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Mrs. Bradley #4
The Saltmarsh Murders
When the vicar's wife discovers that her unmarried housemaid is pregnant, sometime detective and full-time Freudian, Mrs. Bradley, undertakes an unnervingly unorthodox investigation into the mysterious pregnancy.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
About the author
Gladys Mitchell
92 books130 followersAka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby.
Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie.
She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921.
She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.
She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983.
Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard.
She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie.
She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921.
She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.
She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983.
Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard.
She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
April 10, 2020
This was not a great pick for me.
Not only is this one that has not dated well (and even seems anachronistic for the time is was written), but this is one that heavily draws on an admiration of Freud, which is channeled through Mrs Bradley at every opportunity.
This is also another one where Mrs Bradley seems to call everyone "Dear Child", which was something that grated on me in another book in this series also.
As for the murders, ... by about the half-way point of this book, I didn't even care about the plot anymore.
Not only is this one that has not dated well (and even seems anachronistic for the time is was written), but this is one that heavily draws on an admiration of Freud, which is channeled through Mrs Bradley at every opportunity.
This is also another one where Mrs Bradley seems to call everyone "Dear Child", which was something that grated on me in another book in this series also.
As for the murders, ... by about the half-way point of this book, I didn't even care about the plot anymore.
July 8, 2015
I love the classic detectives of the Golden Age of British cozies: Miss Jane Marple, Miss Maud Silver, and Lord Roderick Alleyn. But I have a new favorite: Mrs. Beatrice Bradley. She's considerably less likable than any of the aforementioned, what with her yellowed, shriveled looks, her cackling laugh, her domineering personality, and her malicious wit. Yet, she's so sly, and the satire of early 20th century refined society is so delicious, that I think she may well dethrone Miss Marple in my heart. (Forgive me, Dame Agatha!)
In this novel, Mrs. Bradley sleuths out the murderer of a "ruined" housemaid who had been keeping the father of her illegitimate baby a secret. Needless to say, police officials leap at the obvious, only to be shown up by "the Bradley," as curate Noël Wells calls her. The curate narrates the tale, and his timidity and conformity to the conventional thinking of his day only add to the fun. So does his lack of self-awareness, which lead Reverend Wells to make some unintentionally funny remarks.
Of course, I love the television version of Mrs. Bradley; however, that production, featuring a more chic and less quirky Mrs. Bradley, is quite, quite different from the books. You can view the television programs without ruining in the least the enjoyment of the novels.
In this novel, Mrs. Bradley sleuths out the murderer of a "ruined" housemaid who had been keeping the father of her illegitimate baby a secret. Needless to say, police officials leap at the obvious, only to be shown up by "the Bradley," as curate Noël Wells calls her. The curate narrates the tale, and his timidity and conformity to the conventional thinking of his day only add to the fun. So does his lack of self-awareness, which lead Reverend Wells to make some unintentionally funny remarks.
Of course, I love the television version of Mrs. Bradley; however, that production, featuring a more chic and less quirky Mrs. Bradley, is quite, quite different from the books. You can view the television programs without ruining in the least the enjoyment of the novels.
October 25, 2023
Still Cackling
Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle edition (December 31, 2013) of the original Gollancz (UK) hardcover (1932).
After getting over the shock of meeting Mrs. Bradley in Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley #1 - 1929) I was hesitant to try another book with Gladys Mitchell's singularly odd psychoanalyst detective. I was curious however to know whether Mitchell would have pulled back on her physical descriptions which had constantly emphasized the shrivelled features and claw-like hands. Jumping ahead to read book #4, The Saltmarsh Murders, proved that this was not the case, as can be read in the above extract. The shrieking laughter continues as well.
Mrs. Bradley is on the scene in the coastal village of Saltmarsh when a series of murders occurs. The book is narrated by the village curate Noel Wells who becomes Mrs. Bradley's Watson as the case progresses. Almost all of the odd features of the first book continue in this one. The case becomes enormously complex as aside from the murders it also involves various assaults and imprisonments, a disappearance, a smuggling operation, and mystery persons scrambling across roofs in the night. Mrs. Bradley explains it all in the end of course.
The spine and the front cover of the original 1932 Gollancz (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I discovered the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries by Gladys Mitchell from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Although Mitchell was a contemporary of such Golden Age of Crime Fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, I had never heard of her previously and she is the first of the "Forgotten" that I chose to investigate. All 66 Mrs. Bradley novels have been republished in eBook & paperback by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint in the recent years 2013 to 2018.
Trivia and Links
The Saltmarsh Murders was not adapted for television as part of the short-lived The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000) starring Diana Rigg as Mrs. Bradley (the casting of Rigg ignores Mitchell's description of the character). There is a delightful homemade tribute edit which uses clips from the series at Get the Party Started: The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.
Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle edition (December 31, 2013) of the original Gollancz (UK) hardcover (1932).
One of the most frightful-looking old ladies—(according to William, of course)—that he’d ever seen. She was smallish, thin and shrivelled, and she had a yellow face with sharp black eyes, like a witch, and yellow, claw-like hands. She cackled harshly when William was introduced and chucked him under the chin, and then squealed like a macaw that’s having its tail pulled.
