Tag: mysteries

Review 2332: The Circular Staircase

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Rachel Innes, a 40-some-year-old spinster who has raised her niece Gertrude and nephew Halsey, is persuaded to leave the city and take a house in the country near where they have friends. She leases a large house from the Armstrongs, a banking family who are visiting California for their health.

Miss Innes arrives first with her servants and passes a comfortable night. However, the next night she and her servant see a face at the window and later on hear noises as if someone has broken in, although the windows and doors remain locked.

Gertrude and Halsey arrive with a friend, Jack Bailey, who is a clerk at the Trader’s Bank in town. That night, there is another disturbance. This time, an intruder is shot to death at the bottom of the circular staircase. He is Arnold Armstrong, the estranged son of the house owner, who should not have had a key. If that’s not bad enough, both Halsey and Jack have vanished. Right about this time it becomes known that the Trader’s Bank has failed because someone has stolen millions of dollars of securities. Suspicion has fallen on Paul Armstrong, the bank president, but maybe also on Jack, to whom Gertrude is engaged.

The house now becomes the target of a series of mysterious intrusions. Strangers appear on the grounds, noises are heard in the house, holes appear in the walls of an unfinished ballroom. Miss Innes runs up against someone on the staircase in the dark, and the events continue even with police guarding the house.

It’s not hard to guess why people are trying to break in, especially after Paul Armstrong dies in California, leaving an unexpectedly small estate. But Rinehart keeps the action going with lots of perplexing incidents.

The novel is engagingly written and moves along quickly. There isn’t much character development here, but that’s not to be expected from a thriller from 1908. However, we like Miss Innes and we also like Mr. Jamieson, the police detective who gradually lets Miss Innes in on the investigation.

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Review 2331: Skeletons in the Closet

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A quote by Frederick Méziès on the cover of my edition of Skeletons in the Closet says, “Writing so dark it gives a new meaning to the word noir.” The novel was written in 1976, a bit after the height of French film noir, and it is certainly violent, although probably not as shocking to modern readers.

Eugene Tarpon is a private detective whose office is next to his bedroom. He only has one client when one of his contacts in the police department sends him an old lady, Mrs. Pigot. Her daughter, Philippine Pigot, has disappeared. She left for work one day and never arrived. Further, she is blind.

Tarpon’s contact, Coccioli, has strongly hinted that he shouldn’t actually look for Philippine, but he does. The next day, Mrs. Pigot arranges to meet him in a public square, and she is shot to death before his eyes. Soon, people are trying to kill him.

This novel is dark; nevertheless, there is a certain lightness and humor about it. Manchette is credited with redefining the noir genre for social criticism, but although there is certainly corruption going on, that theme is not so stressed in this novel.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2329: The Warrielaw Jewel

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I have read a few novels by Winifred Peck, so I was intrigued to learn she had also written some mysteries.

Betty Morrison is the newly married wife of an Edinburgh lawyer, John. She accompanies her husband on a call to the Warrielaws, an old family whose members are constantly feuding. The most recent dispute concerns the fairy jewel, a chunk of amber said to be given to an ancestor by a fairy and subsequently encrusted in jewels. Jessica Warrielaw, the old lady who was left the estate, hadn’t spent a penny on its upkeep but instead has been selling off treasures and giving the money to her nephew Noel. Shis is planning on selling the fairy jewel.

Jessica’s sister Mary as well as the other potential legatees are horrified by this. Mary, who lives with Jessica in shabby rooms divided in half by physical markers, wants the jewel to stay in the family as does niece Cora. Niece Rhoda, on the other hand, would like money to start over in America. She is horribly managing and makes the life of weaker Aunt Mary miserable. Other potential heirs are Neil, of course, and Rhoda’s much younger sister Alison.

First, there is an odd incident at the house that seems like a break-in except nothing is missing. Then Jessica leaves for London, presumably to sell the jewel—and isn’t heard from again. John, as trustee of the estate, finally hires Bob Stuart, an ex-police detective and friend, to find Jessica.

Weeks later Jessica is found dead, not in London but in the estate’s dilapidated stables. The jewel is nowhere to be found. Was Jessica murdered? How did she get back home when Betty herself saw her on the train to London?

As is often the case with mystery novels of the period (1933), this novel is more concerned with the puzzle than characterization. However, several characters do have strong personalities. The plot is rather slow moving, and once or twice just when things were getting exciting, Peck drove me crazy by inserting a several-page description. However, I liked Betty and though the novel was entertaining.

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Review 2326: Fear Stalks the Village

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Joan Brook has been working as companion for Lady D’Arcy, a woman suffering from dementia, when she is visited for the day by a friend from London. The village where Joan lives is so perfect that her friend begins making up stories about the villagers’ dirty secrets.

It’s not too much later when Miss Asprey, a respectable old lady who is a social leader of the village, admits to having received an anonymous letter alleging a past of improprieties. The Rector tries to keep her admission a secret, but the word gets out.

