Elspeth Huxley

Elspeth Huxley

Elspeth Huxley is best known for her excellent work THE FLAME TREES OF THIKA that described her childhood growing up on a coffee farm in Kenya.

When she was 5, her family moved to Kenya, taking possession of a 500-acre coffee farm that her father Major Grant had bought on a whim in the bar of a Nairobi hotel. They arrived on an ox cart, worked full time on the plantation and had major swings in financial fortune. She began her illustrious writing career of about 30 books with three excellent mysteries after one book about Lord Delamere and the settlement of Kenya.

Murder at Government House (1937)

This was an exploration into the social and political machinations of Kenyan politics during the empire, when there was talk of joining colonies under one administration. This story involved interesting characters, the sometimes oddball, sometimes absolutely correct characters who lived and governed in Kenya before independence. Elspeth Huxley wrote a mystery based on her knowledge of Kenya and its inhabitants, and the machinations of the society. She called the country in her stories Chania.

Murder on Safari (1938) involved wealthy colonizers at play in Chania (Kenya) during the bad old days. "Great white hunter" Danny de Mare persuades CID Superintendent Vachell to join Lord and Lady Baradale's safari when someone steals the lady's jewels from the portable safe in her tent. Posing as an extra guide, Vachell observes members of the party closely, finding no clues although he has several suspects: a titled "pansy," Sir Gordon Catchpole, whose engagement to flighty Cara was arranged by the Lady Baradale, her stepmother; Cara's preferred lover, fired for his attentions to the girl. Even her father is under suspicion, but not lovely Chris Davis, attached to the safari as an aviator (a character clearly influenced by famous Beryl Markham).

Death of an Aryan [UK]; The African Poison Murders [US] (1939) takes place in the exotic, pre-World War II country of Chania, East Africa. Policeman Vachell stays on the farm of the next-door neighbors of the universally detested German, Karl Munson, in order to keep an eye on him. While there, Vachell hears and witnesses evidence of nocturnal animal mutilations and falls for the wife of his host. A day later, he must investigate the death of Munson. Munson had a reputation as a womanizer; he'd made a strong play for Janice West of the farm next door. He also virtually disinherited his wife and children and may have been a blackmailer.