After getting over the shock of meeting Mrs. Bradley in Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley #1 - 1929) I was hesitant to try another book with Gladys Mitchell's singularly odd psychoanalyst detective. I was curious however to know whether Mitchell would have pulled back on her physical descriptions which had constantly emphasized the shrivelled features and claw-like hands. Jumping ahead to read book #4, The Saltmarsh Murders, proved that this was not the case, as can be read in the above extract. The shrieking laughter continues as well.
Mrs. Bradley is on the scene in the coastal village of Saltmarsh when a series of murders occurs. The book is narrated by the village curate Noel Wells who becomes Mrs. Bradley's Watson as the case progresses. Almost all of the odd features of the first book continue in this one. The case becomes enormously complex as aside from the murders it also involves various assaults and imprisonments, a disappearance, a smuggling operation, and mystery persons scrambling across roofs in the night. Mrs. Bradley explains it all in the end of course.
The spine and the front cover of the original 1932 Gollancz (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I discovered the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries by Gladys Mitchell from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Although Mitchell was a contemporary of such Golden Age of Crime Fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, I had never heard of her previously and she is the first of the "Forgotten" that I chose to investigate. All 66 Mrs. Bradley novels have been republished in eBook & paperback by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint in the recent years 2013 to 2018.
Trivia and Links
The Saltmarsh Murders was not adapted for television as part of the short-lived The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000) starring Diana Rigg as Mrs. Bradley (the casting of Rigg ignores Mitchell's description of the character). There is a delightful homemade tribute edit which uses clips from the series at Get the Party Started: The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.
October 5, 2018
Another strange Mitchell mystery. I like it but I don't like it. Her books are odd and unsettling but in a sort of fascinating way.
This book was both dated and ahead of it's time. The straight faced Freudian talk is a hoot. Yet in other ways the book prefigures the amoral lurid aspect of many modern thrillers. The wildly broad stereotype of the one black character is cringe worthy. Yikes! However it's depiction of women's sexuality is so different from the usual 1930's mores.
A creepy book that I kind of like except when I don't.
This book was both dated and ahead of it's time. The straight faced Freudian talk is a hoot. Yet in other ways the book prefigures the amoral lurid aspect of many modern thrillers. The wildly broad stereotype of the one black character is cringe worthy. Yikes! However it's depiction of women's sexuality is so different from the usual 1930's mores.
A creepy book that I kind of like except when I don't.
July 9, 2011
I have read many books from the "Golden age of crime" before, not to mention many other novels written in the years between the wars, and certainly there are many times when attitudes of the time jar terribly with what is acceptable today. However generally speaking - it is at least explainable, and the reader can set things in the context in which they were written and move on. However in this book - which is the first Gladys Mitchell I have read - there was language and attitudes particularly to race - which I actually found offensive. There is a black servant character in the book, and so I would hope that other Gladys Mitchell novels - not featuring black characters wouldn't be so overtly racist. The story itself was really quite readable - but it was spoiled for me by the stereotyping of this minor character. Alongside that issue - was the fact that some years ago I saw the TV adaptations of The Mrs Bradley Mysteries - which I thoroughly enjoyed - and now know bore no relation whatsoever to the books, why Dame Diana Rigg was ever cast, as the wizened, shrieking, yellow skinned elderly sleuth beggars belief.
Read
June 5, 2023A Mrs Bradley mystery, which is to say combines a classic English situation--here a village with vicar and fete--with some fairly baroque behaviour, Freudian psychology, and murdering.
This one is mostly entertaining until the depiction of the black character which Jesus wept. I found it interesting that the author's creation Mrs Bradley is on page a great deal less racist than the actual author seems to be. Not sure how you manage that.
This one is mostly entertaining until the depiction of the black character which Jesus wept. I found it interesting that the author's creation Mrs Bradley is on page a great deal less racist than the actual author seems to be. Not sure how you manage that.
June 11, 2011
The Saltmarsh Murders by Gladys Mitchell, is a series and an author -- incredibly -- I did not know before. Mitchell began her mystery writing career in 1929 and is pretty much a contemporary of Agatha Christie. Her heroine ... through 66 novels! ... is Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, or "Mrs Bradley" as she is referred to in this early outing, first published in 1932.
Random House Vintage has reissued a half dozen of the (mostly) early titles. This one bears the tagline: "A quick-witted, clever mystery from the Golden Age of crime writing" and that sums it up nicely. It is quaint in some ways, but also unexpectedly funny in other places. There are vicars, and pubs, and secret passages ... and murder. Like a number of Christie novels, this one has a fairly long lead in of facts and characters before the story really starts to take off. So prepare yourself for a leisurely entrée into the world of Saltmarsh, as narrated by the young deacon, Noel Wells, and the surprising characters that inhabit this town.
Random House Vintage has reissued a half dozen of the (mostly) early titles. This one bears the tagline: "A quick-witted, clever mystery from the Golden Age of crime writing" and that sums it up nicely. It is quaint in some ways, but also unexpectedly funny in other places. There are vicars, and pubs, and secret passages ... and murder. Like a number of Christie novels, this one has a fairly long lead in of facts and characters before the story really starts to take off. So prepare yourself for a leisurely entrée into the world of Saltmarsh, as narrated by the young deacon, Noel Wells, and the surprising characters that inhabit this town.
May 24, 2016
Mrs. Bradley is an interesting, odd and slightly dark character. This was my first of these books (I LOVE the tv series with Diana Rigg -- though I have to say, other than the name, not a lot is the same). I found it very amusing and enjoyed trying to follow her logic along the way.
