White Mischief

Rating:
Summary: "Mystery and scandal in high places are always good copy"
Review: "White Mischief", written by James Fox, is the story of the unsolved murder of Lord Erroll. Josslyn Hay, the 22nd Earl of Erroll was discovered dead on the morning of January 24th, 1941. He had been shot. Although a trial was conducted, no one was ever convicted for the crime, and the murder remains, officially, unsolved. Forty years after the murder, author James Fox painstakingly pieces together transcripts from the trial, and testimony of witnesses in an attempt to both explain and solve the crime.

Erroll was murdered in Kenya, and a large portion of the beginning of the book concentrates on establishing the atmosphere in Kenya in the late 30s. It was a wild place--well at least it was a wild place for the British expatriates who were whooping it up in the area known as "Happy Valley." British nobility gathered in this area of Kenya--building splendid palaces, throwing endless parties, and engaging in appallingly bad behaviour. Most of the British expatriates were there for a reason--sometimes scandal and divorce drove them from the shores of England, and to the less inhibited social whorl of Kenya. Sometimes British upper-class families despaired of a son's relentless gambling habit, and so he was banished off to Africa. Whatever the reasons, and there were many, a certain 'type' gravitated towards Happy Valley. And there, various degenerates led unleashed, uninhibited lives.

These uninhibited lifestyles resulted in morphine addictions and an endless array of extra-marital affairs for the upper-crust loungers who bestirred themselves once in a while to go off and shoot an elephant or two. For those who couldn't conform to British society, Happy Valley was a sort of paradise--and one was limited only by one's personal resources.

Many people thrived in this Happy Valley bohemia, but many did not. The Earl of Erroll was one of those who thrived. He was a known philanderer who delighted in deceiving husbands. No doubt he made many enemies along the way, and while women adored him, and men enjoyed his company, someone hated him enough to kill him.

The story behind the crime is excellently and meticulously researched. The background story of Happy Valley's society is fascinating stuff. It's absolutely riveting, and the build up to the murder is rather tense. Every little piece of background information is slotted into place. All the puzzles are solved. Most of the characters are a dissolute, bored, destructive lot--certainly no one 'deserved' to be murdered (although one may feel a certain astonishment that there was only one victim). The degree of wonder remains in the fact that a nobleman was bumped off. Would this have happened in England? I doubt it. Kenya, for the decadent British ex-patriates who took up residence, was a peculiar paradise, and this was a unique time. While the author does a simply marvelous job of recreating the atmosphere of the times, there is no great revelation here as the crime and the murderer are unmasked. Everything is an inevitable foregone conclusion, and the book's strength is found in its successful re-creation of a peculiar time and place--displacedhuman


Rating:
Summary: A real-life mystery with all the intrique of Agatha Christie
Review: Fox does an outstanding job in researching the murder of Lord Erroll in compiling this book, which reads like an Agatha Christie mystery. The first half of the book looks at the actual murder of Lord Erroll in Kenya in 1941. This has all the elements of a good mystery -- money, luxury, pride, sex, jealousy, etc. The second half of the book is an intricate examination of the evidence and Fox's own investigation into the murder mystery. Although one might wonder while reading this how Fox will "solve" his mystery, he presents his material in such a way that will keep the reader turning pages.

Rating:
Summary: Aristocratic Decadence in Africa
Review: If you ever had any royalist sentiment -- or harbored a feeling that British aristocrats are superior beings -- this book should cure you. The characters of "White Mischief" are about the most disgusting and useless bunch of parasites that can be imagined.

"White Mischief" is about a murder in colonial Kenya in 1941 and the people who were involved in the case. The murderee was Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Errol, and the accused murderer was Sir John Henry Delves Broughton. This book is an examination of the free and easy "Happy Valley" society that both belonged to, a recapitulation of the trial, and an examination of the evidence. The author's investigation, carried out over decades, includes interviews with people connected with the case, including the loathsome Diana, wife of the accused murderer and mistress of the murderee -- and a strong candidate among others to be the mastermind of the affair. (As this book, although non-fiction, is something of a murder mystery, I won't spoil it by revealing the author's conclusions as to who killed Lord Errol.)

It's a crackin' good story, set in the splendid "White Highlands" of Kenya. To me "White Mischief" is also a cautionary tale of what happens when a privileged minority is allowed to run wild.

Smallchief

Rating:
Summary: Amazing true story of decadence and murder in Kenya.
Review: James Fox takes the reader into the world of 1941's Happy Valley crowd of Nairobi, Kenya to explore the murder of of Jossyln Hay, Earl of Erroll. The Earl, better known as Joss, was a member of the upper-class enclave of English colonials living in Kenya at the time of WWII. A lady's man, Joss Hay, like many of the Happy Valley set, ignored the "rules" of society, and indulged himself with who ever caught his eye, married or not. He was found, on the morning of January 24, shot through the head, in a car near Happy Valley. This account of a true story, resurfaces all the decadence and indulgence that is a major force of history of Nairobi's colonial society. A suspect was brought to trial, but the case was never resolved. Mr. Fox, years later, examines the evidence of the trial, interviews survivors, and escorts the reader through the process of investigation to discover who really pulled the trigger and why. A riveting look at a pageantry of trash, this book reads like a superb mystery story.

