Tag: mysteries

Review 2148: The Wintringham Mystery

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Stephen Munro has been living on a small legacy since he left the army, but the money has run out. Stephen has been looking for a job, but all he can find is a position as a footman in Wintringham. He finds he has nothing to offer the girl he’s in love with, Pauline Mainwaring.

When Stephen begins his position working for Lady Susan Carey, he finds his work is made more difficult because he knows some of the guests at a house party. They keep treating him as a guest rather than a servant. He is especially discomposed when Pauline appears, accompanied by Sir Julius Hammerstein, a financier who turns out to be Pauline’s fiancé.

Lady Susan lives with her niece, Millicent, and is often visited by Cicely Vernon, a favored daughter of a friend. Other guests include Freddie Venables, Lady Susan’s nephew and Stephen’s friend; Colonel Uffculme, a friend of Lady Susan’s; and other friends of Millicent. Later that evening, Cicely vanishes from the drawing room after playing a game where the lights are put out.

At first, it seems that Cicely is playing a prank, but when time passes and she doesn’t reappear, Stephen decides to figure out what happened. Odd events are going on in the house.

I found this novel to be clever and amusing. Lots of things are going on, and the mystery of what happened to Cicely is just one of them. Pauline makes an able fellow detective, and the characters are interesting and believable. This book was one of my favorites of the Golden Age novels I’ve been reading.

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Review 2147: Confidence

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Confidence revisits Anna and Fin, the two protagonists of Conviction, now working together on a crime podcast. Anna, who lived under an assumed name for years after her accusations of gang rape against members of a popular football team were met with disbelief and threats of violence, has had her new identity revealed and faces questions from her daughter about it. Fin, an ex-rock star with eating issues, is dating Sofia, a bitchy Italian woman who came out with the story in front of the girls during a horrible vacation together.

Anna and Fin get interested in a podcast by Lisa Lee, a Scottish girl who explores abandoned places. She breaks into a chateau in France that is decrepit and falling apart but full of dusty, beautiful things. In a secret room that she accidentally discovers, she finds a silver box, Roman, with an inscription that indicates that Pontius Pilate converted to Christianity. It is sealed shut.

Lisa belongs to a group whose motto is “Take nothing and leave nothing,” but it gets about that the box is missing from the room. Soon, Lisa goes missing too, having gone to the door when a pizza arrived and then vanished. Fin decides their next project will be to find Lisa.

When they look into the history of the box, they find it was discovered in a plot in Cold War Hungary that a girl was clearing to plant a garden. After she and her mother consulted with their priest, Eugene Lamberg, she apparently sold it but then was murdered, presumably by the Hungarian secret police. Since then, every person who had the box was murdered until the box disappeared.

Anna and Fin’s search for Lisa is co-opted when they meet Bram VanWyk, a South African antiques dealer and confidence man. He needs to find the box to trade it for a small Monet painting that he stole, apparently from someone he is scared of. He is traveling around with his eleven-year-old son Marcos, whom he just met.

This novel is like a fast-paced confidence shuffle where you never quite know what’s going on. Fin and Anna are likable protagonists and their investigation leads them in quite a dance.

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Review 2145: The Locked Room

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Just before the Covid lockdown in 2020, the attention of Harry Nelson’s team turns to an apparent suicide. Although they can’t find anything about it that points to murder, another “suicide” that is similar involves the bedroom door being locked from the outside. Harry tells his team to look at all recent suicides.

At the isolated three cottages where Ruth Galloway and her daughter Kate live, they have a new neighbor, a nurse named Zoe who seems disposed to be friendly. And speaking of the cottage, Ruth finds a photo of it in her mother’s things, which she is sorting. Ruth is surprised to find the photo, as her mother disliked the cottage. Then she realizes it is painted the wrong color and marked “Dawn 1963,” years before Ruth was born.

While Ruth is investigating the cottage’s past and Nelson’s team is looking for links between the apparent suicides of several middle-aged or older women, Covid hits and a lockdown begins.

