Sins of the Fathers

Let's face it. Nothing seems a bigger nuisance than when a well-meaning amateur decides to try his hand at the work of a professional. Just ask Mr. Poirot, or, in the case of Sins of the Fathers (1967), Chief Inspector Wexford.

Wexford feels nothing but annoyance when the Reverend Henry Archery goes poking into a grisly case of axe murder that Wexford closed more than twenty years ago. It's an imposition that Wexford never would have tolerated had it not been at the Chief Constable's insistence.

And so we see little and hear less from Wexford, his nose out of joint, in this second in the series that features the prickly chief inspector and his more tractable sidekick, Mike Burden, by Ruth Rendell. Instead the focus is on the desultory investigations of Henry Archery, whose son wishes to marry the daughter of the infamous axe murderer. Archery would like to prove the man, who has already hanged for his crime, innocent.

Barring that, of course, Archery would stop the marriage. What turns up in the course of Archery's questionings opens the eyes of more than just the residents of Kingsmarkham, where no one and nothing seems to be quite as it should twenty years hence.

Miss Lemon's readers have no doubt noticed the plural indicator in this aptly titled novel: for as the Reverend Archery himself discovers, not even the most chaste of men are immune to the frailties of the human condition -- a discovery, Miss Lemon might add, that makes Archery that much more sympathetic and gives the novels an absorbing subplot.

Forgotten Book Friday: Matilda Bone

Another treasure unearthed during Miss Lemon's recent move is Matilda Bone (2000), a first-rate historical novel for children, now mostly forgotten, by Karen Cushman.

Well, perhaps this novel is not so much forgotten as overshadowed by Ms. Cushman's other historical works, particularly The Midwife's Apprentice and Catherine, Called Birdy, for which she won the Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor awards.

In this novel, we meet Matilda, orphaned by her natural parents and raised by Father Leufredus in a comfortable estate, as she's unceremoniously dropped in Blood and Bone Alley in a small village between nowhere and nothing, while Father Leufredus takes himself off to Oxford and higher learning.

Sure that he'll be back for her, Matilda turns up her nose at Red Peg, the bonesetter, of Blood and Bone Alley, her trade and the miserable cottage she lives in. Made to sweep the floors, stoke the fires and mix the poultices, Matilda spends her time mumbling about injustice and praying for deliverance. 

What, one may well ask, does this children's fiction have to do with British mystery? Well, for Miss Lemon at least, the medieval period of our history has always been a source of fascination and mystery. So many myths abound: that most all people living in the so-called dark ages were peasants, a hoi polloi who were dirty, ignorant, inept and indigent hovel dwellers without wit, sense or taste.

Matilda Bone makes short work of most of our modern misperceptions in a way that is wry and poignant. Miss Lemon especially likes the heroine of this novel, Matilda, because she, like (let's face it) all modern children, is deeply flawed, especially in her inflated sense of self. Always aiming 'for higher things,' like her idolized Father Leufredus, Matilda soon sees that calling on the saints and speaking in Latin do little to help avoid being bilked at the fish market or comfort an ailing friend.

It's sad that we, and Matilda, never hear from Father Leufredus again. But his untimely exit leaves the door open for Matilda to learn the difference between theory and practicality; and she grows, albeit stubbornly, to appreciate a few small joys of this earthly realm.

Matilda Bone, Miss Lemon thinks, is a gentle yet absorbing reminder that those who lived in 1143 are scarcely different from we who live today. Egoism, superstition, deception and fraud were just as alive then as they are today. So were intelligence, compassion and genuine friendship.

Faithful unto Death

Miss Lemon begs her readers' pardon for her long silence. No, she wasn't enjoying an extended holiday in Biarritz. She was moving house! A daunting task, one must agree, for those who collect British mysteries in the quantity that Miss Lemon does.

Whilst un-shelving, organising and re-shelving her treasured possessions, Miss Lemon came across Faithful unto Death (1996), the fifth entry in the Inspector Barnaby series, and she enjoyed every second of it.

In this installment, Barnaby and his smug bag-carrier, Sgt. Troy, are tasked first with the disappearance of Simone Hollingsworth, the docile-seeming wife of an aggressive technology entrepreneur, and then, later, Alan Hollingsworth's suspicious suicide. Thrown into the mix is the brutal hit-and-run that kills Deborah Brockley, an awkwardly plain 30-something spinster and neighbour of the Hollingsworths, who harbours surprising secrets of her own. 

Are these crimes connected? And who could be the author of such callous violence in a village as quaint and placid as Fawcett Green? The solution certainly surprised Miss Lemon.

Like all of Caroline Graham's novels, Faithful unto Death is witty and well-crafted and stuffed full of quirky characters shrewdly drawn. A perfect diversion from relocation stress.

Death Watch

For Miss Lemon's readers who don't mind tucking into a toothsome police procedural, may she recommend the second entry in the Inspector Bill Slider series: Death Watch (1992), by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

Reading this made Miss Lemon think of Colin Dexter's The Dead of Jericho. Indeed the two novels, with plots rooted in Greek tragedy, characters who quote Shelley and Shakespeare and detective inspectors more dogged than ambitious, share a crafty commonality.

But finding the familiar doesn't make reading Death Watch any less fun. It's possible that Dexter influenced Cythia Harrod-Eagels, but the story is all of her own devising.

