in Central London and characters’ war service is mentioned as they are introduced. There is the famous London smog. Everybody smokes. As I type this in 2020, even the typists have trodden the path of the dodo. However, I enjoyed this glimpse of a bygone world. And I did snigger at the name of the organisation: “Feelthee Peex” (Filthy Pics?!).

Although it wasn’t difficult to guess who the murderer was, the plot development was done nicely with a couple of interesting sub-plots centring on missing negatives and a possible IRA sympathiser. I’m not sure about the characters of the Heldars, though. Whilst they were pleasant enough, I felt they were almost cardboard cut-outs of a wholesome couple and they didn’t live in my imagination. I’d like to try another of Hamilton’s novels to see if they improve upon further acquaintance.

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Another worthwhile title from Agora Books, this time reproduced from the 1950s. Set in a Fleet Street archive, it provides an engaging insight into a pre-digital publishing and research world, dependent on both visual and oral recall. The focus is on detection, in this case, private detection by married couple Sally and Johnie. The police investigation progresses competently in the background and is accorded due respect by the author and our private sleuths.

We are given enough information about Sally and Johnie to want them to succeed and to empathise with their dilemmas. I didn’t develop the same sense of the other players, who we see largely through the eyes of Sally and Johnie. This was a bit of a limitation - they came and went a bit like minor players in a stage melodrama. Sally and Johnie are also sufficiently Middle Class to employ a nanny who keeps their children safely occupied and invisible for all but an hour or two a day. Sally appears to do all the cooking and there is presumably an invisible cleaner.

The plot was engaging and well-paced. The details of time and place could have been more succinctly presented, but I enjoyed following the logic and fact-checking. The husband-wife partnership is an interesting emerging perspective by the 1950s and, although there are inevitable attitudes of protection displayed, the partnership is more equal than most and the writing stands the test of time.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy - and I’m interested enough to look forward to reading more in this series.

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This is an enjoyable vintage mystery by an author that is totally new to me. I would characterize it as a cozy mystery with a lot of traditional touches. The plot is well thought out, and moves at a good pace, the characters are interesting and the somewhat unexpected ending was plausible. The husband and wife team of sleuths, Johnny and Sally Heldar, seem a bit unusual for the times. Although Johnny does seem to be the leader, Sally often acts on her own initiative. There is mention of Johnny preparing dinner and helping with the washing up. It seems to me that this must have been somewhat unusual 60 years ago.

Hamilton did a good job developing her characters. Each one was individual enough to keep them straight. In some cases you can almost picture them.

Detective methods have changed, but this book remains very readable. I hope that we will be seeing more books by this author.

Thank you to Agora books and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review.

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"Answer in the Negative"-I love punning titles, but this almost gives too much away- was first published in 1959 and features a married couple, Sally and Johnny Holder as amateur detectives. The plot is fairly straightforward, with a couple of murders associated with the fictional National Press Archives, a newspaper cuttings and picture agency.

The prose is flowing and easy, making for a very agreeable read. Henrietta Hamilton is a new name to me but I hope to read more of her output soon. I take it that Agora Books intend to publish more, as there is a taster of "Death at One Blow" given at the end of this volume.

Highly recommendable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Agora Books for the digital review copy

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This is a new author to me, brought back into print by Agora Books. It seems as though Hamilton was not a prolific mystery author, as Agora list her other titles as: The Two Hundred Ghost (1956), Death at One Blow (1957) and A Night to Die (1959). Her tales feature ‘crime-solving husband and wife duo, Sally and Johnny Heldar.’ Jamie Sturgeon was also able to provide me with further information on this writer and the Hamilton name was a pseudonym for Hester Denne Shepherd. According to Jamie she was born in 1920 in Dundee and went to St Hugh’s College, Oxford, where she studied modern languages. In War World Two she served in the wrens and after the war she worked in a London bookshop for a while. She died in 1995.

