With my long commute to and from work, I've found that I can get in a good 20-30 minutes listening to an audiobook while I'm driving. Sometimes on the way home, I listen to All Things Considered instead (yes, we have NPR again!!) but if I'm in a good book, then it's definitely the book. With almost an hour of listening time each day while I'm driving, I'm finding I can get through an average book in a week or two of commuting. Obviously, I'm expecting it will take a lot longer when I tackle Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - I think that one's over 20 hours! This one, though, was a light and fluffy one, a change after the Napoleonic battles of Sharpe and the 95th.
The first in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series: Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
My rating: 3.5 of 5 (closer to Really Liked It, but definitely have a few issues keeping it from 4 solid stars)
Plot Summary (as per Goodreads - yes, it is a bit flowery, as summaries go):
This first installment of a cozy mystery series transports listeners back to the bygone era of 1923 Britain, where unflappable flapper and fledgling journalist Daisy Dalrymple daringly embarks on her first writing assignment—and promptly stumbles across a corpse.
No stranger to sprawling country estates, wealthy Daisy Dalrymple is breaking new ground in having scandalously traded silver spoon for pen and camera to cover a story for Town and Country magazine. But her planned interviews with the inhabitants of Wentwater Court give way to interrogation after suave Lord Stephen Astwick meets a dire fate on the tranquil skating pond. Armed with evidence that his fate was anything but accidental, Daisy joins forces with Scotland Yard to examine an esteemed collection of suspects and to see that the unlikely culprit doesn’t slip through their fingers just as the unfortunate Astwick slipped through the ice.
Story Comments:
Oh, look. Lara has found another cozy historical mystery series she likes. Quelle surprise! (/dry sarcastic tone).
But seriously, though. I like Golden Age mysteries, I like historical mysteries, I like British mysteries, and I enjoy a good cozy mystery. While I also enjoy the puzzle presented in grittier "modern" mysteries or in hardboiled detective stories, I enjoy the simplicity and neat ends of a cozy mystery when I'm looking for a bit of escapism. This definitely falls into that category. If you like Mrs. Bradley, Lord Peter Wimsey, or especially the Phryne Fisher series, you'll probably enjoy this one too. The Maisie Dobbs series and Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness books are others that I've heard fall into this category, though they are still on my To Read list.
Daisy is a pretty likable heroine. She's clever and sympathetic, the type people naturally confide in, which makes her well positioned to be an amateur detective - people involved in the case just open up to her. She's not perfect though, as the conclusion to the mystery demonstrates. Her police counterpart is Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, another very clever and capable character - no bumbling flatfoot here. There is the interesting dynamic of the well-born Honorable Miss Dalrymple and the more "common copper," which we'll probably see more developed in future books - at least, I'm hoping so! A lot of the other characters were pretty standard types in this sort of story: a villain to be killed off, and enough other characters to create some mystery - characters both likeable enough to support and questionable enough to consider them as suspects in murder. My favorite side character was Daisy's childhood friend and sometime suitor, Phillip. As he's constantly described: sweet, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer (or words to that effect). Hopefully we'll see him pop up again as well.
The plot itself is a pretty standard cozy mystery. Not the actual events, but the whole "if they'd just talk to each other this wouldn't be nearly so big of an issue" type of plot. There were a few side story arcs which felt almost unnecessary. For example, the whole jewel robbery storyline felt very underdeveloped somehow. And as almost required by the cozy mystery genre, there is a romance looking to develop. Daisy will probably be seeing a good bit more of DCI Fletcher as the series proceeds. I'm looking forward to that, especially with how the ending took their characters - besides the class differences, will the case's conclusion here prove an obstacle to the budding romance? I'll just have to keep reading and find out, won't I? And yes, like many cozy series, this is one which has to be read in order.
The book is well written, with a good vocabulary and period slang incorporated well (I've read some where the period jargon was used so heavily that conversations were actually hard to understand). There are some light moments, and a good amount of humor, but there's still a good amount of mystery. I was actually betting myself on picking out who would be the culprit, and I was wrong, so that means there were enough red herrings to keep me guessing. That being said, it was still pretty fluffy, not a "heavy" read. The style of writing is very similar to Golden Age authors; if you like Dorothy L. Sayers or Margery Allingham or Ngaio Marsh, this will be a good one to try.
The period feel is emphasized by some details - make-up, fashion, some slang usage, the cars, etc. - and also by current events. Daisy is a working girl because her brother was killed in the War (as was her fiancé) and her father passed away in the flu epidemic; the result was that a cousin inherited the title her father had held. That doesn't mean it's a piece of Historical Fiction. There is a good bit of artistic license in the period details, too, in order to make the story actually work. Reminds me of Downton Abbey - some period details very accurate, but others are a bit more fast-and-loose in order to make the stories work. Doesn't mean you enjoy it any less, as long as you take it for what it is.
The biggest downside to me was the ending. After presenting such a suitable victim with lots of potential motives, the actual solution felt... rushed, I suppose? Like as if the actual detecting stopped and the solution was just dropped into Daisy's lap. It felt as if Dunn cut a few corners in both plot and accuracy to finish up the story quickly. This type of cozy mystery often incorporates a good bit of artistic license, or standard suspension-of-disbelief - think of an average Lord Peter Wimsey story. How the crime happened was way more important than the actual real-world probability or feasibility of it happening in that particular way. Even taking that into account, the conclusion still didn't feel real, somehow. Basically, don't just suspend disbelief - chuck all disbelief out the window when you start getting close to the end and just roll with the events as they're written. WITHOUT ANY SPOILERS, yes, this was the early 1920s, and some things were done a certain way, and class and wealth still played a very large roll in social dynamics, but the police would still have had some procedures and actual rules to follow. It felt like Daisy (and Dunn) had just waltzed right over/past them. One other Goodreads reviewer said that it felt like Dunn had come back to working on the novel after a period of absence, and just wanted to hurry up and finish the book. That seems a pretty accurate description, actually. This is the first in the series, so I will cut her a bit of slack for that. There are at least 20 Daisy Dalrymple books right now, so I'm assuming that Dunn'll grow in confidence in the mystery genre as she works more in it. A lot of series take a book or two to really get their feet under them, so to speak. I enjoyed Daisy, Alec, and the other characters and the rest of the story, so my frustrations with the conclusion won't prevent me from picking up the next one in the series. But, this ending (with my associated frustrations) is what keeps me from giving this one a full 4 stars.
Audiobook Comments:
Overall:
I enjoyed it. Though not entirely satisfied with the ending, I enjoyed it enough that I've got the second in the series ready to read (listen to). Take it for what it is, though. It's a fluffy historical cozy mystery series - a "potato chip" read (can't read just one), a palate-cleanser between darker or weightier stories, an enjoyable bit of escapism. Think Dowton Abbey, remember. Books can be just fun, you know. Don't read it if you're looking for extensive historical or procedural detail (or accuracy). And if you're looking for a really hard-core heroine or a very gritty story, this isn't the series for you; try The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Harry Hole or Wire in the Blood instead.
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