Everyone has strong opinions, but the remarkable thing is how friendly the chat is - nobody gets mean about it. In current internet ways, this is truly remarkable. Thank you to all my readers
And now, finally, a new book:
Who is Simon Warwick? by Paricia Moyes
published 1978
My friend Jim over at the Invisible Event blog
recently did a fascinating post about clues in Golden Age mysteries – I strongly
recommend it. It includes a tour de force of showing
different ways a writer could introduce the same clue: the white scarf.
It got me thinking about clues, and I mentioned in a
comment to the post that one of the best I remembered came in a book that
wasn’t otherwise very memorable. And this is it – I took it down off the shelf
for a reread in the wake of Jim’s activity.
I have done a few Patricia Moyes books on the blog (see tag below),
and have enjoyed some of them: they usually have interesting settings, and I
can always get worked up about Henry Tibbett being very annoying and his wife
Emmy a doormat - full
discussion here, and not challenged in this book by the way.
Who is Simon Warwick? has
an excellent setup: a rich dying man – a lord and a businessman – decides to
search for his lost heir, a nephew who was orphaned and adopted, the eponymous
Simon. He wants to leave his fortune to him. The child was taken to the USA,
and his name was changed, and the lord dies before he can be found.
So now two different claimants come forward – how to decide
which is the right one? Impersonation! A great
favourite round here.
So there is some investigating into the two men, and then –
just as they are about to confront each other – one of them is murdered in a
solicitor’s office on a Saturday morning. (A weird reminder of one aspect of Michael
Gilbert’s Smallbone Deceased)
I should have enjoyed all this enormously, but my memory
was that it didn’t quite work for me, and it was the same this time. (I will
come on to the question of the Good Clue shortly.) I wasn’t invested in either
of the two claimants, and could guess some of what was going on. It all became
quite meta, regarding who might have a motive, depending on who was the real
Simon Warwick, and then a rigmarole about arrests and arrivals from the USA and
lost characters.
However: there was one aspect that I had completely
forgotten and was not expecting at all. Plainly I can’t give this away, though
with my patent #spoilernotspoiler system there are similar
plotlines in works by this
author,
& this
one
& this
one
(not necessarily the book in the linked post, and all of
them wrote shedloads of books, so you can triangulate or not as you choose)
It was a big surprise, and handled well I thought.
Now, when I started rereading, I had no real memory of
anything except double-Simons, and the clue. When the clue turned up I was very
surprised about who was involved, I would
not have remembered that at all. Because I was looking for it, the clue
jumped out at me, but I truly believe most people would not spot it.
And that’s all I can say.
So – an interesting read, with some points of interest, but
not recommending everyone rushes out to find it…
Sometimes Patricia Moyes gives good clothes, and sometimes
she doesn’t. Not this time, so I have chosen a couple of women who resembled my
idea of those in the book - particularly the respectable wives of various respectable men - from fashion magazines of the era.
What a tease you are!
ReplyDeleteI know! Feel I can't do other.... the Good Clue is rather a giveaway...
DeleteYour friend Jim’s post about white scarf clues and how to hide them, or make them obvious, is fascinating. From now on I shall read murder mysteries in an entirely different way!
DeleteI know, it's a brilliant exposition isn't it?
DeleteI read this earlier in October funnily enough, which at least means I have enough of a memory of it to remember the clue you are hinting at. I was definitely surprised by the ending, but I am not sure it is well clued enough, as the key clue is a visual one which we don't get access to until near the end. Tibbett also does some off the page recording checking which we can't interact with.
ReplyDeleteThat's a coincidence, given that her books aren't exactly top of most people's piles these days! I remember saying to you that only you and I sill read Elizabeth Ferrars, and perhaps Moyes is the same. I thought there was the Good Clue, and the rest was a bit of a mishmash, not too coherent. And the adventures at the end were a bit mad. Still, an easy read.
DeleteI've read several Moyes books (and still read Ferrars too). Funny that I didn't see Emmy as a doormat, because I'm usually
DeleteDarn Enter key, it keeps jumping under my fingers! (Marty here.) I usually notice doormat behavior, maybe I was too young when I read these books. I thought the books (and sleuths) were pleasant but a little blah.