Although several characters flagrantly break Covid restructions, this is another exciting entry in the series, featuring a new member on Harry’s team, several disappearing characters, a woman imprisoned in a locked room, a discovery about Ruth’s family, the possibility of Nelson leaving Michell, a threat to an important characters, and a true reflection of the difficulties of the lockdown.

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Review 2134: Back to the Garden

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I know that Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is very popular, but I didn’t go past the first one because it’s clear to me that Sherlock Holmes, in his original form, was meant to be a misogynist. However, I have very much enjoyed some of King’s standalone novels, which tend to be atmospheric and creepy. Back to the Garden appears to be a standalone, unless it is the first in a series.

Raquel Laing is an inspector for the San Francisco Police Department on medical leave and possibly in disgrace after her use of a shortcut resulted in her injuries. However, her old boss has asked her to work on an informal Cold Case team, which recently realized that some bodies might be related and that a fabled serial killer from the 1970’s might really exist. So far, the team has found the killer by his son’s discovery of a storage locker holding his trophies. He’s a dying old man named Michael Johnstone who claims a whopping 19 murders. And Raquel has made a deal with him. For every body they find, he’ll tell them where another is.

Over on the Gardener estate, a statue made by a now famous artist when the estate was a commune in the 1970s is falling over. When Jen Bachus, the estate manager, has a contractor in, he says the base must be replaced. In the base, they find old bones and blonde hair.

Blonde women buried in concrete are hallmarks of Michael Johnstone, so Raquel arrives at the Gardener estate to begin an investigation. San Matteo County’s lab is running behind because of a triple homicide, so they don’t know yet whether the bones are male or female, but Raquel begins going through the estate archive and questioning people to look for any link to Michael Johnstone.

The investigation is made more difficult by the estate’s vexed history. The two brothers who were originally heir to the estate grew up hating their grandfather and both left—Fort to an ashram in India and Rob to a commune in Oregon. Fort was written out of the will, but Rob inherited the estate. He tried to turn it down but was eventually persuaded to take it for the commune, which was being kicked off the Oregon farm. The Gardener commune survived for about four years before failing. Just before it failed, the statue was erected. Now Rob lives on the estate like a recluse while others run it.

The novel swings back and forth between the 1970s and the present time, slowly revealing its secrets. Although this one isn’t as atmospheric as King’s other standalone novels, it’s a puzzling and satisfying mystery.

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Review 2132: Death of Mr. Dodsley

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On his rounds, a young police constable encounters a drunken young man late one night. The man tells him he saw a door opened and closed by a cat, so after the man leaves, the constable goes ahead checking doors and finds the door to a bookstore open. When he looks into the store, he finds a man shot to death in the office. It’s Richard Dodsley, the owner.

Inspector Mallet’s team finds that someone, possibly two people, waited in the store while Dodsley was out and shot him when he returned late to work on a sale catalog. They also learn that a mystery was recently published by Margery Grafton, the daughter of a prominent politician, the circumstances of which closely match those of the murder. It seems more than a coincidence that Margery Grafton is keeping company with Dick Dodsley, the dead man’s nephew, who worked in the shop.

The police find that Dodsley hired a private investigator, MacNab, to find out who has been stealing rare books from his store. MacNab has not been successful, but he gets more closely involved when Margery Grafton hires him to find the murderer because she thinks the police suspect Dick.

Death of Mr. Dodsley does not present us with a super-complicated puzzle , which is a point in its favor. On the other hand, characterization isn’t super important and there are a few important characters that we see almost nothing of, such as Dick Dodsley, the prime suspect. MacNab himself is a fairly laid-back character, and at times the plot seems to be moving very slowly.

Although it’s possible to guess the murderer, there is a surprise at the end that I didn’t see coming. It’s also fun that British Library has been lately publishing these “bibliomysteries.”