Hamilton’s time working in a bookshop makes its way into her stories, as her Johnny Heldar is an antiquarian bookseller, (with Commando experience), who lives with Sally and his three children, (plus a nanny), in Bloomsbury. One evening the couple are visited by Toby Lorn. He suffers from the effects of polio and Johnny was able to support in his time of need, when as a teenager he lost his father and brother, (the latter due to the war). He now works in the National Press Archive, which has been recently established. Toby wants Johnny to help him with a poison pen writer who seems to be targeting a colleague called Frank Morningside. The rude rhymes and pranks began small and were in juvenile taste, but the later epistles and poltergeist activity have become more destructive and unpalatable. Two days into the job and already Johnny has identified that more than one person has been involved in this literary attack and he decides to have a conference with Frank and two others in the know at Frank’s office on Wednesday evening. But you will probably have already guessed that by the time they arrive Frank is dead, the victim of a booby trap involving a heavy box of glass negatives…

Overall Thoughts

Although this is the second to last novel from Hamilton, the reader quickly finds their feet with her series characters. Interestingly in this story we get a reference to a dead body which was found in Johnny’s shop. Perhaps that is when the pair got involved in amateur detection? We are given an interesting array of suspects to consider in this mystery: a love rival, a fastidious spinster, a young reprobate, an ex-fiancée. The disappearance of certain files at the archives also adds to the case, as does the growing anxiety that someone close to the Heldars might be involved. Johnny and Sally work their way through the suspects methodically, providing the reader with plenty of data in alibis, criminal timetables and more. Consequently, I was quite taken back that Hamilton managed a very neat surprise at the denouement, which works very effectively and does not come across as far fetched or out of the blue. This is indeed a rarity.

Despite being told that Johnny and Sally are a crime sleuthing couple, I think it is advisable that readers go in with a slightly altered expectation. Namely that Johnny is the investigator and Sally is his able assistant. Whilst they equally divide surveillance work, Johnny has very firm lines dividing what Sally can and can’t do in an investigation. The narrative at one point says that, ‘Johnny seldom gave her orders, but when he did, she had no choice. If she disobeyed him, she would be left out of it next time.’ Moreover, he is far from pleased when Sally decides to tail a suspect off her own bat and ultimately this is an action she feels she needs to apologise for. In the main she is more of an encourager for Johnny, as well as a sounding board for his ideas, also taking part in some of his re-enactment experiments at home. However, it was a relief to see Sally adopt the principle of being honest with the police, believing that she ‘had got to freely’ communicate with them in order for the guilty to be found.

So all in all this was a pleasant introduction to the work of Henrietta Hamilton and I am interested to read more by her. Thankfully it seems Agora will be reprinting more by this writer as my copy includes a snippet from another title: Death at One Blow.

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Re-release of a Golden Age mystery featuring amateur sleuth husband and wife team Sally and Johnny Haldar. A poison pen persecution that the couple is investigating for a friend turns deadly - can they find the murderer among the rather small pool of suspects? I found it unusual that there was very little interaction with the official detective on the case. Well-clued enough for me to figure out the culprit and full of interesting characters and an engaging story. Recommended.

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I had never heard of Henrietta Hamilton before I was invited to review Answer In The Negative by the delightful people at Agora Books,but now I have read it I hope they plan to republish the rest of her back catalogue, small though it is.
Set in the 1950’s in a newspaper archive, it is a very nicely paced murder mystery with enough interest to keep you reading.
The setting made for a fascinating insight into the sort of archives that were common before the days of digital, and reminded me how much I enjoyed Stephen Poliakoff’s Shooting The Past, set in a picture archive.

I liked Sally and Johnny Heldar, Hamilton’s married couple amateur detectives, from the first chapter of this mystery and became more fond of them as the book wore on. They were respectful of the Police and the Police of them, and their investigations ran in parallel. We also got some peeks into their family life with Nanny upstairs caring for the children whilst they went under cover at the archive, with case discussions over the washing up.
I’m not too sure quite how many 50’s husbands would share the cooking and washing up as Johnny does but then how many were amateur detectives in their spare time from the family bookshop?!
The mystery was well put together being a case of poison pen that turns into murder, with a good amount of suspects and some red herrings along the way.

If you like gritty, fast paced realism then this isn’t for you, but if you enjoy Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence books you’ll love it

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I picked this book because of the publishers and the fact that it was a reprint. I am still in the process of updating my woefully inadequate relationship with older books by non-Christie authors. I have made a significant dent in the past couple of years if I do say so myself. This particular book was very enlightening for a very specific purpose. That is the concept of physical photographic archives. I kept imagining the minions(here, the characters of the story) running around behind the scenes in the google image code, finding out our required information.

The entire story is based in a National Press Archives, primarily focused on the image archives. One of the archive assistant's life has been disturbed by increasingly troublesome pranks. Toby Lorn comes to his friends the well-known detective duo, the Heldars' home posing the problem to them. They begin their investigation methodically, and the story continues in the same format. There is a suggestion made and then the evidence to either back the theory or to remove it from contention is gathered and discussed. There is the unfortunate casualty that changes the tone of the investigation some way into the story. Unfortunately for me, I guessed the culprit halfway into the story and kept finding the hints and felt like giving Sally and Jhonny a great shaking to make them see the glaringly obvious fact they were not even considering!! Surprisingly, however, despite that setback, I liked the simplicity of the narrative and the way the resolution of the story was dealt with. The other thing of note here(to me) is the quaint way certain 'inappropriate' behaviour was handled here, the merest hint of it and the narration veers away from details, one such example-the actual contents of the poison pen letters that the victim was being hounded with.