In this case, a fire alarm salesman turns up dead by fire in a dodgy hotel. Was it suicide? Or was it murder? Slider and Atherton follow the rapidly cooling trail to the former members of a now-defunct London fire brigade. Curiously, most of them have died in suspicious circumstances, too. 

The parallels to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None are difficult to escape. The question is not just one of whether Bill Slider can catch the murderer before another fireman falls, but who would have the motive to carry out such a spree in the first place? What grudge can one carry against the self-sacrificing members of a fire brigade?

All Miss Lemon can say is that the answer may surprise you.

The Hand of Death

By now, my dear readers, you must know what a devoted admirer Miss Lemon has become of Margaret Yorke. Reading the sometimes grim -- but never dull -- The Hand of Death (1981) has done nothing to alter that opinion.

Like Agatha Christie's genius for hiding her murderers in plain sight, Margaret Yorke has the uncanny ability to dip into the most ordinary stock of Englishmen -- in this case, it is the quiet antiques dealer, Ronald Trimm -- and pull out the ones capable of the most shocking crimes. Though you'd hardly guess it from the face they put to the village at large, their secret lives and outrageous crimes are made completely plausible by Yorke's pen.

When Trimm's (aptly named in this novel, as he likes everything just so) advances are rebuffed by the marvelously depicted widow, Dorothea Wyatt, he sets off on a violent sexual spree. Almost as difficult to take as Trimm's selfishness and brutality, is the plot twist that puts the lonely widower and loyal friend to Dorothea, George Fortescue, into the frame for rape and murder.

Miss Lemon must warn her fans of cosy mysteries that The Hand of the Death is not one. For those who can stomach a bit of fictional violence, however, this novel is well worth the read -- indeed it is impossible to put down, once one has picked it up.

Within pages, it becomes clear why the pathetic Ronald Trimm behaves so abominably, proving again Margaret Yorke's mastery of psychological character study. She throws in a bit of good police procedural, too, but with just the right touch.

All of the characters in this novel, sympathetic or despicable as they are, are fully realized, which is what, Miss Lemon reckons, so ofter draws her back to Margaret Yorke.

The Franchise Affair

Life had been sailing along rather comfortably, if not rather dully, for Robert Blair, senior partner of Blair, Hayward and Bennett, the next-to-only legal firm in the village of Milford. Miss Tuff had been relied upon to bring his tea (petit-beurre Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; digestives Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays) on the same lacquered tray with the same white linen napkin at precisely the same time for nearly a quarter of a century. As the last post of the day went at 3:45 in the afternoon, it was often Mr. Blair could knock off as soon as four for a late-afternoon round of golf.

Lassitude and golf weighed heavily on Mr. Blair's mind when on an afternoon in April, difficult to distinguish from thousands of others, the phone rang a minute after tea and the last post, and the Franchise affair began.

The facts of the case in Josephine Tey's The Franchise Affair (1949) turn out to be as sensational as they are seductively credible.  Robert Blair finds himself coming to the defense of two women whom the villagers quickly brand as witches. Are they guilty of the charges that are laid against them?

My dear readers, trying to work out whether they are or they are not quickly becomes the most compelling aspect of the novel.

Inspector Grant makes a small cameo appearance, but in actuality the investigation of the alleged crimes in the Franchise affair is up to Robert Blair. If Miss Lemon found anything wanting in this near-perfect mystery, it is that in the end, coincidence rather than the labour of the little grey cells put paid the mysteries of the Franchise affair. But it is a small criticism of what is an otherwise highly enjoyable whodunit.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

Only the other day, a brightly coloured package arrived at Miss Lemon's door. Imagine her delight when after untying the ribbon she discovered a book bedecked in a shade Miss Lemon could only describe as eponymous. It was the latest in the Flavia de Luce series:  A Red Herring Without Mustard.

The package reminded Miss Lemon that there was another book by Alan Bradley with a similarly eccentric title that sat among her prodigious bookshelves, patiently awaiting her attention.

Dismayed at having neglected the followup to such a delightful debut as The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Miss Lemon set to The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag with alacrity.

She wasn't disappointed. After making a brief adjustment to her suspension of disbelief to the incredible precociousness and cultural wisdom of the novel's eleven-year-old detective, Flavia de Luce, she found many of the same narrative pleasures and surprises as she found in Mr. Bradley's first novel. Only this time it is July, not June, and the murder victim is a puppeteer rather than a philatelist.

Once again, Flavia attempts to poison her older sister, Feely. Once again, she carries out harrowing experiments in her laboratory to find out things that perhaps she'd be better off not knowing. Once again, she cloaks her tale in a colourful cape of amusing metaphors and wry philosophical observations. 

In short, this is a novel not to be missed. And as it refers to several of the events in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, it may be prudent to read it before cracking A Red Herring Without Mustard.

Now if you're wondering (and who isn't?) where Mr. Bradley comes up with these madcap titles, he is gentleman enough to tell you, just after the flyleaf:

Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son
Three things there be that prosper up apace, 
   And flourish while they grow asunder far;
But on a day, they meet all in a place,
   And when they meet, they one another mar.

And they be these; the Wood, the Weed, the Wag:
   The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree;
The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag;
    The Wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee.

Now mark, dear boy -- while these assemble not,
   Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild;
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot,
   It frets the halter, and it chokes the child. 

Indeed, my dear readers, mark this well. For in it, you'll find many a clue; perhaps even before Flavia de Luce does.