REVIEW: Death at Wentwater Court
Feb. 11th, 2012 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllContinuing the skating theme, in a way...
Death at Wentwater Court: Carola Dunn. Robinson 2009.
I'd been curious about the Daisy Dalrymple series and decided to read the first book for myself and make up my mind about it. The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple has the sort of face that makes people want to confide in her. Despite belonging to the upper class by birth, her circumstances (well, her spirited reluctance to play the Poor Relation) have turned her into a working woman. Granted, her first real commission as a writer is down to her connections.
Said commission is to write a series of articles about minor stately homes. The first will be about Wentwater Court, where she joins what is almost a family party and soon sense the tensions under the surface. However, no-one expected their skating party to be interrupted by the dead body of a guest. Lord Stephen Astwick was quite the unpopular guest too. When Daisy discovers clues that strongly suggest it was not an accidental death, she has to tell the detective from Scotland Yard working on a nearby robbery case who is called in. Let into the confidences of family and police, can she solve the mystery?
It was an easy enough read, Daisy is a likeable protagonist, and her relationship with DI Alec develops nicely. Set in the early 1920s, the youngsters drop what has to be described as some of the most fearful slang quite unaffectedly. It lit up the story for me! Daisy is trying to be Thoroughly Modern, even though most of the men around her want to forget that she went through the first world war.
It was definitely a 'cosy' mystery, although for me, the writer held back a little too much. Wentworth, Heyer and Christie who wrote country home mysteries in the first half of the twentieth century, and not retrospectively, wouldn't have held back so much. At the same time, Dunn exposits oo much, telling what she should have shown - either I'd have got those clues or not. On the other hand, switching between Daisy and Alec's POV's in close third worked well.
Conclusion: Although I'll be quite happy to read more of Daisy's mysteries, I'll be waiting to buy them second hand as they come my way.
Death at Wentwater Court: Carola Dunn. Robinson 2009.
I'd been curious about the Daisy Dalrymple series and decided to read the first book for myself and make up my mind about it. The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple has the sort of face that makes people want to confide in her. Despite belonging to the upper class by birth, her circumstances (well, her spirited reluctance to play the Poor Relation) have turned her into a working woman. Granted, her first real commission as a writer is down to her connections.
Said commission is to write a series of articles about minor stately homes. The first will be about Wentwater Court, where she joins what is almost a family party and soon sense the tensions under the surface. However, no-one expected their skating party to be interrupted by the dead body of a guest. Lord Stephen Astwick was quite the unpopular guest too. When Daisy discovers clues that strongly suggest it was not an accidental death, she has to tell the detective from Scotland Yard working on a nearby robbery case who is called in. Let into the confidences of family and police, can she solve the mystery?
It was an easy enough read, Daisy is a likeable protagonist, and her relationship with DI Alec develops nicely. Set in the early 1920s, the youngsters drop what has to be described as some of the most fearful slang quite unaffectedly. It lit up the story for me! Daisy is trying to be Thoroughly Modern, even though most of the men around her want to forget that she went through the first world war.
It was definitely a 'cosy' mystery, although for me, the writer held back a little too much. Wentworth, Heyer and Christie who wrote country home mysteries in the first half of the twentieth century, and not retrospectively, wouldn't have held back so much. At the same time, Dunn exposits oo much, telling what she should have shown - either I'd have got those clues or not. On the other hand, switching between Daisy and Alec's POV's in close third worked well.
Conclusion: Although I'll be quite happy to read more of Daisy's mysteries, I'll be waiting to buy them second hand as they come my way.