I recommend this to others like me who are reading older reprints of lesser-known authors. I would definitely pick up more by the author, preferably older stories, to get more of a background of Sally and Jhonny Heldar.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is solely based on my reading experience and my sudden fascination with the idea of manual archiving.

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Dirty Deeds In Fleet Street....
Poison pen letters, underhand practical jokes, sinister doings and dirty deeds in Fleet Street. Sometime amateur sleuths, Sally and Johnny Heldar, are called upon to assist when suspects become too numerous to list but when murder rears it’s ugly head things begin to get very serious indeed. Hugely enjoyable classic crime, fully entertaining with well drawn characters and an engaging plot. A very worthy reissue from Agora Books (and part of their ‘Uncrowned Queens of Crime’ series). Highly recommended.

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It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
It's a classic whodunnit, well written and engrossing.
It starts slow with a description of the fascinating environment and the introduction of all the characters.
Sally and Johnny are a fascinating couple, very modern even if some moments reflect the age spirit.
The mystery is solid and the solution came as a surprise.
I can't wait to read the next instalment.
Strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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This is a must read for all classic crime fans. It had everything - a very clever plot, lots of red herrings and a brilliant ending. I'm afraid that I didn't know the name of Henrietta Hamilton before so I sincerely hope that the publishers will bring us more of her books to enjoy.

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A nice cross between a classic whodunnit and a Paul Temple mystery, with husband and wife sleuths Johnny and Sally Heldar investigating a series of poison pen letters at a photo library and the effect this has on their personal relationship and their domestic life. I found the setting fascinating, wih the descriptions of how the negatives and pictures at a busy newspaper library were used, and the characterisation was very memorable. I hadn't read anything else by Henrietta Hamilton before but I will now seek them out.

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I received this book from Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Classic crime adds this fine edition from 1959 to the modern library in this novel by Henrietta Hamilton. It is part of the Uncrowned Queens of Crime series. A suspicious death at United Press Archives on Fleet Street has the Heldars, Johnny and Sally, investigating. They are antiquarian booksellers with a penchant for Amateur sleuthing. Toby Lorn, a newspaper man at the archives is concerned about a series of pranks and poisoned pen letters that are upsetting Frank Morningside enough to influence his work in the archives. When Morningside is found dead, this leads to a full investigation of the archives and workers. Someone has secrets. Someone will stop at nothing to keep them.
An excellent example of Crime procedural. Follow the clues closely for there are many threads, twists and tangles. Well done and enjoyable read.

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I'd never heard of Henrietta Hamilton prior to being offered this book by Crime Classics to read and review and I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book starts at the National Press Archives where one of the members of staff Frank Morningside is being sent crude messages, schoolboy pranks like itching powder and finally very crude poems and letters. Toby Lorn his direct supervisor takes matters into his own hands and calls on amateur sleuths Sally and Johnny Heldar to find the culprit or indeed culprits so that they can be dealt with correctly. Unfortunately during their investigation Frank Morningside is murdered and Scotland Yard are called in. A good old fashioned murder mystery which I would thoroughly recommend.

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Johnny Heldar is a former WWII commando who runs a family-owned antiquarian bookstore. From references in this book, Johnny and his wife, Sally, albeit amateurs, were involved in solving some crimes in the past. Given this, a friend who works at the National Press Archive, London, asks the couple to investigate the harassment of a fellow worker, Morningside. Morningside has been the brunt of a series of jokes, including itching powder in his shorts, fake ink stains, and he also has been receiving nasty notes. As they begin to investigate, Morningside is killed by what appears to be yet another prank, but the Heldars have their suspicions that it was no prank. A few days later, another employee seems to have accidentally fallen into an old bomb crater and died. The Heldars investigate the workers from the messengers up to the head and one-by-one begin eliminating them as the perpetrator. The book is well written and there are plenty of red herrings and misdirection to keep the reader guessing. Written in the 1950s, it does display ethnic slights and disparaging comments about an older, unmarried working woman. The author, Henrietta Hamilton, may not be as well known as other writers from that time, but she's worth looking up. The painstaking details of each suspect did get a little too drawn out for me, and I became impatient at times