The story itself was interesting but not overwhelmingly so. A couple murders, a missing baby and a bunch of secrets. There was one piece of the puzzle I truly didn't get though despite explanations and it didn't make sense to me so all in all I am going with an okay but pretty funny book and I will read another.
On a final note, I did like Noel, the narrator and bit of sidekick
The story itself was interesting but not overwhelmingly so. A couple murders, a missing baby and a bunch of secrets. There was one piece of the puzzle I truly didn't get though despite explanations and it didn't make sense to me so all in all I am going with an okay but pretty funny book and I will read another.
On a final note, I did like Noel, the narrator and bit of sidekick
December 29, 2014
My first Mrs Bradley. Imagine Miss Marple with a degree and an attitude. All the classic ingredients of the English village cozy mystery--with a touch of MacBeth's wierd witches. I'm not saying there's anything paranormal in the book, there isn't. But Mrs Bradley is decidedly odd. Having come in at Number 4, I may have missed something in the character buildup, but she is not endearing. Few of the characters are, really, from the bumbling Watson stand-in to the principal suspects; even the "nice" village folk are a bit hard on each other.
The writer's time and personal mentality are very much in evidence in her use of language to pigeonhole people and personalities, even when Mrs Bradley is not speaking--and of course the British class system is alive and well. So you have the vicar and curate referring to their parishioners as "the rustics" (hardly a compliment), and everyone of the upper village echelon referring to "women of her type", "men of that type" do this or that, or think this or that. I did rather object to being informed repeatedly, in the mouths of different characters, that "women of that type" (ie showgirls and other working-class lasses) apparently don't mind being knocked about by their men, in fact they expect it. After all, as Bradley blithely asserts, she could leave him if she really minded. For all her "psychology", la Bradley doesn't seem to know much about the dynamics of abusive relationships. Oh, and BTW--the author's idea of "black English" was just music-hall stupid. Ugh.
All right as a bedtime read, but a little convoluted and involved. A few too many subthreads, and the end was rather silly; I'm used to "library scene" reveals, with someone telling how it all happened, but this was...um, yeah. I'm also used to Holmes and Poirot setting themselves up as judge and jury, but...yeah. The fact that the author had to have an "appendix" with Bradley's personal diary, explaining her ideas and elucubrations along the way,tells me that I'm not the only person who found it confusing. Apparently the author did, too.
The writer's time and personal mentality are very much in evidence in her use of language to pigeonhole people and personalities, even when Mrs Bradley is not speaking--and of course the British class system is alive and well. So you have the vicar and curate referring to their parishioners as "the rustics" (hardly a compliment), and everyone of the upper village echelon referring to "women of her type", "men of that type" do this or that, or think this or that. I did rather object to being informed repeatedly, in the mouths of different characters, that "women of that type" (ie showgirls and other working-class lasses) apparently don't mind being knocked about by their men, in fact they expect it. After all, as Bradley blithely asserts, she could leave him if she really minded. For all her "psychology", la Bradley doesn't seem to know much about the dynamics of abusive relationships. Oh, and BTW--the author's idea of "black English" was just music-hall stupid. Ugh.
All right as a bedtime read, but a little convoluted and involved. A few too many subthreads, and the end was rather silly; I'm used to "library scene" reveals, with someone telling how it all happened, but this was...um, yeah. I'm also used to Holmes and Poirot setting themselves up as judge and jury, but...yeah. The fact that the author had to have an "appendix" with Bradley's personal diary, explaining her ideas and elucubrations along the way,tells me that I'm not the only person who found it confusing. Apparently the author did, too.
June 27, 2019
I am a fan of Agatha Christie so I thought I would test the output of her contemporaries who also focused on the detective style defined, it appears, by bewildered vicars, acerbic spinsters, clueless servant girls and shady butlers in quiet but surprisingly deadly English villages. I have hacked my way through, Georgette Heyer, Margaret Yorke, Ngaio Marsh and now Gladys Mitchell and I must say they have not dated well and are uniformly rubbish.
This book was so light as to feel like a farce movie from the 60s. Aside from the annoying characters, the clues weren't true in the way Agatha's are. There is a book about Agatha Christie's writing called 'A talent to deceive' which is a great one liner to describe the appeal of her books. Gladys Mitchell doesn't have this talent. You can't guess who committed the murder but the reason is because it isn't possible. The answer to the next step in the puzzle is in the sleuth's head and it didn't get there from a clever assessment of the clues because the author doesn't have the talent to build the story that way. The continual leaps to the next step in the puzzle are dropped into the heroine's head from the author. The curate who narrates is a nice but dim character but Sherlock himself couldn't have made sense of the progression.
The only reason I believe anyone ever had the patience to put up with this tripe is that Agatha, whose books are (typically) genuinely clever, created a market bigger than her one book a year output could satisfy (same with Arthur Conan Doyle) leaving plenty of space for hacks to churn out anodyne twaddle in the interim.
This book was so light as to feel like a farce movie from the 60s. Aside from the annoying characters, the clues weren't true in the way Agatha's are. There is a book about Agatha Christie's writing called 'A talent to deceive' which is a great one liner to describe the appeal of her books. Gladys Mitchell doesn't have this talent. You can't guess who committed the murder but the reason is because it isn't possible. The answer to the next step in the puzzle is in the sleuth's head and it didn't get there from a clever assessment of the clues because the author doesn't have the talent to build the story that way. The continual leaps to the next step in the puzzle are dropped into the heroine's head from the author. The curate who narrates is a nice but dim character but Sherlock himself couldn't have made sense of the progression.
