The year is 1910 and Halley’s Comet is about to make its near-Earth approach, an astronomical phenomenon which takes place approximately every 75 years. Ross Montgomery, in his new book “The Murder at World’s End,” utilizes the timing of this phenomenon to construct his rather clever locked-room British murder mystery.
In rural England in the fictional location of World’s End, Halley’s Comet has created a chaotic scene inside the large mansion called Tithe Hall. The chaos is witnessed through the eyes of the protagonist, Stephen Pike, a young man who has been summoned to the mansion for a job. The book is written primarily in first person, with third-person paragraph chapters interspersed, often accompanied with assumedly actual comet-related newspaper clippings.
