Mystery Review: Crossed Skis is the perfect book for that mystery-loving skier in your life, while still accessible to non-skiers. Part of the excellent British Library Crime Classics series, the story bounces back and forth between the initial investigation in London and the holiday celebrations of the 16-strong British skiing party in Austria, until the two lines converge in a worthy climax. In Crossed Skis Carnac eagerly shares her vibrant enthusiasm for the sport while providing intense and detailed descriptions of the discomforts of traveling across the Continent, the difficulties of changing money, and the restrictions posed by the occupied countries of Cold War Europe and the recent iron curtain. There's a persistent undercurrent of dislike for foreigners and the Irish in particular (exemplified by the single Irish member of the party) come in for heavy slagging with nary a mention of 800 years of oppression. The mystery aspects of Crossed Skis are a well done police procedural with an interesting discussion of profiling the perp. On the other hand, there are too many characters to follow comfortably (I gave up) and the number of suspects soon becomes unwieldy. This is my second book by the highly prolific Edith Caroline Rivett (1894-1958), better known as Carol Carnac or E.C.R. Lorac among other pseudonyms. One small note, "skiing" is written as "ski-ing" throughout suggesting that an accepted spelling for the growing sport hadn't yet been established. [3★]
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