In this, the third Country House mysteries, one finds oneself in Christie territory, literally and figuratively. The tale begins at Hay-on-Wye, where the protagonist, author Antonia Darcy, is appearing on a panel of crime writers, being gushed over by an apparently devoted fan, one Beatrice (“Bee”) Ardleigh. In short order Antonia and her husband, Major Hugh Payne, become embroiled in Bee’s complicated life.
Bee appears to be an invalid, being confined to a wheelchair, but is she really? She has as a companion, Ingrid, a decidedly strange woman with whom she has lived for decades, who appears to loathe Bee’s new husband [calling him “the interloper].” And she appears on the brink of being the sole heir of a very wealthy man she hasn’t seen or heard from in many decades, one Ralph Renshawe, owner of the eponymous Ospreys, a “bleak Gothic mansion on the border between Oxfordshire and Berkshire” [now fallen into disrepair].
The reader is aware of the identity of the intended murder victim, but there is no dead body until more than halfway through the novel, something which startled me when I became aware of it. So much for the perpetual argument as to how soon in a book a body should first be discovered. Here there is no sense of the author having waited too long for that plot development – the journey has been too much fun to even notice. And just when a murder appears to take place, the author provides a twist sure to have the reader puzzled, but only for a little while.
The book is full of drollery and literary quotes, references and allusion, as well as bits of Latin and French. Ingrid thinks of Antonia’s books as each being “a mere commercially motivated replica of its predecessor. Variations on a tried, if tired, lucrative theme. Well-bred characters sitting beside cosy fires, drinking tea, deliberating whodunit ad nauseam.” Ospreys is referred to as a “house of death,” characters as “devilishly devious,” the case as a whole “marked by a pervading sense of strangeness.” And all around Ospreys are the ever-present rooks, giving to the whole an ominous feel reminiscent of Hitchcock.
A subtle, clever and altogether delightful read, and recommended.
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Gloria Feit