REVIEW: A Mourning Wedding
A Mourning Wedding: Carola Dunn, Robinson 2011
I certainly prefer my Daisy Dalrymple mysteries in a more traditional murder mystery setting. Here, she arrives at Haverhill, early on in her pregnancy, for her best friend Lucy’s wedding. Lucy’s grandfather, the Earl of Haverhill is hosting her wedding to Binkie (Lord Gerald Bincombe), but Lucy badly needs Daisy’s support. Her mother wants it to be proper and big, so the imposing house is full of a horde of family members, some of whom are viperous. All of Daisy’s tact I required.
But the next morning, Daisy is brought out of her bedroom by a scream, as a maid finds a dead body. It is clearly murder, and although Daisy, with an awareness of proper police procedure demurs, Lucy insists upon Scotland Yard, i.e. Alec being called in over the local force’s head. As the inspector previously in charge of the case was clearly overwhelmed and poor at handling the upper class suspects and another dead body is found, which Daisy, at least, finds suspicious, she is rather glad that Alec comes to Haverhill, even if it is early in a professional capacity, rather than as a guest, by the end of what turns out to be a long day.
There is a family tree at the start of the book, should one choose to refer to it. Like Daisy and Alec, I was often confused about who all these people were. We’d only met Lucy and her fiancé before. Lucy is set to inherit from her murdered great aunt, so she feels able to call the wedding off. Daisy isn’t convinced that it’s because she doesn’t love Gerald, who is supportive of her continuing to work after their marriage, and suspects Lucy may be reacting to the huge ballyhoo.
It is certainly not out of grief. As Daisy informs Alec, it was common knowledge that the first victim was an inveterate collector of gossip, which all went down into a ledger. And there were many items about those staying at Haverhill down in that ledger, so plenty of potential motives, although fewer when it comes to the next victim.
There are several familiar types, from the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ lord, to the put-upon spinster aunt, to the tactless de facto hostess. Everyone shares the habit of confiding in Daisy, even though Alec would like to protect her, but he admits she finds out things that the police certainly wouldn’t, including from gruff dog-lover Angela. I certainly had no idea whodunit until Daisy had her brilliant finaltheory, so this was a strong plot.
As ever, there’s a sense that Dunn is looking at issues in relation to class and gender, from a modern perspective of what would have been likely in the post-war era. There were a few word choices that I thought were due to Dunn pandering to her American audience, and far too many sentences ending with a question mark, not just those statements that are a bit interrogative, but declarations that had no need of that particular punctuation mark.
This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/187957.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.
I certainly prefer my Daisy Dalrymple mysteries in a more traditional murder mystery setting. Here, she arrives at Haverhill, early on in her pregnancy, for her best friend Lucy’s wedding. Lucy’s grandfather, the Earl of Haverhill is hosting her wedding to Binkie (Lord Gerald Bincombe), but Lucy badly needs Daisy’s support. Her mother wants it to be proper and big, so the imposing house is full of a horde of family members, some of whom are viperous. All of Daisy’s tact I required.
But the next morning, Daisy is brought out of her bedroom by a scream, as a maid finds a dead body. It is clearly murder, and although Daisy, with an awareness of proper police procedure demurs, Lucy insists upon Scotland Yard, i.e. Alec being called in over the local force’s head. As the inspector previously in charge of the case was clearly overwhelmed and poor at handling the upper class suspects and another dead body is found, which Daisy, at least, finds suspicious, she is rather glad that Alec comes to Haverhill, even if it is early in a professional capacity, rather than as a guest, by the end of what turns out to be a long day.
There is a family tree at the start of the book, should one choose to refer to it. Like Daisy and Alec, I was often confused about who all these people were. We’d only met Lucy and her fiancé before. Lucy is set to inherit from her murdered great aunt, so she feels able to call the wedding off. Daisy isn’t convinced that it’s because she doesn’t love Gerald, who is supportive of her continuing to work after their marriage, and suspects Lucy may be reacting to the huge ballyhoo.
It is certainly not out of grief. As Daisy informs Alec, it was common knowledge that the first victim was an inveterate collector of gossip, which all went down into a ledger. And there were many items about those staying at Haverhill down in that ledger, so plenty of potential motives, although fewer when it comes to the next victim.
There are several familiar types, from the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ lord, to the put-upon spinster aunt, to the tactless de facto hostess. Everyone shares the habit of confiding in Daisy, even though Alec would like to protect her, but he admits she finds out things that the police certainly wouldn’t, including from gruff dog-lover Angela. I certainly had no idea whodunit until Daisy had her brilliant finaltheory, so this was a strong plot.
As ever, there’s a sense that Dunn is looking at issues in relation to class and gender, from a modern perspective of what would have been likely in the post-war era. There were a few word choices that I thought were due to Dunn pandering to her American audience, and far too many sentences ending with a question mark, not just those statements that are a bit interrogative, but declarations that had no need of that particular punctuation mark.
This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/187957.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.