REVIEW: Cream Buns and Crime

[feather_ghyll]

Cream Buns and Crime: Robin Stevens, Puffin 2017

This book is subtitled ‘A Murder Most Unladylike Collection’, and reminded me of annuals and that types of books, but it’s in the same paperback format as the longer mysteries in the series. The conceit is that Daisy and Hazel, with the help of friends (including Stevens herself), are writing up some briefer cases and other things of interest. So it’s a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with even recipes to bake, codes to crack and quizzes to take. The title comes from the feature involving recipes with some links to the books that I skimmed over, although Stevens caps it off by discussing poisoned deserts and cakes in real life and fiction.

To be honest, I’d forgotten about the subtitle and hadn’t reread the blurb when I dived in and started reading this, and so I was surprised that it wasn’t purely a short story collection. The stories don’t feature murder mysteries, but lesser puzzles, which are rather easy to solve. ‘The Case of Lavinia’s Missing Tie’ is about the first time the Detective Society apply their detecting skills at Deepdean. ‘The Case of the Blue Violet’ will help to explain why one of the Big Girls becomes a reliable source in a future story and features more class consciousness than you’d get in most girls’ boarding school stories in the 1930s. ‘The Secret of Weston School’ is the story of the Junior Pinkertons’ first case, and although Alexander and George very much are outsiders, it reminded me of why I’m not keen on boys own stories. It also brings in a touch of espionage into the mix, while ‘The Case of the Deepdean Vampire’ dabbles in horror, only to debunk the supernatural with a lesson about thinking the worst of east Europeans. ‘The Mystery of the Missing Bunbreak’ is a holiday mystery for Beanie and Kitty, which has a lot to say about friendship and bravery. It shows more strained family lives than you’d usually see in stories for readers of the same age in the 1930s.

The non-fiction features have an air of inclusivity – the book starts with ‘How to Set Up Your Detective Society’. Stevens has fun writing in character voices - hello, Daisy’s monumental ego; thank goodness for Hazel’s restraining influence - which is amusing To be fair to Daisy, she does acknowledge what any fan will know, namely that her best friend is really quite clever and good at things that Daisy isn’t. ‘Daisy’s Top Detectives’ made me chuckle.

Having Hazel purportedly write brief bioraphies of Christie, Sayers, Marsh and Allingham in ‘The Queens of Crime’ meant Stevens had to be mindful of what Hazel would know at the supposed time of writing (circa 1935) and emphasise what Hazel would find interesting. Stevens ‘breaks the fourth wall’ here to write about her (tenuous) connection to Sayers and the intentional similarities between her settings and characters and those of the Queens.

Stevens then writes a potted history of detecting in her own name, starting with real life and moving on to fictional detectives. In ‘Books That Made “Murder Most Unladylike”’, she mainly references mysteries, citing Malory Towers as the main influence for the girls own side (and ‘Cat Among the Pigeons’, but that’s a Poirot mystery), which is what I was most curious about. She sensibly suggests younger readers hold off on some of these books, but goes overboard on exclamation marks, a trait in many of the non-fiction features. There’s a feature on spying that’s again mindful of when it was supposed to be written by Alexander, and one on unsolved mysteries, mainly murders (‘authored’ by George, who is almost as arrogant as Daisy). The outlines are too sketchy, and here I did wonder whether George wouldn’t have called ‘Sri Lanka’ Ceylon. Wikipedia says he should have.

My favourite chapters turned out to be the non-fiction ones: ‘Daisy’s Favourtie Detectives’, followed by ‘The Queens of Crime’. I found the short stories much of a muchness when it came to quality, while the codebreaking chapter left me cold and my answers for the quizzes about the series so far were terrible.

Will Stephens follow up the suggestion of setting her next ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ book in a theatre?

Edited on 10/12/2022.