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Poison pen letters and practical jokes are plaguing Frank Morningside at the National Press Archive, and amateur sleuths Johnny and Sally Heldar are enlisted to get to the bottom of matters. Johnny is an antiquarian bookseller who has solved a couple of murders – this is the third of four books – and they start to investigate at the Archive.
Surprise, surprise, soon the practical jokes turn deadly and Frank falls victim to a fatal booby trap. Johnny and Sally find themselves immersed in a game of untangling alibis to find the murderer – but can it be as simple as that?
Henrietta Hamilton aka Hester Denne Shepherd wrote four books featuring the Heldars – presumably the murder in the bookshop mentioned here happened in the first one – at least one more is on the way from Agora Books like this one. Agora are the publishers behind the recent re-issuing of Richard Hull’s work.
This is a much more straightforward mystery than the Hull titles, however. It presents a fascinating background of the National Picture Archive – the 1950’s version of Google Images – and the miscellany of suspects therein. It’s a very good example of a pretty standard mystery. Alibis are checked, suspects are accused and exonerated, another murder takes place and eventually the villain stands revealed.
There are a couple of dated attitudes from Johnny when his wife exerts a bit of free will in the investigation, a little surprising to read from a female writer, but apart from that, this bounces along nicely from beginning to end. I thought the murderer was a bit obvious from the structure of the tale, but I might be alone here – Kate, at least, thought it was a surprise.
Another welcome re-release of a long-lost author, this is well worth a look.

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I had not come across this author before, written in the golden age era style, I really enjoy making Henrietta Hamilton's acquaintance and I shall keep an eye out for further books.
A nice little husband and wife murder mystery which relies on timing. Quite a lot of twist and turns within the story with a somewhat surprise ending.

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Sally and Johnny Heldar are requested by a friend to check out some anonymous letters sent to a colleague which are steadily becoming more vitriolic and descending into utmost vulgarity.

At the National Press Archives Frank Morningside is someone who is not particularly liked or disliked. A rather tedious person he has many enemies and but when he is found bludgeoned to death the investigation takes a more serious turn.

Negatives are missing and whether these lead to particular instances where people could be blackmailed is the question. When a second death occurs made to look like an accident the Heldars know there is a murderer who will not stop at anything to cover his tracks.

It was a good detective story with a well planned story line.

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Very much enjoyed this book by a new to me author. 1950's London, married sleuthing couple, great vocabulary, and lovely imagery. I received a copy from Crime Classics Review Club. Opinions are my own.

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Answer in the Negative is the third of four detective novels featuring a married couple, Johnny and Sally Heldar, as central characters. It has been re-released by Agora books as part of their Uncrowned Queens of Crime season. Thank you to them for a review copy.
The author was certainly unknown to me when I received the book so I had no idea what to expect. I was pleased to find a solid mystery story, well written and with nicely drawn characters. The detective duo of Johnny and Sally are likeable and their reliance on ‘nanny’ to watch over their young children when they are out sleuthing is charming if a little dated.
The novel is set in the 1950s and the action centres around a press clippings and photography agency in central London. Although the setting is somewhat anachronistic in today’s digital age where archives can be accessed and searched at the touch of a button, the writing draws the reader in and it is easy to visualise the scene with negatives being selected, prints being made and harassed secretaries trying to get their work done.
The criminal activity is low level initially with one member of staff being targeted by an unpleasant prankster but it is not long before a murder is committed and things take on a much more serious aspect. Johnny and Sally work alongside the police who tolerate their presence quite happily. The inspector in charge of the case is kept in the background of the story as Johnny and Sally investigate and, of course, ultimately solve the mystery.
The writer plays fair with the reader and all the clues are there in the story though most of them are delightfully easy to miss. The criminal’s motive is hinted at throughout the story but I was quite some way in before I began to realise exactly why a seemingly senseless murder has been committed. Of course there are plenty of red herrings along the way with some very shady people working in the building any one of whom may have had a reason to kill. These are a delightful bunch of potential miscreants and they are written in a sympathetic and credible way making Johnny and Sally’s tolerance of the prevarications and economies of truth with which they are faced wholly understandable.
A chapter of one of Henrietta Hamilton’s other novels is included at the end of the ebook to whet the appetite for future releases and I hope that Agora will republish all of her mystery novels in the future. There are a few references in the story to events which have clearly happened in earlier novels and it would be nice to be able to read these other stories in full and spend more time with Johnny and Sally.
Henrietta Hamilton deserves to join those many authors being rediscovered by lovers of classic crime and I would unhesitatingly recommend this book to anyone looking to investigate a new author and an entertaining puzzle.

