Description
Murder in the Gunroom is a mystery novel by H. Beam Piper. The author is mostly known for his science fiction novels, this one being his only murder mystery and detective story.The story starts with the death of Lane Flemming, a well-known gun collector, found dead in his own gunroom, with a gun from his extensive collection of weapons in his hand. The coroner considers the tragedy to be death by accident, but the late collector’s wife suspects that his husband has been killed and hires Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand to catalogue Flemming’s collection and to investigate his death.Piper had no experience in creating murder mysteries, yet he created one of the masterpieces of the genre. The plot is eventful, full of detours and red herrings and the long descriptions about guns and gun collecting add even more spice to it (Piper was a gun collector himself, so these descriptions can be considered first-hand information). Character description is also great – Rand is a private detective every bit as ingenious and audacious as other, maybe more widely known investigators in such as Sherlock Holmes.Piper’s stories used to be very popular at the time they were published during the first half of the 20th century, but most of the author’s oeuvre has been lamentably forgotten since then, along with this gem. This is partly due to the author’s suicide in 1964 that made an abrupt end to his literary career, but fortunately more and more of Piper’s novels are rediscovered nowadays.Murder in the Gunroom hold a special place in piper’s work not only because it is the author’s only murder mystery, but also because it is one the very first novels by Piper and already foreshadowing his extraordinary, captivating and extremely well-written science fiction novels and short stories.
Product ID: 9781775429449
Sku: 5B-PTL1-XLWX