The only reason I believe anyone ever had the patience to put up with this tripe is that Agatha, whose books are (typically) genuinely clever, created a market bigger than her one book a year output could satisfy (same with Arthur Conan Doyle) leaving plenty of space for hacks to churn out anodyne twaddle in the interim.
August 4, 2022
I'd heard about Gladys Mitchell's mysteries through Goodreads and finally got around to one. There's a lot to recommend about the series, particularly Mrs. Bradley's very modern thoughts on issues like capital punishment and sex. (The Mrs. Bradley books were published largely in the 1930s and 1940s.)
Unfortunately, the drawbacks to The Saltmarsh Murders were many for me:
* The constant rehashing of clues, filling dozens and dozens of pages, wore me down, and I began to care less about who killed young Meg Tosstick.
* There is some odd dialogue in the story and, for unknown reasons, the narrator occasionally refers to his neighbours as "the Bradley" or "the Burt".
* The narrator, a curate, and the rather rude Mrs. Bradley have a habit of labelling nearly everyone in the village as mad.
* The explanations for Mr. Gatty being in the crypt made little sense.
*Mrs. Bradley insisting that some women don't mind being beaten was disturbing.
Having been this critical, I did read on to find out whodunnit - and I prefer Gladys Mitchell over Robert Galbraith, when it comes to mystery and suspense.
Unfortunately, the drawbacks to The Saltmarsh Murders were many for me:
* The constant rehashing of clues, filling dozens and dozens of pages, wore me down, and I began to care less about who killed young Meg Tosstick.
* There is some odd dialogue in the story and, for unknown reasons, the narrator occasionally refers to his neighbours as "the Bradley" or "the Burt".
* The narrator, a curate, and the rather rude Mrs. Bradley have a habit of labelling nearly everyone in the village as mad.
* The explanations for Mr. Gatty being in the crypt made little sense.
*Mrs. Bradley insisting that some women don't mind being beaten was disturbing.
Having been this critical, I did read on to find out whodunnit - and I prefer Gladys Mitchell over Robert Galbraith, when it comes to mystery and suspense.
August 23, 2024
When gross sensationalism is clubbed with education of mind and soul it makes for a disconcerting read, mainly when one expects Golden Age comforts.
Not that the novel is dull or dry. It has all the famous GA tropes. We have escapism, truckloads of it: coves, smugglers, fetes, fortune telling, underground passages; we have red herrings, misdirection, sleight of hand; we have a Watson figure; and one of the most intriguing villains ever. In fact, vaguely reminiscent of two of Poirot's brightest detections, Appointment with Death and Curtain, this novel could have been a first class read.
But isn't.
Why?
What holds it back?
Ah! the yoking of upliftment and titillation that I had spoken of earlier.
Moreover, it has a lot to say on lot many things; and while this makes it a fertile ground for academicians, it is unduly distracting. When I say multitudinous topics, I am not exaggerating: Illegitimacy, incest, pornography, church morality, racism, insanity, matchmaking, and jury prejudices, are just some of the topics dealt with in this novel.
Whew!
I have read only two novels of Gladys Mitchell; but it seems she uses detective fiction as a vehicle to comment on societal prejudices, and teach readers' tolerance, if not harmony. Giving a wonderfully accurate depiction of societal mores is Mitchell's strength. But that's what makes these novels feel aged, due to the changes in society. Furthermore, the language used while referring to topics such as race relations is often off-putting as it is very much of the period it is written in, and quite defamatory. Second, some of her views, mainly regarding pornography and incest, are mischievous -- if not outright weird. Either way they are strange lessons to stumble across while reading a GA mystery.
It is, however, still a novel that kept me interested till the end, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend: albeit with statutory warning in place regarding offensive language.
Not that the novel is dull or dry. It has all the famous GA tropes. We have escapism, truckloads of it: coves, smugglers, fetes, fortune telling, underground passages; we have red herrings, misdirection, sleight of hand; we have a Watson figure; and one of the most intriguing villains ever. In fact, vaguely reminiscent of two of Poirot's brightest detections, Appointment with Death and Curtain, this novel could have been a first class read.
But isn't.
Why?
What holds it back?
Ah! the yoking of upliftment and titillation that I had spoken of earlier.
Moreover, it has a lot to say on lot many things; and while this makes it a fertile ground for academicians, it is unduly distracting. When I say multitudinous topics, I am not exaggerating: Illegitimacy, incest, pornography, church morality, racism, insanity, matchmaking, and jury prejudices, are just some of the topics dealt with in this novel.
Whew!
I have read only two novels of Gladys Mitchell; but it seems she uses detective fiction as a vehicle to comment on societal prejudices, and teach readers' tolerance, if not harmony. Giving a wonderfully accurate depiction of societal mores is Mitchell's strength. But that's what makes these novels feel aged, due to the changes in society. Furthermore, the language used while referring to topics such as race relations is often off-putting as it is very much of the period it is written in, and quite defamatory. Second, some of her views, mainly regarding pornography and incest, are mischievous -- if not outright weird. Either way they are strange lessons to stumble across while reading a GA mystery.