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

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Review 2120: The Rising Tide

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Fifty years ago, a group of students attended a retreat at the urging of their teacher. They were so struck by it that they continued meeting every five years on Lindisfarne. This year, Rick Kelsall, a media star, finds himself in disgrace after one of his staff accused him of inappropriate behavior. He likes attention and the first night of the retreat, tells them all he’s writing a novel based on true events. During the night, he is murdered and left to look like a suicide.

Vera figures the most obvious suspects are the others there for the retreat—Philip, a wild boy turned Anglican vicar; Annie, a divorcee who works at a deli; Lou, who spends most of her time caring for her husband, Ken, stricken with Alzheimers; and Ken. In years past, there were three more participants: Charlotte, Rick’s ex-wife, who was bored by the retreat; Dan, Annie’s ex-husband; and Isobel, who was killed after she had a fight with Rick and drove off onto the causeway when the tide was coming in. Their teacher, Judith, was also at the first retreat.

Vera’s team turns up lots of intriguing information about the retreat participants and their connections. Charlotte, who had been a celebrity, now runs a failing spa. Dan, from a lower social class than the others, is now a wealthy resort owner. Vera is shocked to find out that his partner is Katherine Willmore, the Police and Crime Commissioner. Further, it was her daughter who made the allegation against Rick, which she has not revealed to Vera.

On the team, Holly and Joe are still feeling competitive, but they have started getting along better. And Joe has shown some independence from Vera.

Vera has a notion that the crime has some connection to Isobel’s death years ago. Then another person connected with the group is killed.

As usual, Cleeves has written another tightly plotted, clever mystery. However, for this one, I found the ending incredibly touching.

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Review 2117: Smoke and Mirrors

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Best friends Annie Francis and Mark Webster, aged 13, disappear on the way to the candy store. The search for them is disrupted by a snowstorm, so they’re not found for several days, in a shallow ditch with a trail of candy leading to it. DI Edgar Stephens thinks they were meant to be discovered earlier, but the snow prevented it.

The police find that Annie had written plays performed by younger children on a stage at the home of neighbor Brian Baxter. The early plays were innocuous, but by all accounts the latest is darker. Annie has shown an interest in the real German fairy tales with dark plot lines. Her newest play is called The Stolen Children.

Edgar’s friend Max Mephisto is performing in a pantomime in town, and through him, Edgar hears of a similar murder that took place in 1917. It seems an odd coincidence that some of the older pantomime performers were in town at the time. The murderer was caught and is dead, but could there be a connection?

Edgar gets a call from Daphne Young, a teacher who was helping Annie with her play, saying she’s discovered something. But she is also found murdered before he can talk to her.

I don’t seem to be getting as involved with the Brighton series, set in the 1950’s, as I have with Griffith’s Ruth Galloway or Harbinder Kauer books. However, I like the vaudeville theme and am willing to stick with it for a bit.

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Review 2112: The Creak on the Stairs

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Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has been with the police in Rejkyavik, moves back to her home town of Akranes after an end to a long relationship. Almost as soon as she arrives, there’s an unusual death—a woman’s body is found in the sea by an old lighthouse. Suicide and accident seem ruled out because the body was dragged there from the parking lot.

The body is identified as Elisabet Hölludóttir, a woman who had lived in Akranes as a child but was said to hate it. The investigators have difficulty finding out much about her, and even her husband seems to know little about her past.

The team’s investigation of the present doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but Elma becomes convinced that the murder has to do with Elisabet’s past. Her boss, Hörþur, doesn’t agree.

I am fairly sure The Creak on the Stairs is Ægisdóttir’s first book, and in some ways it shows. I found Hörþur’s behavior at times unbelievable, for example. Ægisdóttir seems to be trying to depict him as lackadaisical and too close to the community bigwigs, but in a country where murder is so unusual, there’s no way he would tell his staff to hold their progress reports until the next day because he needs to make a phone call or that he would go home early. Also, a woman refuses to go to the town where she was a child and then is found dead there. Of course the murder has to do with her past. It took them too long to get there.

Other than that, I found the novel interesting enough and liked the heroine. A surprise at the end of the novel made me think Elma was getting interested in her partner too soon, though.

