Still Cackling
Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle edition (December 31, 2013) of the original Gollancz (UK) hardcover (1932).

One of the most frightful-looking old ladies—(according to William, of course)—that he’d ever seen. She was smallish, thin and shrivelled, and she had a yellow face with sharp black eyes, like a witch, and yellow, claw-like hands. She cackled harshly when William was introduced and chucked him under the chin, and then squealed like a macaw that’s having its tail pulled.

After getting over the shock of meeting Mrs. Bradley in Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley #1 - 1929) I was hesitant to try another book with Gladys Mitchell's singularly odd psychoanalyst detective. I was curious however to know whether Mitchell would have pulled back on her physical descriptions which had constantly emphasized the shrivelled features and claw-like hands. Jumping ahead to read book #4, The Saltmarsh Murders, proved that this was not the case, as can be read in the above extract. The shrieking laughter continues as well.

Mrs. Bradley is on the scene in the coastal village of Saltmarsh when a series of murders occurs. The book is narrated by the village curate Noel Wells who becomes Mrs. Bradley's Watson as the case progresses. Almost all of the odd features of the first book continue in this one. The case becomes enormously complex as aside from the murders it also involves various assaults and imprisonments, a disappearance, a smuggling operation, and mystery persons scrambling across roofs in the night. Mrs. Bradley explains it all in the end of course.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/The_Saltmarsh_Murders.jpg
The spine and the front cover of the original 1932 Gollancz (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

I discovered the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries by Gladys Mitchell from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Although Mitchell was a contemporary of such Golden Age of Crime Fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, I had never heard of her previously and she is the first of the "Forgotten" that I chose to investigate. All 66 Mrs. Bradley novels have been republished in eBook & paperback by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint in the recent years 2013 to 2018.

Trivia and Links
The Saltmarsh Murders was not adapted for television as part of the short-lived The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000) starring Diana Rigg as Mrs. Bradley (the casting of Rigg ignores Mitchell's description of the character). There is a delightful homemade tribute edit which uses clips from the series at Get the Party Started: The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries. ( )

As ever the books of Gladys Mitchell require a little adjustment if you are used to the more famous golden era writers*
However usually the writing compensates for the any effort, and Bradley is a sly, quirky, witty heroine, whom you like in spite of yourself.
However The Saltmarsh Murders is not a book that modern readers will warm to, or at least, I sincerely hope not. Between the deeply offensive racism, and I don't mean a casual of-its-time racism, I mean truly offensive even by the era descriptions of a Black manservant, his relationship to another character and the excusing of certain actions because of the "provocation" of race to a white community, from midway through made this a book I wouldn't recommend.
I know some people will happily read it, excusing it as "the period" attitude but personally I would sooner not leave these attitudes go unremarked or unchallenged.

*It takes a while to adjust to the style of the Mrs. Bradley series; certainly I find them unlike most of the other golden era offerings. The writing is superb, the settings range from melodramatic to classic (country house, quiet village etc.) but there are elements of gothic fiction not just in the plotting but in the characters. Mrs. Bradley is a grotesque if likeable figure. Her infuriating habit of explaining the crime away one way, only to renounce that explanation and explain it another way, coupled with her rather ungenerous habit of holding the cards too close to her chest for even the reader to see, can be irritating but the compensation of the witty, and atmospheric writing helps. ( )

Good plot, but a bit outdated. Tey and Marsh age a bit better. ( )

anti sex vicar's wife kills 2 women in small village, solved by Mrs. Bradley

The Saltmarsh Murders by Gladys Mitchell is the fourth book in her Mrs. Bradley series of murder mysteries. Originally published in 1932, this book felt more like a spoof on Agatha Christie than a full on mystery what with the odd characters and Mrs. Bradley’s rather off-hand approach to solving the murders. I did find some of the social issues that it raised rather outdated but the story is clever and the memorable characters, including that of Mrs. Bradley, made the book a fun read.

The book is narrated by the curate, Noel Wells, and through him we are privy to a number of village secrets and concerns. The vicar’s wife thinks that her ex-housemaid’s illegitimate baby was fathered by her husband. As the baby has been kept from public view, there are also rumors that the baby was fathered by a negro. When this young mother is strangled, her ex-boyfriend is arrested but most in the village don’t think he did it. Mrs. Bradley and Noel band together to try and figure out both who the father is and who murdered the young woman. Meanwhile another woman goes missing and upon Mrs. Bradley’s advice they find her body in the grave of the first murder victim which then gives them another murder to solve and a missing body to find.

The story takes many twists and turns with plenty of red herrings being thrown about. Mrs. Bradley is a larger than life character who uses psychology to solve her cases. There is no examination of a murder scene or intensive study of the victim, instead we are treated to assorted conjectures and witness statements that are pieced together and used to discover who the murderer is. ( )