REVIEW: Fall of a Philanderer
Jan. 12th, 2024 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllFall of a Philanderer: Carola Dunn, Constable and Robinson 2011 (first published in 2005)
In the latest Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Daisy, her stepdaughter Belinda, and Bel’s best friend Deva have come to the Devonshire seaside village of Westcombe, where Alec is soon to join them for a summer holiday. Daisy has never had a beach holiday before and is also in the early stages of pregnancy, but that doesn’t stop her from getting to know quite a lot about the villagers, from Mrs Anstruther, their landlady, to Sid the mute beachcomber, who is a hit with the girls. Speaking of hitting, Daisy is hit upon by local lothario George Enderby (hmm, the reader thinks, alert to the book’s title), but the mention of the girls puts him right off more effectively than Daisy’s attempts to show him she’s not interested.
By the time Alec has joined them, Daisy already has a good idea of how long the list of the conquests/victims of ‘Georgie Porgie’ is, but he runs the local inn with his wife, and when Alec suggests they go there for a drink, she can’t refuse without getting into awkward explanations. So, the Fletchers, their fellow guest at the Anstruthers’, one Mr ‘asks a lot of questions’ Baskin and the whole village are witnesses to the newly returned sailor Peter Anstruther learning that his wife was one of the women Enderby dallied with. That’s Peter Anstruther, married to their hostess. A violent scuffle ensues, but Anstruther is dragged off him and told to cool off.
So, the next day, when the Fletcher party go exploring down a cliffside path to find a new bit of beach, Alec finds a body that he recognises – Enderby’s. Daisy is not allowed to see the body, but is sent with the girls to report the find to the local constabulary. Alec has faint hopes of being kept out of it, beyond as a witness and ordinary citizen, but his detective instincts make him take photographs and make observations. He fails to keep his day job secret and gets lumbered with the case, one with plenty of obvious suspects, the most obvious of which owns the Fletcher’s lodgings.
Apart from the local constable (fat, not that bright) and back-up from the Devonshire force, there’s a medical student who wants to be the next Dr Thorndyke, and of course, Daisy can not only fill Alec in on the local colour – the names of the women, the fact that Mr Baskin showed an unusual interest in Endersby, although he seems to be what he says he is a hiking schoolteacher who gets on well with the girls – but also has decided proteges she wants to protect and good ideas that Alec has to follow up on. Suspects have difficult alibis to prove, but Alec is determined to be fair and not go for the most obvious ones, as the local Inspector Mallow, of whom Daisy is not a fan, would have.
It's the people who make this interesting, being all sorts, with Daisy and Alec’s views of them and interactions with them. I wasn’t trying to solve the mystery, just following the plot as the suspects got whittled down. There’s a big revelation that shows that Enderby (who wasn’t just interested in married women but barely out-of-school sixteen year olds) would not be missed. Daisy’s big-heartedness makes her a heroine.
It finds a decent balance between being true to the era and alive to modern sensibilities in the treatment of the women who fell for Enderby’s charms. In the early chapters, I found the references to Deva’s ayah as a perpetual source of wisdom wearying (Dunn could have cut half of them and we’d still have got the point), but it’s all very well being pointedly anti-racist, but then the author goes and compares Hindu gods with the characters of ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Sid’s disconcerting riposte to people who frighten him is perhaps also overdone.
You know what you’re getting with this cosy mystery and at this point in the series, though, with Alec having come to terms with Daisy’s unconventional approach to being a detective’s wife, and the family happily settling down together as they expect the newest addition.
In the latest Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Daisy, her stepdaughter Belinda, and Bel’s best friend Deva have come to the Devonshire seaside village of Westcombe, where Alec is soon to join them for a summer holiday. Daisy has never had a beach holiday before and is also in the early stages of pregnancy, but that doesn’t stop her from getting to know quite a lot about the villagers, from Mrs Anstruther, their landlady, to Sid the mute beachcomber, who is a hit with the girls. Speaking of hitting, Daisy is hit upon by local lothario George Enderby (hmm, the reader thinks, alert to the book’s title), but the mention of the girls puts him right off more effectively than Daisy’s attempts to show him she’s not interested.
By the time Alec has joined them, Daisy already has a good idea of how long the list of the conquests/victims of ‘Georgie Porgie’ is, but he runs the local inn with his wife, and when Alec suggests they go there for a drink, she can’t refuse without getting into awkward explanations. So, the Fletchers, their fellow guest at the Anstruthers’, one Mr ‘asks a lot of questions’ Baskin and the whole village are witnesses to the newly returned sailor Peter Anstruther learning that his wife was one of the women Enderby dallied with. That’s Peter Anstruther, married to their hostess. A violent scuffle ensues, but Anstruther is dragged off him and told to cool off.
So, the next day, when the Fletcher party go exploring down a cliffside path to find a new bit of beach, Alec finds a body that he recognises – Enderby’s. Daisy is not allowed to see the body, but is sent with the girls to report the find to the local constabulary. Alec has faint hopes of being kept out of it, beyond as a witness and ordinary citizen, but his detective instincts make him take photographs and make observations. He fails to keep his day job secret and gets lumbered with the case, one with plenty of obvious suspects, the most obvious of which owns the Fletcher’s lodgings.
Apart from the local constable (fat, not that bright) and back-up from the Devonshire force, there’s a medical student who wants to be the next Dr Thorndyke, and of course, Daisy can not only fill Alec in on the local colour – the names of the women, the fact that Mr Baskin showed an unusual interest in Endersby, although he seems to be what he says he is a hiking schoolteacher who gets on well with the girls – but also has decided proteges she wants to protect and good ideas that Alec has to follow up on. Suspects have difficult alibis to prove, but Alec is determined to be fair and not go for the most obvious ones, as the local Inspector Mallow, of whom Daisy is not a fan, would have.
It's the people who make this interesting, being all sorts, with Daisy and Alec’s views of them and interactions with them. I wasn’t trying to solve the mystery, just following the plot as the suspects got whittled down. There’s a big revelation that shows that Enderby (who wasn’t just interested in married women but barely out-of-school sixteen year olds) would not be missed. Daisy’s big-heartedness makes her a heroine.
It finds a decent balance between being true to the era and alive to modern sensibilities in the treatment of the women who fell for Enderby’s charms. In the early chapters, I found the references to Deva’s ayah as a perpetual source of wisdom wearying (Dunn could have cut half of them and we’d still have got the point), but it’s all very well being pointedly anti-racist, but then the author goes and compares Hindu gods with the characters of ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Sid’s disconcerting riposte to people who frighten him is perhaps also overdone.
You know what you’re getting with this cosy mystery and at this point in the series, though, with Alec having come to terms with Daisy’s unconventional approach to being a detective’s wife, and the family happily settling down together as they expect the newest addition.
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Date: 2024-01-13 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-14 08:30 am (UTC)