It is, however, still a novel that kept me interested till the end, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend: albeit with statutory warning in place regarding offensive language.
February 26, 2022
Very clever and stylishly written with more than a whiff of Wodehouse. However, I found the plotting unnecessarily complex and the book felt a little dated (not surprising for 1930s vintage). Rated it OK, might try a couple more in the series before giving them up altogether.
October 25, 2021
Oof, what a thoroughly unpleasant little book.
As another reviewer mentioned, all the foibles of early Golden Age mysteries—coincidences, convolutions, and a character constantly saying they know who did it but refusing to reveal things until the very end—without much of the good stuff. Thoroughly and boringly unlikeable characters. And ludicrously racist! I read a lot of this period's fiction and can deal with a certain amount of outdated language/worldview/etc, but I'd rather not read things that make me feel like I'm watching a minstrel show.
Ugh. UGH.
As another reviewer mentioned, all the foibles of early Golden Age mysteries—coincidences, convolutions, and a character constantly saying they know who did it but refusing to reveal things until the very end—without much of the good stuff. Thoroughly and boringly unlikeable characters. And ludicrously racist! I read a lot of this period's fiction and can deal with a certain amount of outdated language/worldview/etc, but I'd rather not read things that make me feel like I'm watching a minstrel show.
Ugh. UGH.
October 23, 2011
The Saltmarsh Murders, which appeared in 1932, was the fourth of Gladys Mitchell’s sixty-six Mrs Bradley mysteries. In some ways it’s a very typical example of golden age detective fiction while in others it’s more of a hybrid.
It has all the faults (or if you happen to be a fan of golden age mysteries as I am, all the virtues) of its type. The plot is convoluted and wildly implausible. The detective solves the mystery quickly but refuses to reveal the identity of the guilty party even to her loyal lieutenant on the grounds that she has insufficient proof.
On the other hand the detective in this instance happens to be a psychoanalyst so it points the way forward to the modern type of crime novel with its obsession with psychological factors which are usually far more implausible than even the wildest flights of fancy of golden age detective fiction. Depending on your point of view this novel could be seen to embody the best, or the worst, of both worlds.
The story is narrated by Noel Wells, the good-natured if not overly intellectual Anglican curate of the village of Saltmarsh, somewhere in England. He is not especially fond of the vicar, Mr Coutts, and he is even less fond of the vicar’s wife. But the position does have its compensations. Well one compensation in particular, the vicar’s niece, Daphne. Daphne and Noel are very much in love.
The vicarage is thrown into turmoil when the housemaid falls pregnant. The local innkeeper, Mr Lowry, agrees to take her in. The girl, Meg Tosstick, refuses to say who the father of her child is. And when the child is born no-one is allowed to see it. This encourages various rumours, mostly based on the assumption that the baby must bear a striking resemblance to its father. The vicar and the local squire are both widely regarded as being possible candidates. Then Meg is murdered. Bob Candy, who works at the inn and was known to be Meg’s young man until fairly recently, is arrested.
Most of the villagers find it difficult to believe he was capable of murder. Fortunately Mrs Bradley is a house guest of the squire at this time. Her reputation as an amateur detective is well established and she and Noel join forces to conduct their own investigation. A second murder will follow, a murder that at first appears to have no obvious connection to Meg Tosstick’s murder.
Mrs Bradley’s method of crime-solving relies more on psychoanalysis than traditional investigative techniques. She also has curious ideas about the law and morality. She regards murder as being not necessarily a crime. She is terribly modern in her notions, to an extent that often shocks the rather innocent young curate.
Mrs Bradley is herself a colourful character and Gladys Mitchell populates the novel with a whole gallery of equally colourful and bizarre personalities. Her style very definitely tends towards a tongue-in-cheek approach. Mrs Bradley is very much the star and whether you enjoy the book will depend entirely on whether you warm towards the eccentric, opinionated and rather over-the-top elderly detective. I had difficulties doing that, and her moral relativism annoyed me considerably (although in our own depraved times it might make her rather popular).
Mrs Bradley’s psychoanalytical approach to crime also does stretch credibility at times. It has its amusing moments but I’m not sure I can recommend this one.
It has all the faults (or if you happen to be a fan of golden age mysteries as I am, all the virtues) of its type. The plot is convoluted and wildly implausible. The detective solves the mystery quickly but refuses to reveal the identity of the guilty party even to her loyal lieutenant on the grounds that she has insufficient proof.
On the other hand the detective in this instance happens to be a psychoanalyst so it points the way forward to the modern type of crime novel with its obsession with psychological factors which are usually far more implausible than even the wildest flights of fancy of golden age detective fiction. Depending on your point of view this novel could be seen to embody the best, or the worst, of both worlds.
The story is narrated by Noel Wells, the good-natured if not overly intellectual Anglican curate of the village of Saltmarsh, somewhere in England. He is not especially fond of the vicar, Mr Coutts, and he is even less fond of the vicar’s wife. But the position does have its compensations. Well one compensation in particular, the vicar’s niece, Daphne. Daphne and Noel are very much in love.