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Review 2103: Kill Me Tender

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When I asked Dean Street Press to send me books for Dean Street Press in December, I felt that a mystery starring Elvis Presley might be clever and amusing. This was despite my usual dislike for mysteries using an actual person or someone else’s character as the detective. So, I asked for the first book in the series. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to post my review until now, so I missed the event.

Elvis is feeling strange and unfocused since he returned from his army service. He keeps an eye on his correspondence and is distressed to learn that the president of one of his fan clubs, a young girl, died of a heart attack. Also, someone has sent him a record of an Elvis impersonator singing one of his songs, only with the lyrics horribly changed. Then, he learns that another fan club president has died unexpectedly—and both girls had a red spot on their tongues. After a third death, Elvis begins to suspect that someone is killing off his fans. Elvis feels he must get to the bottom of this.

His investigation leads him to meet colorful characters—an uncredentialed doctor serving the Black community and his beautiful nurse, a whole room of Elvis impersonators, an expert on criminology, and a hippy-like jail resident who seems to be psychic.

The humor of this novel seems to be based in strange encounters and outrageous behavior, and it didn’t really work for me. Far from the witty maybe sharp novel I expected, it comes off as a fanboy tribute.

What bothered me more, though, was that while Klein obviously researched Elvis, he didn’t spend the same amount of time checking the accuracy of his memory of 1965. For example, a 14-year-old Southern girl of the time would be very unlikely to even know the language that one character uses. Elvis’s affair with a black nurse is also unlikely. But there is at least one downright anacronism—the use of the term “serial killer” ten years before it was coined.

Characterization is mostly one-dimensional in this novel except for Elvis himself. The rest of the characters are just being put through their paces.

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

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Review 2102: My Soul To Take

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A quote on the cover of My Soul To Take says that it is chilling, but apart from its grim subject matter, it is actually surprisingly light. Conversations and the tone of the second Thóra Gudmundsdóttir novel are often quite jokey.

In 1945, a man drops a small child into a freezing coal bunker to die. From a nearby farmhouse, someone sees him.

In the present time, lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir is contacted by her client Jónas Júlíusson, who has just built a New Age hotel from a remodeled farmhouse on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. He wants her to look into whether he can claim damages from the previous owners because of ghosts on the property. Thóra reluctantly agrees to come to the hotel to investigate.

Shortly after Thóra arrives there, Birna, the project’s architect, is found brutally beaten and raped on the beach. Thóra thinks that Birna was investigating something about the property. In any case, Thóra finds herself looking into her case because Jónas is a suspect. Thóra’s German friend Matthew, with whom she began a romance in the previous novel, joins her there. Just when it’s possible that the police might have believed the murder is unconnected with the hotel, another body turns up, that of the hotel aura reader.

As I said, this novel is surprisingly light in tone. Even more surprisingly is how it deals with Thóra’s children, who seem to be there only for light comic relief. Thóra’s 16-year-old son has made his girlfriend pregnant, and Thóra has left them and her younger daughter with her ex-husband. But she learns mid-case that her son, who doesn’t have a driver’s license, has left with his sister and pregnant girlfriend to drive to Thóra. On learning this, Thóra does nothing for several hours and then tells her ex where to pick them up. When, surprise, surprise, the children arrive the next day, Thóra basically ignores them. They have no apparent personalities except silliness and disobedience. It’s hard to understand why Sigurdardóttir even decided to make Thóra a mother.

One more very picky thing. At the opening of the novel, Thóra is dealing with a client who is having a dispute with the post office because the mail slot in his door is at the wrong height. The story is he bought a kit house from the States. But I’ve never seen a door for sale here with a mail slot already in it., and most people in the U. S. have mail boxes, either attached to the house or at the street. You seem to only see slots in old city neighborhoods on old doors. This just seems like an oddly wrong detail for her to have come up with.

I enjoyed the first book in this series but don’t think I’ll bother with the third.

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