White Mischief

White Mischief by James Fox, 288 pages

January 1941.  While German bombs fell on England, a very different act of violence took place in the British colony of Kenya.  Josslyn Hay, the Earl of Erroll, was found murdered in his car on the road leading away from the home shared by his lover and her husband.  Said husband was swiftly arrested, but eventually acquitted of the crime, which came symbolically to mark the end of a wild, hedonistic era in the colony's history.  The question of who had actually killed Erroll, and why, remained unanswered for decades despite widespread curiosity and an in-depth investigation by the journalist and critic Cyril Connolly.

James Fox worked closely with Connolly during that investigation.  His account of the goings on amongst the British colonists may not have much in the way of literary merit, but it is fine journalism.