Brief Mention: THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB, Agatha Christie-Style Update from Robert Thorogood

It's time to build up the summer reading stack -- and if you savor a good traditional British mystery with neat clues and a somewhat eccentric sleuth, then the newest from Robert Thorogood should top that heap of books by the hammock. THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB offers 67-year-old widow Judith Potts, who likes to skinny dip in the Thames at night and who hears an outcry and gunshot that signal the death of her riverside neighbor.

Potts is a regular creator of crossword puzzles, so she's good at puzzling out a clue. (She's also fond of a shot of whisky for any reason that comes to mind.) To sort out what's actually taken place next door, though, in her town of Marlow (UK), she recruits a local dog walker who knows a little about everyone who owns a dog in town and a few who don't. When she adds a third to this team, the careful but also very knowledgeable wife of the local clergyman, there's no stopping their investigation. Fortunately, unlike the situation in "cozy" mysteries, none of them need to marry, date, or seduce a police officer to hear them and collaborate -- because DS Malik, the investigating officer, is also female and swamped with three murder cases, and she definitely needs all the help she can call in.

Thorogood has a tidy track record of previous mysteries and is credited with creating the BBC TV show "Death in Paradise" (now running on PBS). He has a gift for the gently absurd, a comfortable pace, and a nice armful of clues and red herrings. Most of all, in THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB, it's the dialogue that adds delight, as with this interchange between DS Malik and Judith Potts. Malik is trying (without success) to shoo Judith off the case, and she begins:

"We don't know Mr. Dunwoody was murdered."

"Are you saying the bullet hole appeared in his forehead as if by magic?"

"Well, no, but we can't rule out that his death was a terrible accident. Or what if he did this to himself?"

"You think he committed suicide?"

"It's a possibility."

"Poppycock!"

DS Malik blinked in surprise. Had the woman in front of her just used the word "poppycock"?

For light entertainment in an updated traditional British mystery, THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB is a great choice. Just released by Poisoned Pen Press in America, a year after its British debut.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Book Within a Book, in MOONFLOWER MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz

[Originally published in New York Journal of Books]

“Moonflower Murders will be either adored or dreaded by readers, with no middle ground. Dare to open it if you’re ready to face both page length and puzzle solving.”

Moonflower Murders is a sequel to the noted Magpie Murders, and events follow from the earlier book. However, Anthony Horowitz gives plenty of guideposts for those entering the series at this point, as publisher Susan Ryeland is called back to England to deal with a mess created by her now-deceased author, Alan Conway. Conway’s fiction involved detective Atticus Pünd at a hotel clearly duplicating one where an owner is now missing and presumed murdered herself. And it all seems to result from the fictional crime and criminals, who are distorted versions of the “real” people at and around the existing hotel.

That should be adequate warning to readers that this is a puzzle mystery, one where the clues interlink and echo through two or more layers of narrative. Moreover, the book is a page-turner where suspense keeps ramping up, as various figures experience threats, and Susan agonizes over whether she could have prevented the whole mess. She has, in the past, tried to corral her author and get him to present a more logical and less malicious work. But as she soon enough discovers, all the perverse twists that Conroy inserted in his murder mystery are deliberate hints toward a real-life murderer who has already struck at the posh hotel, with an immigrant employee seized and convicted of the crime.

The missing British hotel co-owner, Cecily, worked out that the Romanian immigrant had been framed, and was about to pursue justice, when she abruptly vanished. And, of course, the closer Susan gets to figuring out means, motive, and opportunity for the real killer, the more risk she draws toward herself.

Once outside I found myself face to face with the nanny, Eloise … She was furious. In a way it was a repeat of what had happened that morning with Joanne Williams—yet this was different. The emotion coming from her was so strong, so pronounced, that I was actually quite shocked. …

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m a friend of the family. I’ve been asked to help.’

‘We don’t need help. We just need to be left alone.’ She had a French accent that belonged in an art-house film. Her eyes locked on to mine.

I brushed past her and walked back towards the hotel. When I was some distance away, I turned back to take a last look at the house. She was still there, standing on the doorstep, watching me, warning me not to come back.

In a surprising twist of the Moonflower Murders, the entire clue-laden earlier manuscript that triggered the latest death is inserted within the book—so, as readers discover, there are two books included here, for a giant total of 581 suspicion-packed pages. In the tradition of Agatha Christie, the characters are trapped together and the clues are abundant, but perhaps only Susan Ryeland has the motivation to assemble them all and dare to accuse the killer.

The book’s size recalls mysteries of an earlier age—such as a Wilkie Collins crime novel. And like Hercule Poirot, Susan Ryeland’s contribution to solving the crime won’t come from her daring as much as from her determination to solve the puzzle created by her own rather wicked former author.

Moonflower Murders will be either adored or dreaded by readers, with no middle ground. Dare to open it if you’re ready to face both page length and puzzle solving. It should also appeal to those who adored Stuart Turton’s The 7½ Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle. Ready, get set, solve the puzzle! 