DeleteI think Moyes would say that she isn't a doormat, and that Henry and Emmy have a relationship that is equal but different (that well-known defence of apartheid). And occasionally she has good moments, or pursues her own line. But I find them very annoying. YMMV!
DeleteYou know, Moira, I haven't read Moyes in a while, so I'm glad of the reminder. It's interesting, isn't it, how a book can have one great element (in this case, a clue), but otherwise not be memorable. And of course, if you mention much about the clue, it spoils the story. Hmm....stories that hinge on that one clue... I'll have to think about that.
ReplyDeleteIt is a strange book, and not her best, but it did have intriguing elements.
DeleteOne clud is an interesting concept! I am remembering two different books, where someone goes back into a room/house to collect something. There is evidence that the ultimate victim is alive when they come out again, but is murdered later. When you've read as many crime books as we have, we immediately suspect that 'still-alive' evidence, and know immediately who must have done it... Obviously I'm not saying what those books are!
I couldn't resist adding just one more thing on the Emma post ...
ReplyDeleteI have no memory of ever reading anything by Patricia Moyes, which is odd, because based on her Wikipedia entry her books would have been in libraries in the 1970s and early 1980s when I was prepared to read pretty much anything. Don't think I'm going to be adding her to my list.
Thoughts about clues remind me of Sarah Caudwell's "The Siren's Sang of Murder", and Julia's indignation that the murderer is so old-fashioned as to leave a large, tangible, obvious clue (in the form of a pen with engraved initials) when modern practice requires forensic clues invisible to the naked eye.
Sovay
I love 'just one more thing' going on forever.
DeleteSirens is on my list to reread and I am looking forward to it. Adonis was always my outright favourite, but they were all good.
"... the respectable wives of various respectable men." Such an achievement for them. Along with smearing lipstick on one's cheek (??) Although, even if they were achievers in their own right, the magazines would no doubt have ignored that.
ReplyDeleteI certainly remember devouring Patricia Moyes in the late 60s, early 70s. Everything the library had. Gosh, that was long ago....
Patricia Moyes had rather old-fashioned milieux for her books - it always surprises me because she herself was a very go-ahead career woman, working at Vogue, travelling and so on. You wouldnt know from most of her female characters.
DeleteThe trend for dual-use blusher/lipstick cosmetics obviously passed you by! It was quite the thing when I was young and experimenting. The old 1970s magazine make-up ads on pinterest tell the story....
And helped me formulate a useful policy: if something says it is dual-use, reversible or one-size, then it will be useless at all its formats. Not 100% true, but a helpful guide.
Just one more thing... I once heard the late, great P.D. James give a talk on clues. Her point was that clues have to be buried among lots of other trivia, so as not to be too obvious, and therefore detective novels are some of the very best texts to read if you want to learn about daily life in a certain time or place. (For instance, if you want to learn about the advertising business in the 1930s you should read Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers.) And then, at the end of the talk, she said that the masterpiece when it comes to hiding clues is not a detective novel at all, but Jane Austen's Emma. But of course.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I have always said the same, not copying PDJ. The domestic trivia has to be correct, so that the clues can hide in plain sight.
DeleteIt would be delightful if Christie, that past master of hiding clues in plain sight, had learned the skill from reading Austen. She might have read "Emma" and thought that placing clues in the boring chatter of someone like Miss Bates would be very effective!
DeleteI have read quite a few of Moyes's novels and this sounds interesting. However I went to have a look on Amazon and the very first review entirely gave the game away! What were they thinking? So I didn't even have to follow your links to know what you were talking about. A true spoiler that means I don't much want to read it now. So be warned, fellow readers ... Chrissie
ReplyDeleteOh no! I just went and looked (safe for me!) and absolutely, what a complete giveaway. Why do people DO that? The second review did the same...
DeleteThe dénouement really surprised me. I didn't see it coming and I thought she handled it really well, no sensationalism. The set up of the will and the search was bit tedious though. Not her best -that would be Murder à la mode for me.
ReplyDeleteYes, very good summing up of my views. And I too think Murder a la Mode is her best - but I may be biased in its favour because of the fashion content!
Delete