1996 mystery; second of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, teacher in a
sixth-form college in Birmingham and part-time chorister. Sophie goes
on a residential writing course; one of her fellow students dies, and
a tutor goes missing.
The main plot is pretty straightforward this time, and I was
never in real doubt as to the identity of the primary villain; but
motivation is another matter, and why things are happening is the
major mystery. What is the point of killing the ghastly sexpot? Why
kidnap someone, go to some trouble to keep them alive, but not send
any sort of ransom demand; how is this supposed to work? And what are
all these Japanese "tourists" doing, showing up at an old country
house in the middle of nowhere?
There's a well-drawn cast of secondary characters, mostly Sophie's
fellow students, some with actual literary competence, others
definitely without; if this were a Peter Lovesey or Simon Brett book
they would all be hopeless figures of fun, but they are drawn rather
more subtly with mixtures of positive and negative traits. One feels
that for the most part they are people rather than cardboard figures
for the author to throw tomatoes at, though "the sci-fi freak" never
gets beyond that description.
But the main focus is on Sophie herself, still reeling from the death
of her good friend George a few months earlier, and taking the course
because she's trying to put together a eulogy for him. All right, she
does insert herself into the investigation rather more than would be
sensible, but she does have reasons for most of her decisions; better,
she's aware that they're flimsy reasons, but that this is the sort of
thing she does.
There's less of the multi-ethnic Birmingham background that was so
effective in the first book, since most of the action takes place in
and around the country house. On the other hand there is a
pet rat who becomes the object of Sophie's affections as well as
helping part of the plot to move forward. (Rattus ex machina?)
I wasn't entirely convinced by the villain's motivations, but the
technical bits hold together, and the non-mystery elements are really
rather good.
Cutler certainly isn't one of the greats of mystery fiction, but this
is an enjoyable and competently-written book. Followed by Dying on
Principle.
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