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

 

How Peter Lovesey Launched His Crime Career: 50th Anniversary of WOBBLE TO DEATH

Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, releases on October 6 a remarkable new volume for Peter Lovesey's British police procedural series: a 50th anniversary collector's edition of WOBBLE TO DEATH, Lovesey's first crime novel, first published, obviously, in 1970.

The book introduces, eventually, the investigators Sergeant Cribb ("tall, spare in frame, too spry in his movements ever to put on much weight") and Constable Thackeray ("his assistant, a burly, middle-aged man with a fine grey beard"). But they appear almost halfway through the book. Instead of opening as a police procedural, the novel beings with the "Wobble" itself, a competitive British walking race drawing heavy betting in 1879, and held indoors in the Agricultural Hall. The levels of class antagonism as well as competitiveness and real need for the "purse" of prize money are deftly sketched out, and if the environment stinks of the farm animals who'd been there earlier in the month, it also presses a reek of nastiness and aggression among the racers.

Death, of course, is what brings in the constables. And there must be a solution to the case before the race ends at the end of the week, when all the participants—the obvious suspects—will depart.

This entertaining and snugly twisted crime investigation came as almost an accident in the author's life. His explanation, spilled at the end of the new edition, makes lively reading, too -- the book began as an entry for a "best first crime novel" competition held by Macmillan in London.

The thousand pounds [prize] amounted to more than my annual salary. My wife, Jax, pointed out that I'd already written one book already—a history of distance running—so why not another? And why not use my research into the sport to create a setting that would be wholly original? I couldn't at first see how running and crime could mix. Then I recalled the brutal "go-as-you-please" contests that had drawn huge crowed to the Agricultural Hall, Islington, in the late nineteenth century. The hardy competitors struggled around a small track for six days and the best of the survivors managed over 600 miles. Ideas took root and I decided to enter.

The deadline was only five months away.

There are many more delights in the author's note, including the legendary figures who reviewed his first book and his installation in the Detection Club, presided over by Agatha Christie. 

So this is a must-read for lovers of British crime, and of well-plotted, entertaining mysteries in general. After reading a very good story, you get dessert in the form of a highly intriguing first-person narrative. Well done, Soho Crime and Mr. Lovesey!

The release date is perfect also for holiday shopping -- get two copies, because you won't want to give yours away.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Pets, Cooking, and Murder: Liz Mugavero, A BISCUIT, A CASKET

Agatha Christie was right -- small-town life is a perfect stage for murder mysteries. And Liz Mugavero, in her second "Pawsitively Organic Mystery," gives us an amateur sleuth who's driven to solve crime when it affects that people she cares about. Kristan "Stan" Connor is curious, ambitious, honest, and will do just about anything for her friends and neighbors in the little Connecticut town of Frog Ledge.

Owner of a relatively new business providing homemade, organic pet foods (often helpful in clearing up allergies and intestinal ailments of the dogs and cats whose owners will try them), Stan's quickly expanding her services in the community. As A BISCUIT, A CASKET opens, Stan's just arriving with the chow for a very cute costumed pet birthday party, to be held at a local dairy farm that's also diversifying. In fact, in addition to the pet party, there's a Halloween-themed tour of the farm's clever "corn maze" to delight adventurous locals and tourists.

But Stan never has a chance to serve her doggie delights that evening, because shrieks and chaos erupt when one of the married owners of the farm is found dead in the maze, a corn-chopping tool thrust into him in skilled and murderous fashion. As the only person in the crowd with experience of what ought to happen at a crime scene (see Mugavero's first in the series, Kneading to Die), Stan takes action to keep the crowd back and dials 911. The major drawback to that action the the local police investigator already knows Stan and isn't too impressed with this recent resident of the town -- "Stan pulled her phone out of her pocket. Noticed her hand was shaking. Great. Another call to Trooper Pasquale about a dead body."

Stan's determination to be a good neighbor leads her to agree to help the newly widowed farm owner to look into why Hal Hoffman's been killed and who's done it. Good thing she has a newly hired baking assistant for her pet treats already ordered, but there's still a lot she has to handle on her own. And with the abrupt arrival of her not-very-happy mother to pay a visit, a potential boyfriend who keeps running into her during the wrong moments, and possible underworld connections to the murdered farmer, the pressure never lets up.

There are plenty of bouncing dogs and well-grooomed cats in here, as well as cows (and their manure) -- but most of all the book draws its charm from Mugavero's well-created sleuth, who's smart enough to ask the right questions, again and again, until the answers start to line up. I enjoyed all the twists, and just enough scary moments to keep the plot lively without too much gore. This is a delightful "amateur sleuth" traditional mystery, crafted by an author who understands the classic mystery apparatus, and deftly weaves it into a small town that Dame Agatha would have enjoyed very much, I'm sure! Hurrah for Stan Connor and this growing series. Sign me up for the next book!