The vicarage is thrown into turmoil when the housemaid falls pregnant. The local innkeeper, Mr Lowry, agrees to take her in. The girl, Meg Tosstick, refuses to say who the father of her child is. And when the child is born no-one is allowed to see it. This encourages various rumours, mostly based on the assumption that the baby must bear a striking resemblance to its father. The vicar and the local squire are both widely regarded as being possible candidates. Then Meg is murdered. Bob Candy, who works at the inn and was known to be Meg’s young man until fairly recently, is arrested.
Most of the villagers find it difficult to believe he was capable of murder. Fortunately Mrs Bradley is a house guest of the squire at this time. Her reputation as an amateur detective is well established and she and Noel join forces to conduct their own investigation. A second murder will follow, a murder that at first appears to have no obvious connection to Meg Tosstick’s murder.
Mrs Bradley’s method of crime-solving relies more on psychoanalysis than traditional investigative techniques. She also has curious ideas about the law and morality. She regards murder as being not necessarily a crime. She is terribly modern in her notions, to an extent that often shocks the rather innocent young curate.
Mrs Bradley is herself a colourful character and Gladys Mitchell populates the novel with a whole gallery of equally colourful and bizarre personalities. Her style very definitely tends towards a tongue-in-cheek approach. Mrs Bradley is very much the star and whether you enjoy the book will depend entirely on whether you warm towards the eccentric, opinionated and rather over-the-top elderly detective. I had difficulties doing that, and her moral relativism annoyed me considerably (although in our own depraved times it might make her rather popular).
Mrs Bradley’s psychoanalytical approach to crime also does stretch credibility at times. It has its amusing moments but I’m not sure I can recommend this one.
February 19, 2022
If you love classic British mysteries, you MUST read the Mrs. Bradley series.
Few people today know the name Gladys Mitchell, although those who watch PBS are familiar with her most famous detective - Mrs. Bradley. For decades, however, Mitchell ranked with Christie, Sayers, Marsh, and others as a popular mystery writer. From 1929 until her death in 1983, she cranked out at least one book a year and frequently more. Most of them featured the "reptilian" psychiatrist and detective, Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.
There seem to be no biographies of Miss Mitchell, which is a shame. I'd like to know how a girl whose father was a "market gardener" was able to go to university in 1919, a time when the English working class had almost no access to anything but primary education and also a time when the higher education of women was still violently controversial. But go she did and became a teacher of English, history, and games (P.E.) She started writing in the mid-twenties and published her first Mrs. Bradley mystery in 1929.
For years she continued to teach from necessity, since her books earned her only about fifty pounds each. In the 1950's writing became a bit more lucrative and she stopped teaching. Within three years, she was so bored she went back to teaching and kept at it until she finally retired for good in 1961. Maybe she agreed with Edmund Crispin that working with young people is the best possible occupation for learning about criminal tendencies.
THE SALTMARSH MURDERS (published in 1932) was the fourth Mrs. Bradley mystery and is generally considered to be one of the best. A number of Mitchell fans have compiled lists of her books from best to worst, although there are so many that by the time you read them all you've forgotten the first ones you read (if you haven't died of old age.) I think it's interesting that most of Mitchell's books are written in third person, but SALTMARSH and THE RISING OF THE MOON (another general favorite) have narrators. Perhaps that's a technique the author should have used more frequently.
It is, like all "cozy" mysteries, a faithful retelling of day-to-day life in its setting and its time. If you want to know how life really was, read a mystery written by a woman. What's notable here is the strict observance of class lines, the friction between the generations (the "Roaring Twenties" having reached even this isolated village,) and the shocking (to us) acceptance of racism, economic inequalities, and domestic violence. Mrs. Bradley's state-of-the-art (for the time) psychiatric pronouncements don't stand the test of time, but she's an endlessly fascinating old dame all the same.
As to the plot, it's full of twists and turns and red herrings. I wasn't really sure whodunit until the end, and several other characters were just as plausible as the guilty party. The real charm is the eccentric characters and the likable (if pompous) narrator who says of his beloved's younger brother's antics, "But of course fourteen year old boys just don't think along the same lines as other human beings...." The experienced school teacher speaks!
Few people today know the name Gladys Mitchell, although those who watch PBS are familiar with her most famous detective - Mrs. Bradley. For decades, however, Mitchell ranked with Christie, Sayers, Marsh, and others as a popular mystery writer. From 1929 until her death in 1983, she cranked out at least one book a year and frequently more. Most of them featured the "reptilian" psychiatrist and detective, Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.
There seem to be no biographies of Miss Mitchell, which is a shame. I'd like to know how a girl whose father was a "market gardener" was able to go to university in 1919, a time when the English working class had almost no access to anything but primary education and also a time when the higher education of women was still violently controversial. But go she did and became a teacher of English, history, and games (P.E.) She started writing in the mid-twenties and published her first Mrs. Bradley mystery in 1929.
For years she continued to teach from necessity, since her books earned her only about fifty pounds each. In the 1950's writing became a bit more lucrative and she stopped teaching. Within three years, she was so bored she went back to teaching and kept at it until she finally retired for good in 1961. Maybe she agreed with Edmund Crispin that working with young people is the best possible occupation for learning about criminal tendencies.
THE SALTMARSH MURDERS (published in 1932) was the fourth Mrs. Bradley mystery and is generally considered to be one of the best. A number of Mitchell fans have compiled lists of her books from best to worst, although there are so many that by the time you read them all you've forgotten the first ones you read (if you haven't died of old age.) I think it's interesting that most of Mitchell's books are written in third person, but SALTMARSH and THE RISING OF THE MOON (another general favorite) have narrators. Perhaps that's a technique the author should have used more frequently.
