1989, cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels (as
"Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. Madoc is summoned by his
father, an eminent conductor, on an orchestral tour.
In form this varies slightly from other MacLeods: part of the
orchestral party is travelling by air, and the plane makes a forced
landing in a remote location. (My first thought was "what about the
ELT
which should be readily detectable by passing aircraft even if the
satellites aren't quite there by 1989?", but it's never mentioned.) So
in effect it's an isolated country house mystery, because the murderer
isn't going to let a little thing like a severely restricted suspect
pool stop them.
It was very unfortunate, though, that I spotted the murderer with
absolute certainty on their first appearance, so in effect I was
re-reading the book; I was able to observe both the attempted
misdirections and the hidden clues to the real culprit. And there
really aren't many of the latter; their motivation is entirely
concealed until about 90% of the way through the book, and while it's
technically valid there's no attempt to explain why this particular
person should have found murder a more appealing option than the many
others available to them.
In other words it's a bit of a cheat. And because I spotted the
solution up front, I was less amused by the usual MacLeod cast of
comical characters (in particular the sexpot soprano, tediously
drawn); and, in a flaw I thought MacLeod had grown out of by this
point, Janet is entirely absent from the book, making it more of an
exercise in policing and less personal in spite of the presence of
Madoc's parents.
Ah well. Other fans of the series and of MacLeod in general seem to
have enjoyed this one, but it fell extremely flat for me. Followed by
The Wrong Rite.
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