feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2017-02-21 05:38 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2017-02-21 05:38 pm
REVIEW: Death Goes Dancing
Death Goes Dancing: Mabel Esther Allan, Greyladies, 2014
Unpublished during her lifetime, this was one of MEA’s few forays into writing adult mysteries. As the title suggests, it’s set against the backdrop of her beloved ballet. Detective Inspector Ewen Gilbride had gone to the ballet for a night of relaxation and enjoyment with his wife, but between one ballet and the other in the double bill, the director of the Darielle company sought him out in a professional capacity. The company’s ballerina, Sarne Saxilby, on the verge of dancing as Giselle, had been found murdered in her dressing room.
Suddenly, the interest that had been an escape from Gilbride’s grim job was nothing of the sort. He was realising a long-held wish to see the innards of the theatre and what happened backstage, but having to see dancers he’d admired as potential killers. He learned more about Sarne, the rest of the company, her family and the lovers she’d discarded but still kept close. As he carefully worked through everyone’s stories, discovering there had been plenty of visitors to Sarne’s dressing room on the night she was killed, his imagination could come up with all too many potential motives. But he had no proof...
I didn’t suspect the murderer until they over-reached themselves, but a shade before the detective, I think. I’d been following a big red herring based on my own presumptions, but the plot is sturdy in that regard. MEA shows how well she knows the ballet world, using the jargon as she writes of a believable made-up company dancing believable made-up dances. Well, she did write the Drina series, after all, and its echoes can be found here. However, this is not ‘A Bullet in the Ballet’ and though Gilbride keeps reminding himself that all dancers are actors, and although passions are heightened, perhaps, realistically, the impression is of hard-working people under great strain, for the show must go on as Gilbride investigates.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take too much to Gilbride, and it may well be in part because of a clunky bit of exposition that came off as boasting in the first chapter. However, I did find it interesting that he’s one of many Celts who turn up in the book. From the Scottish islands, he swears in Gaelic when under strain. Sarne’s given Christian names were Sarn Gwynedd, and a repressed north Walian upbringing is the key to her psychology (to which I wanted to say ‘Ho-hum’). Her partner is Irish, her current flame French, but with a house in Brittany that Gilbride visits in the course of his investigations.
Having read it, I’m not too disappointed – other than for Allan – that no further mysteries were written featuring Gilbride.
Also, I’m sorry to say that there were a few errors in the text – ‘Sarne’ appears for ‘same’ more than once and some letters are missing.
Unpublished during her lifetime, this was one of MEA’s few forays into writing adult mysteries. As the title suggests, it’s set against the backdrop of her beloved ballet. Detective Inspector Ewen Gilbride had gone to the ballet for a night of relaxation and enjoyment with his wife, but between one ballet and the other in the double bill, the director of the Darielle company sought him out in a professional capacity. The company’s ballerina, Sarne Saxilby, on the verge of dancing as Giselle, had been found murdered in her dressing room.
Suddenly, the interest that had been an escape from Gilbride’s grim job was nothing of the sort. He was realising a long-held wish to see the innards of the theatre and what happened backstage, but having to see dancers he’d admired as potential killers. He learned more about Sarne, the rest of the company, her family and the lovers she’d discarded but still kept close. As he carefully worked through everyone’s stories, discovering there had been plenty of visitors to Sarne’s dressing room on the night she was killed, his imagination could come up with all too many potential motives. But he had no proof...
I didn’t suspect the murderer until they over-reached themselves, but a shade before the detective, I think. I’d been following a big red herring based on my own presumptions, but the plot is sturdy in that regard. MEA shows how well she knows the ballet world, using the jargon as she writes of a believable made-up company dancing believable made-up dances. Well, she did write the Drina series, after all, and its echoes can be found here. However, this is not ‘A Bullet in the Ballet’ and though Gilbride keeps reminding himself that all dancers are actors, and although passions are heightened, perhaps, realistically, the impression is of hard-working people under great strain, for the show must go on as Gilbride investigates.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take too much to Gilbride, and it may well be in part because of a clunky bit of exposition that came off as boasting in the first chapter. However, I did find it interesting that he’s one of many Celts who turn up in the book. From the Scottish islands, he swears in Gaelic when under strain. Sarne’s given Christian names were Sarn Gwynedd, and a repressed north Walian upbringing is the key to her psychology (to which I wanted to say ‘Ho-hum’). Her partner is Irish, her current flame French, but with a house in Brittany that Gilbride visits in the course of his investigations.
Having read it, I’m not too disappointed – other than for Allan – that no further mysteries were written featuring Gilbride.
Also, I’m sorry to say that there were a few errors in the text – ‘Sarne’ appears for ‘same’ more than once and some letters are missing.