It is, like all "cozy" mysteries, a faithful retelling of day-to-day life in its setting and its time. If you want to know how life really was, read a mystery written by a woman. What's notable here is the strict observance of class lines, the friction between the generations (the "Roaring Twenties" having reached even this isolated village,) and the shocking (to us) acceptance of racism, economic inequalities, and domestic violence. Mrs. Bradley's state-of-the-art (for the time) psychiatric pronouncements don't stand the test of time, but she's an endlessly fascinating old dame all the same.
As to the plot, it's full of twists and turns and red herrings. I wasn't really sure whodunit until the end, and several other characters were just as plausible as the guilty party. The real charm is the eccentric characters and the likable (if pompous) narrator who says of his beloved's younger brother's antics, "But of course fourteen year old boys just don't think along the same lines as other human beings...." The experienced school teacher speaks!
February 24, 2020
I have been trying to figure out how to review this book since before I finished it. Here's the tl;dr deal: Mitchell turns a lot of Golden-Age Mystery Fiction's "lady detective" tropes on their heads, and it's fabulous. She also sends up the Small English Village in ways that would make the Midsomer Murders people stop and say, "Wait, that's maybe a little much for a single village, don't you think?" And this was published in 1932! Fantastic.
The downside is that, well, this a book from 1932, and while its treatment of race and gender isn't totally awful, it's got some extremely Not Great moments. Mitchell (and her heroine, Mrs Bradley) are more knowledgeable and progressive than most of the characters--by a lot--and I give her credit for that, but those moments are VERY uncomfortable. (Some involve the n-word.)
That's the tl;dr. For a brief but slightly spoilery explanation (obvious content warning here), keep reading.
The downside is that, well, this a book from 1932, and while its treatment of race and gender isn't totally awful, it's got some extremely Not Great moments. Mitchell (and her heroine, Mrs Bradley) are more knowledgeable and progressive than most of the characters--by a lot--and I give her credit for that, but those moments are VERY uncomfortable. (Some involve the n-word.)
That's the tl;dr. For a brief but slightly spoilery explanation (obvious content warning here), keep reading.
June 3, 2023
Summary: This novel from a semi-forgotten mystery series has some merit for its quasi-Wodehousian dialogue and interesting main sleuth but its imbalanced narrative, utterly unnecessary racism shoehorned into the plot, and strangely hard to grasp reasoning leaves the reader wondering what the point really was. Recommended mostly to people who would like to see a Golden Age outing lost a bit at sea.
Content Warning: It has big racism added in...just because, I guess.
=== REVIEW ===
Ah, space pilgrims, let me tell you that around chapter 2 of this book I had to go back and reread parts of chapter 1 and then chapter 3 of this book had me go back and reread even bigger chunks of chapters 1 and 2. I thought I was going slightly mad. We meet a young vicar-in-training and he needs to borrow some chairs. He is told "The Deed is Done" by a batty old woman named Mrs. Gatty* and basically ignores this. Later he is called up to a bungalow where something is afoot and then founds out that there a young friend has a story to tell. THEN, space pilgrims, THEN we go and find out in chapter 2 that between the deed being done and the bungalow there was a whole other story involving the older woman's husband being locked in a crypt and discovered and the young friend helping with that and that introduced the main sleuth.
Why we have parts 1 and 3 in Chapter 1 (called "Mrs. Coutt's Maggot**") and then more significant part 2 and 4 in Chapter 2 ("Maggots at the Boathouse and Bats in the Bungalow"), and why Chapter 3 and such retells these happenings in a different sort of weight, I don't know. My sneaky, sneaky Doug-opinion is that Mitchell is both trying to make the reader feel a bit maggoty themselves and she is trying to make us wary of Vicar Noel Wells's narrative which is full of bias and interpretation. As the story goes, there are other times where the time-sync or emotional weight seems off, where a character's description is essentially out of whack with their later actions. Giving Mitchell the benefit of the doubt, it becomes a Rashomon-esque exercise except rather than having multiple points of view you have a single POV but one that is prone to being flighty, of leaping to conclusions, to forgetting small details while exaggerating others.***
All this is told in a sort of quasi-Wodehousian prose that seems to imitate, rather than embrace, the overall rhythm and flow of other Golden Age mysteries. With strange word choices and a mystery that is central to the plot but not exactly central to anyone's lives (at best, the people seem to care more about knowing who the murderer is more than anything else), and with the odd way the final portions and resolutions seem to end largely on a "who cares, at least that's done!" vibe, I begin to suspect that this book is a full on lark. Maybe even a parody because, let me tell you, space pilgrims, when Mrs. Bradley sits down to unfold the mystery towards the end, one of two things occur:
Either the map laying out how it all went down AND the way that the explanation pivots to a number of secrets that were (and still are) divorced from the reader IS a parody to these devices in other stories,
OR
Mitchell created one of the worst maps in genre history AND just flung crap at the reader trying to make things sort of torrid but ultimately pointless.