Rating:
Summary: White Mischief: The Murder Of Lord Erroll
Review: This is a simply fascinating book for anyone interested in colonial Africa, murder mysteries and just plain good writing. The author James Fox, an erudite Eton graduate, does much more than simply describe the wild African setting, the fascinating murder involved and the absurdly decadent lifestyle of the characters involved. He also tracks the process of his research and the input of the quirky British author, Cyril Connelly who simultaneously studied the events at hand.

Fox uses the murder of man-about-town Lord Erroll as a backdrop to chronicle the deterioration of a British subculture in the early 1900's. While war was being waged in Europe, this group of moneyed and titled hedonists (who left their kiddies back home) lived a surrealistic life of partying, drinking, drugging and partner swapping. Such a detached lifestyle virtually requires a murder or two as a logical conclusion.

Although the accused, Lord "Jock" Delves Broughton, is aquitted in an African trial (with lots of perjury involved) Fox makes no secret of his opinion that Boughton was the culprit. That does not dampen the book one bit because it is the cast of characters and how they talk about each other that is the best part of the book. The only problem I had with Fox's ultimate theory is that he bases it upon an interview with an eccentric, elderly woman who was only 15 years old at the time of the crime. Although she claims the suspect confessed the crime to her immediately after its commission, she did not reveal that alleged fact to anyone until Fox interviewed her in the 1980's. As a legal professional, I find that kind of evidence inherently not credible. This woman had plenty of opportunity to reveal the alleged confession on many prior occasions and Fox's reasons for her failure to do so are a bit far-fetched.This slight criticism does not in any way demean the entire book however as the rest of Fox's research and conclusions based thereupon seem sound.

All in all, this is a fascinating book that is hard to put down. The peripheral characters such as Alice de Janze and Lord Soames are equally as intriguing as the main characters.

Rating:
Summary: White Mischief: The Murder Of Lord Erroll
Review: What a useless bunch these young and handsome Brits were! Ensconced in a valley in Kenya they named Happy Days during the '30s, they transformed what had been a laudable pioneering community less than 30 years before into a cesspool worthy of a Somerset Maugham play. Parties lasted for days, wife swapping was endemic, alcoholism and drugs were the norm and the motto was "Party On!"

The main surprise of Lord Erroll's murder, shot in the head while sitting in his car was that anyone cared enough, was passionate enough to carry out the dastardly deed. Lord Erroll was involved with the former Diana Caldwell, Lady Broughton. They had not been discreet, and it was an activity he had been perfecting for years. You could safely say adultery was the rule, rather than an aberration. Lord Broughton was arrested, tried and found not guilty. The evidence was flimsy, Lord Broughton was a calm and credible witness, and there it ended. The question was if Broughton wasn't the murderer, who was? The first half of the book acquaints us with the players and the crime. The second half is the sleuthing that the author and the late Cyril Connelly did to solve the crime thirty years after the fact.

The book is interesting and moves at a good pace. I had to smile at the author's obvious enchantment with Lady Diana. He finally met her when she was in her late sixties, and her charm was as potent as ever. The story has "movie" written all over it, and a highly successful film was made in the early '80s. My problem with the book is I never could mind much about either the suspects or the victim. They were all equally unlikable, so solving the crime was not compelling. Mr. Fox has done a good job of marshalling the facts and digging out the clues. He has me convinced his conclusion is the right one. If I only cared, I would be more enthused.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Decadent Dilettantes
Review: What a useless bunch these young and handsome Brits were! Ensconced in a valley in Kenya they named Happy Days during the '30s, they transformed what had been a laudable pioneering community less than 30 years before into a cesspool worthy of a Somerset Maugham play. Parties lasted for days, wife swapping was endemic, alcoholism and drugs were the norm and the motto was "Party On!"

The main surprise of Lord Erroll's murder, shot in the head while sitting in his car was that anyone cared enough, was passionate enough to carry out the dastardly deed. Lord Erroll was involved with the former Diana Caldwell, Lady Broughton. They had not been discreet, and it was an activity he had been perfecting for years. You could safely say adultery was the rule, rather than an aberration. Lord Broughton was arrested, tried and found not guilty. The evidence was flimsy, Lord Broughton was a calm and credible witness, and there it ended. The question was if Broughton wasn't the murderer, who was? The first half of the book acquaints us with the players and the crime. The second half is the sleuthing that the author and the late Cyril Connelly did to solve the crime thirty years after the fact.

The book is interesting and moves at a good pace. I had to smile at the author's obvious enchantment with Lady Diana. He finally met her when she was in her late sixties, and her charm was as potent as ever. The story has "movie" written all over it, and a highly successful film was made in the early '80s. My problem with the book is I never could mind much about either the suspects or the victim. They were all equally unlikable, so solving the crime was not compelling. Mr. Fox has done a good job of marshalling the facts and digging out the clues. He has me convinced his conclusion is the right one. If I only cared, I would be more enthused.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer