A Blunt Instrument is a 1938 murder mystery novel by Georgette Heyer.
Ernest Fletcher is found bludgeoned to death in his study. The police are baffled, firstly because he was popular with everyone and secondly because the witnesses' statements about the time of the murder are irreconcilable. Four suspects are immediately obvious: the woman Fletcher was blackmailing, her husband, Fletcher's nephew, and the ex-boyfriend of an actress Fletcher had an affair with. The first three are ruled out after questioning. The fourth is found dead, murdered in the exact same way as Fletcher...
Contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Fletcher is originally portrayed as a nice old guy. However, it soon turns out he's a Dirty Old Man, which explains why he was killed.
- As the Good Book Says...: Glass gets on everyone's nerves by quoting the most depressing verses from the Old Testament. Neville and Hemingway have some fun by quoting it back on him.
- Covers Always Lie: This cover
◊. Nothing like this scene happens in the book. (Even assuming the woman is Angela, she's such a minor character that she doesn't warrant an appearance on the cover.) - Detective Mole: The local police constable who "found" the body, PC Glass, is the murderer, and the titular weapon was his police truncheon.
- Driven to Suicide: Angela killed herself by putting her head in an oven after Fletcher left her.
- Fair-Play Whodunnit: Might be intentional... but if not, Heyer was probably having an off day.
- Foreshadowing: Glass refuses to look at a photo of Angela and makes a gloomy prediction about her coming to a bad end. Other characters comment several times on his sanity or lack thereof.
- The Fundamentalist: Constable Glass, to his superiors' annoyance. And to a murderous extent.
- High-Class Glass: Sally wears a monocle. It's left ambiguous if she's actually short-sighted or just thinks it makes her look clever.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One early chapter includes some of the suspects thinking about how to get some IOUs out of a safe. Failing completely, they immediately lampshade the situation by pointing out how much easier it would be if they were all characters in a detective novel.
- Never One Murder: Everyone is trying to make sense of Fletcher's murder and its apparently-impossible timing. The police visit a suspected blackmailer who may have been at the scene of the crime, and find he's been murdered in the same way as Fletcher.
- Posthumous Character: Angela's photo is found among Fletcher's belongings. Angela herself died before the book starts.
- Repetitive Name: Angela Angel. Justified since it was a stage name. Her real name was the non-repetitive Rachel Glass.
