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    Murder in the Telephone Exchange
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    Murder in the Telephone Exchange
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    Murder in the Telephone Exchange
    Ebook531 pages8 hours

    Murder in the Telephone Exchange

    By June Wright

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    First published in 1948, when it was the best-selling mystery of the year in the author’s native Australia, Murder in the Telephone Exchange stars feisty young operator Maggie Byrnes. When one of her more unpopular colleagues is murdered her head bashed in with a buttinski,” a piece of equipment used to listen in on phone calls Maggie resolves to turn sleuth. Some of her coworkers are acting strangely, and Maggie is convinced she has a better chance of figuring out who is responsible for the killing than the rather stolid police team assigned to the case, who seem to think she herself might have had something to do with it. But then one of her friends is murdered too, and it looks like Maggie might be next. Narrated with verve and wit, this is a whodunit in the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Daphne du Maurier, by turns entertaining and suspenseful, and building to a gripping climax.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDark Passage
    Release dateFeb 17, 2014
    ISBN9781891241963
    Unavailable
    Murder in the Telephone Exchange
    Author

    June Wright

    June Wright (1919-2012) published six crime mysteries in her native Australia between 1948 and 1966: Murder in the Telephone Exchange (1948), So Bad a Death (1949), The Devil’s Caress (1952), Reservation for Murder(1958), Faculty of Murder (1961), and Make-Up for Murder (1966). A seventh, Duck Season Death, was posthumously published in 2015.

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    Reviews for Murder in the Telephone Exchange

    3.5/5

    14 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      There are a few hints in the story about the time frame of this novel. It is set in Melbourne very definitely after World War One and very likely after World War Two, about the time of publication. The initial murder victim, Sarah Compton, is described as middle aged, and has been working at the telephone exchange since 1917. Many people have cause to hate her: she is greedy, grasping, and not above using people's secrets for blackmail.The setting is the manual telephone exchange in Melbourne where Compton works as a monitor or supervisor. Hundreds of people, mainly girls and women, work here in shifts. The twenty four hour exchange controls telephone traffic in Melbourne and between Melbourne and the country side and other Australian cities. All connections are facilitated by a telephonist, written dockets are kept detailing time and length of calls as well as numbers. The system means that each phone call leaves an extensive paper trail. Despite frantic activity at some parts of the day, the telephonists also have the opportunity to listen in on calls, and in rural towns switchboard operators are often the source of the latest news and gossip.I am just old enough to remember the time when not everyone had a telephone line to their house, when households shared 'party' lines, when you rang the operator requesting a number rather than dialing it yourself. At peak times there could be extensive delays in connecting calls, and even then there was a three minute limit on the length of the call.The Melbourne exchange was huge, employing hundreds, and so this means there are a large number of suspects for Compton's brutal murder. Maggie Byrnes sees herself as a bit of a sleuth, but she is young, and not much of a judge of character. With a misguided sense of loyalty she withholds information from the investigating police with the result that another of the telephonists dies, and then another. Maggie herself is attacked as the police close in on their main suspect.Despite a lot of muddying of the waters I managed to select the right candidate for murderer early on, but really wasn't sure of the motive. In the long run I thought the motive was a bit far fetched.An interesting novel which I thought needed a bit of editing in the last half. I thought the denouement was rather long winded and some of the final reasons given could have been released as clues earlier on. Not bad for a debut novel though.
    • 3/5
      This book was written in 1948 and is a period mystery set in the Melbourne Telephone Exchange. The heroine seems to believe she's Nancy Drew and sets to work to discover who murdered a colleague, all the while withholding vital information from the police in a very annoying manner.
    • 4/5
      I added this to my LGBT shelf, but be forewarned that one of the characters is only lowkey revealed as a lesbian -- this was written in 1948, after all -- though she does show up the whole book and it's hinted at a few times. It's not that subtle that someone paying attention would miss it.

      I've been wanting to read this for a few years now, but I've just never gotten around to it. Since Netflix's Cable Girls was such an utter disappointment, I thought I'd fill the drama-at-a-telephone-company hole in my heart. Needless to say, this was a delightful mystery. It's not quite up there with Dame Agatha Christie (who is?), but I agree it's very Dorothy Sayers-ish. Despite it being written in 1948, it actually feels like a more modern story. The narrator, Maggie, is very pushy and something downright rude, but I found that that made her more likeable. Think Nancy Drew-come-Veronica Mars, only a twentysomething Aussie.

      There were some interesting swings to the mystery, as well as some surprising red herrings, though I can't say that the mystery was necessarily that complex. I had my inklings as to who the murderer was the whole time, but I would have never guessed the motive.

      I believe Wright was a pretty popular Aussie writer in her day (and surprisingly, she only just died in 2012!), and I would be interested to read more of her works.
    • 4/5
      When browsing mysteries I discovered this mystery by June Wright and was instantly reminded of the captivating drama titled "Cable Girls" that I watched last year on Netflix, set in Madrid in the 1920s sharing the story of 4 women working at The National Telephone Company. As I was reading the mystery I visualized the architecture of the building used for "Cable Girls" as the exterior and interior were quite exquisite.I would encourage every reader to enjoy the "Preface" to learn more about June Wright and I also found it rewarding to read the "Preface" again after enjoying the mystery. It came as no surprise that the author was once a telephonist at the Central Telephone Exchange in Melbourne. The intricate details that added the most intrigue were not only the mechanics of the operations but clearly understanding and conveying the "dance" of alternating shift schedules from daytime to nighttime as well as the individual that was designated to cover so coworkers could take their breaks to how the different personalities of women working together are reflected in how they respond to one another.The author's favorite detective novel was written by Dorothy L. Sayers so it is also no surprise that June Wright's first crime novel reflects the same writing style. There were a few times that I felt the mystery could have been shorter as I didn't need sleuth Maggie Byrnes to repeat the history of her "findings to date" when only a little tidbit of information was added. But it also became easy to gloss over as it was simply part of the author's portrayal of the character with this repetitive aspect of mulling things over to be part of Maggie's investigative technique to solve the various questions that would lead her to the answers needed for means, motive, and opportunity. After all, it was the author's first detective novel and therefore Maggie's first time as an amateur sleuth.