1972 detective fiction, first of James's novels of Cordelia Gray, a
private investigator. Having inherited a failing investigation
business, Grey is employed to look into why a famous scientist's son
abandoned his university course and killed himself.
My word this is a book to read when you're feeling a bit too
cheerful. From the first moments, as Grey's senior partner and mentor
commits suicide having learned he's got cancer, to the end, this book
is a constant exercise in picking the ost depressing option
consistent with continuing the story.
'I shouldn't think your mother would approve of you staying on
alone.'
'I only had a mother for the first hour of my life, so I don't have
to worry about that.'
Cordelia saw at once that the remark had deeply shocked them and
wondered again at the capacity of older people to be outraged by
simple facts when they seemed capable of accepting any amount of
perverse or shocking opinion. But their silence, heavy with censure,
at least left her in peace.
This isn't really a mystery as much as literary fiction with the
trappings of a mystery; the people are the important thing here, and
mostly they work well (though these Cambridge students in the 1970s
are rather more 1950s in manner than one might have expected, even if
they are emotionally casual about playing musical beds). There's one
central question of motivation which is left completely unanswered,
and that did rather spoil things for me. (Jul, vs ur'f gur zheqrere,
qvq Pnyyraqre uver fbzrbar gb vairfgvtngr uvf fba'f fgntrq "fhvpvqr"?
Lrf, ur qvqa'g xabj jung unq unccrarq yngre, ohg ubj pbhyq ur rkcrpg
na vairfgvtngbe gb svaq bhg nobhg gur bgure guvatf ohg abg gur zheqre
vgfrys?)
The ending, which makes up the last quarter or so of the book, is
distinctly unconventional, an experiment in form which takes the story
far outside the conventions of mystery novels; as a story, it works
and is rather interesting, but as a mystery story, it's superfluous. A
big secret which was probably still shocking in the 1970s is both
obvious and non-shocking now.
But in spite of all the problems I rather liked it. Don't regard it as
a mystery to be solved, and there's an experiment here that, while it
doesn't succeed in all respects, still generates distinctly
interesting results. Followed by The Skull Beneath the Skin.
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