RogerBW's Blog

Say It With Poison, Ann Granger 17 September 2019

1991 mystery; first of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. Mitchell is British Consul in Bratislava, home on leave to support her actor cousin Eve as Eve's daughter Sara gets married. Markby was a friend of Eve's deceased husband, and is giving away the bride. But it's Mitchell who will discover the body of the local potter who may have had something going with Sara…

As mysteries go, this is quite an odd one. In some respects it's extremely slow; there's no body until chapter 5 of 14, and there's lots of talk about old times. It's quite old-fashioned in its attitudes, as Granger tends to be anyway; as part of a fairly detailed dissection of the psychology of the victim, there's a suggestion that Sara shouldn't have been at all surprised that he thought he was in with a chance with her and became annoyed when she got engaged to someone else: after all she had been friendly to him and was voluntarily spending time in his company. Er, well.

One significant misstep to my mind is the prospective husband, a young man who's hailed by everyone as terribly intelligent, but who is insulting to everyone he meets – and pointlessly so. No sooner does he hear that Mitchell's in the diplomatic service than he goes off on a rantlet about helping feckless hippies. Whom does that benefit? It doesn't make him feel better or look good in front of the woman he wants to marry, and it doesn't incline anyone else to do him any favours. I won't deny that there are people like that, but they aren't clever people. (One might also reasonably wonder what he sees in Sara, or she in him.)

One feels too that Markby should have done a better job of saying why he thought Mitchell should stay out of the investigation, a thing he's obviously required by the pro-am mystery formula to say: on the one hand, that her having spoken with a witness could compromise the police case (he tries this but puts it very badly, making it sound as though he thinks she would be tampering with the witness rather than just being accused of it by the defence), and on the other, that someone poking around might quickly become a target for a further covering-up murder. (And something not entirely unlike this does indeed happen.)

But these objections, while significant, don't make much of a dent in my overall enjoyment of the book. Both Mitchell and Markby are interesting people with their own lives and experiences, and as they start to fall for each other (there are 15 books in this series and Granger takes it slowly) they have to work round real differences in worldview, not just spurious misunderstandings.

This is a thoroughly relaxed book, almost entirely lacking in action, but I found that I greatly enjoyed it. The mystery is reasonably obvious with a bit of thought, but its resolution is very much in keeping with the characters that have been established.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: Mitchell and Markby | Next in series: A Season for Murder

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1