The Incredible Crime, Lois Austen-Leigh

The Incredible Crime takes place partly in the country and partly in Oxford, and mostly follows Prudence Pinsent, the daughter of the Master of Prince’s College. She’s a rather independent and strong-minded young women who takes care of her father and clearly has it in her to kick over the traces and do something truly scandalous one day. Meeting a friend by coincidence, he ends up confiding in her that there’s a drug problem — smuggling and sale of a really dangerous new drug, both in the estate of a relative of hers, and in Oxford itself. What follows are various red herrings, entwined somewhat questionably with a romance plot that came across as really outdated and unpleasant.

Suffice it to say that Prudence’s story is not solving the mystery, not figuring things out, not remaining the smart, strong-minded person who starts out the book — her character arc is to fall in love with someone who previously didn’t attract her, and to learn to “order herself meek and lowly” towards him, and understand him to be her superior and rightful master. No, seriously! There are aspects that are quite endearing — the guy in question is rather shy and unsure of how to court her, and gladly changes himself quite significantly in terms of personal grooming in order to attract her notice and to seem suitable for her. The changing for her is less cool, but the whole attitude he takes to it is rather sweet. But the way it plays out, with her learning to be humble because he’s so much greater than she is… Meh, meh, and meh again for good measure. Let’s skip it.

The mystery itself… you mostly worry about it resolving in a way that makes any of the nicer characters being at fault, rather than having much invested in the resolution of the mystery itself. The clues are fairly scarce and superficial; it doesn’t really work for me.

Rating: 2/5

The Hollow Man, John Dickson Carr

In The Hollow Man, some thinly characterised people try to work out a locked room mystery, probably less paper-thin than they seem for some readers since it’s actually the sixth or so entry in a long running series, but really not sufficient for someone just starting out. Various implausibilities are discussed, unlikely red herrings crop up, and in the end there’s a shocking reveal, the trick is explained, and no one of any consequence to the reader has changed or grown at all.

As a puzzle story, it’s not bad, but I don’t quite get the hype about John Dickson Carr if this is typical of his work. It feels like the story and characters are thin layers of papier-mâché covering what the author really wanted to do, which was just play with that puzzle. It’s not unusual for a Golden Age crime novel, but from the enthusiasm of other readers I assumed there would be more to it than this. I’ll probably try another book or so by Carr — series detectives like his Gideon Fell can be a difficult proposition, but other books not featuring this character might be okay (reader, I hate Poirot, but Agatha Christie is really not bad when you leave him out of it). This wasn’t bad, I just didn’t care.

Rating: 2/5

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, Carola Dunn

In this book, Daisy gets involved in a whole new kind of case — one that involves her with the police in America, along with whispers of corruption in the local government, vast amounts of gun crime… and a babysitter arranged for her while Alec is away to try and stop her getting into trouble. (Spoiler: he doesn’t succeed.) This is a very different setting for Daisy and it feels much less cosy, because she’s in a lot more genuine danger at times.

At the same time, there’s a whole section of the book that finally picks up on Alec having been a pilot, featuring an air chase across the US. Pretty epic stuff.

I feel like the this book was somewhat lacking because it has so few familiar characters. Ms Genevieve/Eugene Cannon is pretty awesome, a now-retired former crime reporter who wrote under a male pseudonym for acceptance, but otherwise I missed Daisy’s friends and family, and Alec’s team at the Yard. I’m quite, quite ready for Daisy to be home now. I worried about this series getting too formulaic for me, but with more variation in the background, I missed some of the more routine characters.

I just wish Daisy would go ahead and become a PI, honestly. At least that would put a figleaf over the glaring fact that nobody accidentally finds so many corpses!

Rating: 3/5

Death at Bishop’s Keep, Robin Paige

Death at Bishop’s Keep follows mostly two characters: the first one being Kathryn Ardleigh, a thoroughly modern and independent American lady, and the second being Sir Charles, an English gentleman with an interest in… well, all kinds of things, from murders to mushrooms. It opens with Kathryn, though, as she’s offered a job with her heretofore unknown British aunt, and travels across to England in order to become her secretary. She quickly finds that though the situation sounds ideal — with a generous salary — she has two aunts, one of whom is repressive and cruel, and plans to treat her like a servant instead of as family. All is not well in the household, as it’s clear that her Aunt Jaggers has some kind of hold over her Aunt Sabrina, and disapproves of the work Sabrina has employed Kathryn to do.

Meanwhile, Sir Charles finds himself investigating a murder, since the local police seem unlikely to do anything about it. Between that and neighbourly visits, he finds himself thrown into Kathryn’s company a lot. They don’t quite investigate together, but their paths keep crossing, and when Kathryn’s aunts both die violently of poisoning, Charles finds himself eager to help Kathryn discover exactly what happened.

The best thing about the book is the possibly too anachronistic Kathryn, who also happens to be a writer of lurid short stories (which is her motivation for getting involved in any trouble or intriguing situation she can — she mines it for her books!). The writing is mostly workmanlike rather than particularly exciting, and the solution to the mystery was pretty obvious from the moment a certain plot element was introduced.

Nonetheless, it was a fun enough read — though not one where I’m eager to read the rest of the series. Part of that is because I’m told Sir Charles becomes the main character to a greater degree, and part of it is that there was just something fairly pedestrian about this in the end. Kate’s an interesting character, but not in the same way as my other favourite mystery heroines. If the other books are on Kindle Unlimited, I might pick them up sometime, but I’m not in a hurry.

Rating: 3/5