Things seem to settle down except that some people believe that the letter was sent by Miss Corner, a hearty writer of boys’ books. This belief is based on the way the envelope was addressed, using Miss Asprey’s middle initial, which only someone who knew her as a girl would know. Then Miss Corner receives a similar letter. Almost immediately after, she accidentally overdoses with sleep medicine.

The Rector calls his old friend Ignatius Brown for help. The once perfect village is under a shadow. Rumors are going about that Dr. Perry poisoned Miss Corner because of an inheritance, so some people change doctors. He actually did benefit from her will, but he hasn’t received anything yet and is having difficulties because of his wife’s spending and his loss of income. Moreover, he misses Miss Corner, who was his only friend after the Rector, whom he thinks has been indiscreet. Ignatius thinks that the relationship between Miss Asprey and her companion, Miss Mack, has something odd about it.

The novel slowly builds an atmosphere of fear and mutual distrust as more letters appear. Perhaps too slowly. Although White is skilled at building tension, it takes a long time before anything more sinister happens.

The character of Joan is about the only likable one in the novel except for poor Miss Corner. The Rector, Joan’s love interest, is a bit neurotic for me as are most of the villagers. But White does do an excellent job of portraying psychological pathology.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2318: Elegy for April

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This third of Benjamin Black’s Quirke series begins with Quirke drying out in a clinic. In the city, his daughter, Phoebe Griffin, is worried about her friend, April Latimer, a doctor and the daughter of a powerful family. No one has seen April for some time, and although she has gone away before, Phoebe thinks she would have told her.

Phoebe first goes to Dr. Oscar Latimer, April’s brother, even though she knows April is estranged from her family. Oscar doesn’t seem interested and says April probably ran off.

Phoebe is beginning to believe that April is dead. After Quirke gets out of the clinic, Phoebe turns to him. He talks to his friend Inspector Hackett, and the police eventually find a cleaned up pool of blood next to April’s bed.

The Latimers seem to be more concerned about their family reputation than they are about April and use their connections to get the investigation shut down. In the meantime, Phoebe is falling for Patrick Ojukuru, a Nigerian student in the small group of friends that included April. When Quirke tells her a Black man was seen visiting April, Phoebe denies knowing of any Black man.

Quirke is falling off the wagon with a vengeance, but he continues looking into the case.

An investigator with a drinking problem is such a cliché, but otherwise I find this series set in 1950s Dublin to be well written and interesting.

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Review 2301: Someone from the Past

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I found Someone from the Past to be the best of the British Library Crime Classics I’ve read so far. It has a smart, feisty, occasionally indiscreet heroine, is fast moving, sometimes exciting, and presents an interesting, character-based mystery.

Nancy is at a restaurant about to receive a proposal from her boyfriend Donald when her estranged friend Sarah approaches the table. This approach creates some awkward moments, because Donald was the last in a string of Sarah’s lovers and didn’t take her departure well. Finally, he leaves the table so the women can talk.

Sarah tells Nancy she is about to marry a wealthy man, Charles. Then she says that someone has been writing her letters threatening her life. As Nancy is a reporter and knows all the suspects—Sarah’s discarded boyfriends—Sarah asks her to try to find out who is writing the letters. She says she’ll send her one of them in the morning.

Nancy’s evening ends poorly, with Donald stomping off. But the next morning, he arrives at her flat, confused and frightened. He tells her he went to see Sarah in the early hours of the morning and ended up falling asleep in the sitting room. When he awakened shortly after eight, he found Sarah murdered in her bed. He is sure the police will think he did it.

To protect Donald, Nancy lets herself into Sarah’s apartment and tries to remove all traces of his visit. In doing so, she notices some odd things about the scene. Unfortunately, when the cleaning lady arrives, Nancy puts the chain on the latch instead of hiding or going out another way so it was obvious someone was in the flat.

Shortly after she arrives home, the police are at her door. They think she killed Sarah, partly because she left her own fingerprint in the apartment and because the cleaning lady recognized her when Nancy met one of Sarah’s other lovers in a pub before going home. Nancy thinks the only way to clear herself and Donald is to figure out who did it herself. The list of suspects consists of Sarah’s last four lovers, including Donald.

Nancy finds she isn’t very good at lying to the police, keeping secrets, or fleeing the country, but she is good at figuring out clues. I’m not so sure she’s that good at picking future husbands, though.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2270: Fractured

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Fractured is Slaughter’s second novel featuring Will Trent, the dyslexic detective from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

When wealthy Abigail Campano returns home early from her lunch date, she finds the window by her front door smashed and her teenage daughter lying dead at the top of the stairs with her apparent attacker standing over her holding a knife. In the resulting struggle, Abigail and the man with the knife both fall downstairs, and Abigail manages to kill him.

The Atlanta police have trampled all over the crime scene before Will Trent arrives to determine whether the GBI should be involved in the case. It’s Will who discovers the young man had been stabbed before Abigail arrived and was trying to help the girl. Then Paul Campano arrives and realizes the girl is not his daughter Emma at all but probably Kayla, her best friend.

Unfortunately, Will grew up with Paul in a children’s home. Paul was a bully then and is extremely aggressive now.