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Sally and Johnny Heldar are asked by a friend working at the National Press Archives to investigate poison pen letters being received by a work colleague Frank Morningside. Johnny and Sally take up various vantage points to check out people working and visiting the press archives to try to figure out who is responsible. Before they unearth the culprit however Frank is killed by a falling box of negatives. Then another suspicious death occurs when a lady falls out of a window.
Everyone gets suspected at some stage, including their friend Toby Lorn who had initially called them in for help. Everyone bar the actual killer gets suspected but going on some of the clues I had the killer sussed before the big reveal.
A book that was published in 1959 I felt it came across as more 1980's as there was an Irish character in the book whose cousin was purported to be a member of the IRA and involved in bombing campaigns. Aside from that anomoly I enjoyed the book and would definitely read another book by Henrietta Hamilton.

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Work in the pictures department of National Press Archives has been severely disrupted of late. Frank Morningside, an archive assistant, has been the recipient of a series of pranks and increasingly malicious poisoned pen letters. When the situation becomes intolerable and begins to influence his work, Toby Lorn, a close friend the Heldars and head of the pictures department, decides to call on his friends Johnny and Sally Heldar for help. But then Morningside is found dead, lying in the doorway of his office, killed by a box of glass negatives that have crashed down on his head. The Heldars find themselves investigating a murder case, can they stop a murderer before they kill again?

Like many others I had never heard of author Henrietta Hamilton, but with the release of Answer in the Negative by Agora Books, she has recently been brought back into print.
Her series of four, written from 1956 to 1959, features Johnny and Sally Heldar.

Set in the world of 1950s journalism, the novel follows antiquarian booksellers and amateur detectives Johnny and Sally Heldar. First, just a little clarification regarding this crime-solving duo. Johnny is the bookseller/detective who served with the Commandos, Sally is technically the “stay-at-home” mother of two. Yes, you do see the typical 1950’s gender roles here, but while Sally’s role is initially more supportive I did not see her as subservient to Johnny. She takes an active role in the investigation, and her observations and insights are valuable to the solving of the case.

Hamilton creates quite a few red herring via her suspects. Teddy, the errand boy and potential prankster who’s dislike of Morningside is apparent; Michael Knox, a volatile Irishman with a habit of withholding answers; Serena, Morningside's former fiancé; the fastidious Miss Quimper who argues with Morningside; as even Toby, who seems to have more than a boss’s interest in Serena.

While the plot started out slowly, with Sally and Johnny merely observing the office and its occupants, it picked up quickly and moved swiftly through to a very satisfying conclusion. In addition to the mystery, it was really intriguing to get an insight into the way newspaper cuttings and photos were handled before computers

Answer in the Negative is a delightful, entertaining read. As I stated earlier this is one of four crime novels written by Hamilton. I for one am hoping that Agora prints the remaining three books quickly!

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Some of the other reviewers have indicated that they find the whole premise of this book to be cloying at best. I don't find it to be so, and, in fact, I enjoyed the pure escapism the author offered. The protagonist household circumstances aren't anywhere near reality, and that's okay with me since this is a work of FICTION. I personally like to b reminded of a time when not every female in the world felt they had to have an outside job in order to feel that they were contributing the their family and society as a whole.

Anyway, the story itself is fun. The pace isn't too slow, and there is a sort of twist at the end. I admit that I had it figured out before the actual denouement, but I still enjoyed reading until the end. The book was originally released in the 1950s, and it's great to have a husband-wife sleuthing team from that era solving a murder (or two...). I plan to read more by Henriette Hamilton, an author I had not know about until I came across this book. Try it out - you won't be disappointed.

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A very good classic British mystery set in post WWII. The characters are well developed, with a compelling storyline, even if at times it gets bogged down in too much detail.

The story centers around a business, which specializes in old photograghs and news clippings, A fascinating look into a very obscure and unknown type of business, yet extremely important to the newspapers.

The author has created a delightful and entertaining mystery with twists and turns. The atmosphere of this story is intriguing. The mystery flows for the most smoothly with a few detours.

I want to thank Agora Books and Net Galley for this advance copy.

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I'm a sucker for mid-war British women writers, and although this one is a little later, I'm so happy the publisher is bringing these titles back. Easy to get lost in, it's a light fun read with nostalgia that will transport you to another time if you let it. Fun little mystery-- not too complicated, but entertaining. Easy easy read. YAY for re-issuing!!

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