Overview

A true life account of a brutal murder that scandalized colonial Kenya, taking us deep into the decadent heart of British high-society and its imperial tensions. Just before 3am on January 24th, 1941, when Britain was preoccupied with surviving the Blitz, the body of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick, at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi, with a bullet in his head. A leading figure in Kenya's colonial community, the Earl had recently been appointed Military Secretary, but he was primarily a seducer of other men's wives. Sir Henry Delves Broughton, whose wife was Erroll's current conquest, had an obvious motive for the murder, but no one was ever convicted and the question of who killed him became a classic mystery, a scandal and cause celebre. Among those who became fascinated with the Erroll case was Cyril Connolly who joined up with James Fox for a major investigation of the case in 1969 for the Sunday Times magazine. After his death James Fox inherited the obsession and a commitment to continue in pursuit of the story both in England and Kenya in the late 1970s. One day, on a veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean, Fox came across a piece of evidence that seemed to bring all the fragments and pieces together and convinced him that he saw a complete picture...

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9780099766711

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Just before 3am on January 24th, 1941, when Britain was preoccupied with surviving the Blitz, the body of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick, at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi, with a bullet in his head. A leading figure in Kenya's colonial community, the Earl had recently been appointed Military Secretary, but he was primarily a seducer of other men's wives. Sir Henry Delves Broughton, whose wife was Erroll's current conquest, had an obvious motive for the murder, but no one was ever convicted and the question of who killed him became a classic mystery, a scandal and cause celebre. Among those who became fascinated with the Erroll case was Cyril Connolly who joined up with James Fox for a major investigation of the case in 1969 for the Sunday Times magazine. After his death James Fox inherited the obsession and a commitment to continue in pursuit of the story both in England and Kenya in the late 1970s. One day, on a veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean, Fox came across a piece of evidence that seemed to bring all the fragments and pieces together and convinced him that he saw a complete picture...

Two books in one, both good: an absorbing investigation of an unsolved 1941 murder in Kenya (the outgrowth of an article Fox co-authored with Cyril Connolly in 1969 for London's Sunday Times), and an intriguing portrait of pre-WW II colonial society in the White Highlands, where expatriate British nobs were suspended between English tradition and African customs, answerable. . . only to themselves. The center of the social scene was Happy Valley and the Muthaiga Country Club, a libidinous, drunken atmosphere of pink gins and sundowners, dancing till dawn, musical beds, and drugs. The populace included remittance men, con-artists, playboys, thieves, and libertines. And anything went; one well-known hostess delighted in having her guests watch her bathe and dress; a cuckolded aviator once took to the air to drop rocks on his spouse and her paramour as they motored across the plains; and evenings at the Muthaiga Club often ended in drunken brawls (in one of which the Prince of Wales threw all the gramophone records through the ballroom windows). A central figure in this landscape was Josslyn Hay, the Earl of Erroll, a twice-divorced indefatigable womanizer - To hell with husbands was his motto - found shot to death in his car one morning in January, 1941. Just prior to his death, Joss' attentions had been focused on Diana Broughton, the young second wife of Sir Jock Delves Broughton (she'd moved upscale from a bad first marriage to one Vernon Motion, second piano player for Carroll Gibbons and his Savoy Orpheans). Though there was evidence suggesting Jock had reconciled himself to Diana's affair with Joss - he even toasted their union at a chummy dinner the night before the murder - some other factors were incriminating: that recent bit of target practice, for instance, and that unusual bonfire in Jock's backyard. Tried for murder and acquitted (defense counsel picked apart the ballistics evidence), Jock never really recovered; his former friends cut him, Diana left him, and he took his own life. So who shot Joss Erroll? Building on his prior sleuthing with Connolly, Fox backtracks through 40 years to review likely suspects' whereabouts, doublecheck alibis, and, most interesting of all, interview surviving members of the Happy Valley set, including Lady Diana herself. Fox argues convincingly that the police were correct from the start - Jock did it - and it's a tribute to his skill as an investigator and writer that the end of his quest does not seem anticlimactic. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

James Fox was born in Washington DC in 1945 and educated in England. He worked as a journalist for the Sunday Times and the Observer in Africa and then in England, and has written for numerous other publications. His other books include The Langhorne Sisters and co-authorship of Life, Keith Richards' bestselling autobiography. White Mischief was made into a movie starring Greta Scacchi and Charles Dance.

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