The Atlanta police are taken off the case, but Will’s boss attaches Faith Mitchell from the APD to work with Will. It takes him a while to realize that she is the granddaughter of a woman who was forced to retire after Will caught six of her APD officers stealing drug money.

The case becomes a kidnapping case, beginning with a search to identify the dead man. The Campanos have never seen him before. What was he doing in their house and where is Emma?

This novel is another exciting entry in this well-written and carefully plotted series. Will is an interesting character, and Faith begins to respect his abilities.

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Review 2259: The Dry

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I had some problems with the only other book I’ve read by Jane Harper, but I thought I’d try The Dry, her first and most acclaimed novel.

Aaron Falk, an Australian Federal agent, has returned to his home town for the first time in 30 years. Even though he is returning for the funeral of Luke Hadler, his childhood best friend, he probably would not have come if he hadn’t been urgently summoned by Luke’s father, Gerry.

Falk’s return is not warmly welcomed. When he was 16, one of his close friends, Ellie Deacon, was found drowned, with foul play suspected. A piece of paper with his last name on it was found in her room, and both he and his father were harassed until they left town.

The finding in the current crime is that Luke shot his son and wife and then himself over despair at the impending failure of his farm. The drought has gone on so long that many farmers have failed and along with them, most of the local businesses. The town is a shadow of its former self.

Gerry doesn’t believe his son shot his family. He wants Falk to stay a few days and investigate. Falk reluctantly agrees.

When he begins investigating, he finds that the local cop, Sergeant Raco, thinks some things were missed in the original investigation, which, since he was new in town, was conducted by the police from the nearest large town. Falk and he begin working together despite the local hostility toward Falk.

While he is at it, Falk also tries to find out what might have happened to Ellie. Are the two events related?

This novel was nicely plotted, with believable characters. The setting was so effectively described that at times I felt I could feel the heat and the town under pressure from the environment, old hostilities, and an unthinkable crime.

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Review 2257: The Tenant

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I’ve given up or finished a few mystery series lately, so I thought I’d try the first Kørner and Werner series by Danish author Katrine Engberg.

An older man who lives in an apartment building in downtown Copenhagen is surprised to find the door open in his downstairs neighbors’ apartment, occupied by two young girls. When he tries to investigate, he falls over the body of one of the girls, Julie Stender, who has been gruesomely murdered.

For Detective Jeppe Kørner, this is his first important case since his breakdown after his divorce. To identify the victim, he and Anette Werner turn to Esther di Laurenti, the owner of the building who also resides there. She knows both the girls, but Julie was kind of a pet of hers. Esther has another young friend, Kristoff, her music teacher.

The police discover that Esther has been writing a murder mystery and she has used Julie as a model for the victim. Further, the murder is very much as described in the book. Only Esther and her writing group are supposed to have access to her draft.

I finished the book because I wanted to see how it came out, but what stood out almost immediately was the mediocre writing. When Engberg introduces each character, she tells a bunch of things about them, kind of a clumsy approach. Then there are lots of clichés, odd word choices, and inept metaphors. Part of this could be the translation, of course. One passage that I marked, a saying that Jeppa’s mother used, was “When you love someone, the callousness moves from your heart to the palms of your hands.” What does that even mean? Is callousness even the intended word?

As far as characterization goes, we learn a lot about Jeppa, but not so much about anyone else. In fact, I was taken aback by how over-the-top everyone was acting, with the police team snapping at each other all the time. It reminded me of the French mystery series Murder In that my husband and I have been watching, where I couldn’t decide whether everyone was overacting or they were just being French. (Just kidding. I have lots of French friends.)

Finally, the payoff was supposed to be weird, but it also seemed completely unlikely. I don’t think I’ll continue this series.

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Review 2252: #1962 Club! A Murder of Quality

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The second book I chose for the 1962 Club is A Murder of Quality, the second George Smiley novel. I found it surprising because all the other George Smiley novels I’ve read have been espionage novels, and this one is a straight mystery.

George Smiley is retired when he is summoned by his old colleague, Miss Brimley, now the editor of a Christian magazine. She tells Smiley she would like him to investigate a letter the magazine received from Mrs. Rode, whose family are great supporters of the magazine. In the letter, Mrs. Rode claims her husband is trying to kill her. Smiley agrees to look into it, but the next day they learn that Mrs. Rode has been brutally murdered.

Mr. Rode is a tutor at a prestigious boys’ school, Carne, with a high church atmosphere. Smiley attends Mrs. Rode’s funeral pretending to be a journalist from the magazine. He finds out that though both Rodes belonged to a Baptist chapel when they arrived, Mr. Rode has converted to the English church and has been trying to fit in with the school staff, while Mrs. Rode did not. Mrs. Rode appears to have been deeply involved in chapel charitable activities.

The police are searching for a homeless woman named Jane. When Smiley goes to look at the crime scene, he meets Jane, who tells him she saw the devil fly away on silver wings.

The solution to the murder relies heavily on Smiley’s ability to understand his suspects’ characters. The novel is an interesting character study and a plunge into the school’s secrets.

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