One of the central mysteries to the whole plot is left unanswered(!) and not only unanswered but Mrs. Bradley basically winks it all off like a joke. This has to be some sort of cleverly written, hand-woven piece of technical brilliance aimed to poke precise fun at specific elements. Right? Or is it just madness and layers of fiction written in a jumble with threads all tangled together until even Mitchell herself could not pluck more strings from it? There's this line about how Wodehouse is "our greatest living author" and then a sort of a legalese aside saying how this opinion "was expressed without prejudice" and "merely in the interests of constructive criticism, of course." While Mitchell borrowed enough of Wodehouse's linguistic flair that not acknowledging it might have been poor sportmanship, this...it's about Christie, right?
At least Mrs. Bradley is a lot of fun. She's awesome.
Much less fun is that there are pages of this book dedicated to a black man when Mitchell apparently only ever interacted with black folks in an advanced reader copy of Gone with the Wind.**** I will not quote any of the very many lines of dialogue but the important things to note are...a) Mitchell's depiction is heavily steeped in Americans stereotypes and b) it does utterly squat for the plot ("squat for the plot" was my nickname in college!). It makes one theory about one of the murders have an element of plausibility to it and it is possibly used by Mitchell, by way of Mrs. Bradley, to talk about certain paradoxes of British awareness of racial tensions (like she will occasionally aside about women's rights and so forth). I have no clue. Attempting to understand that would be like attempting to understand why the boat on the angry sea is yellow but the water is green.
This is all to say this book starts off strange and slightly out of order, waders through pages of various escapades only for many things to feel disconnected to the core, tosses in some jabs about black people and women, has a few clever moments, has an ending and then just sort of...pecks about in the brains. It is either too clever a parody for me to get (fully) or a strangely organized books with pages and chapters to extraneous non-sense and then a failure to finish. Either way, three-stars. I appreciate its existence but I am good with letting it mostly fall back a bit into obscurity.
And just want to return to a previous point: that map about how everything is tied together and how the murder was laid out across the geography? Awful. That's 5th grader writing a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for other fifth graders. Unless....unless...that's the point.
====
* there is at least once where she is called Mrs. Catty and I still don't know if that was typo or a Gladys Mitchell attempt at humor.
** I had to go and dig a bit to figure out that while the obvious meaning of "maggot" is on display here, in conjunction with the "salt marsh," there is another slangy meaning linked to whims and fancies. I assume Mitchell wants us to take it as sort of both.
*** While such claims are definitely in the grain-of-salt category, it must be stated that there is a sort of appendix/coda of sorts showing Mrs. Bradley's real thoughts
**** but Doug, didn't Gone with the Wind come out a decade after this book? Yes it did. That was the joke but I suspect that you, like me, know Gone with the Wind while our knowledge of books in which black folks run from ghosts going "Ah lawdin' dem spooks a gettin'!" is actually really, really low. And if it isn't, well...you know.
Content Warning: It has big racism added in...just because, I guess.
=== REVIEW ===
Ah, space pilgrims, let me tell you that around chapter 2 of this book I had to go back and reread parts of chapter 1 and then chapter 3 of this book had me go back and reread even bigger chunks of chapters 1 and 2. I thought I was going slightly mad. We meet a young vicar-in-training and he needs to borrow some chairs. He is told "The Deed is Done" by a batty old woman named Mrs. Gatty* and basically ignores this. Later he is called up to a bungalow where something is afoot and then founds out that there a young friend has a story to tell. THEN, space pilgrims, THEN we go and find out in chapter 2 that between the deed being done and the bungalow there was a whole other story involving the older woman's husband being locked in a crypt and discovered and the young friend helping with that and that introduced the main sleuth.
Why we have parts 1 and 3 in Chapter 1 (called "Mrs. Coutt's Maggot**") and then more significant part 2 and 4 in Chapter 2 ("Maggots at the Boathouse and Bats in the Bungalow"), and why Chapter 3 and such retells these happenings in a different sort of weight, I don't know. My sneaky, sneaky Doug-opinion is that Mitchell is both trying to make the reader feel a bit maggoty themselves and she is trying to make us wary of Vicar Noel Wells's narrative which is full of bias and interpretation. As the story goes, there are other times where the time-sync or emotional weight seems off, where a character's description is essentially out of whack with their later actions. Giving Mitchell the benefit of the doubt, it becomes a Rashomon-esque exercise except rather than having multiple points of view you have a single POV but one that is prone to being flighty, of leaping to conclusions, to forgetting small details while exaggerating others.***
All this is told in a sort of quasi-Wodehousian prose that seems to imitate, rather than embrace, the overall rhythm and flow of other Golden Age mysteries. With strange word choices and a mystery that is central to the plot but not exactly central to anyone's lives (at best, the people seem to care more about knowing who the murderer is more than anything else), and with the odd way the final portions and resolutions seem to end largely on a "who cares, at least that's done!" vibe, I begin to suspect that this book is a full on lark. Maybe even a parody because, let me tell you, space pilgrims, when Mrs. Bradley sits down to unfold the mystery towards the end, one of two things occur:
Either the map laying out how it all went down AND the way that the explanation pivots to a number of secrets that were (and still are) divorced from the reader IS a parody to these devices in other stories,
OR
Mitchell created one of the worst maps in genre history AND just flung crap at the reader trying to make things sort of torrid but ultimately pointless.
One of the central mysteries to the whole plot is left unanswered(!) and not only unanswered but Mrs. Bradley basically winks it all off like a joke. This has to be some sort of cleverly written, hand-woven piece of technical brilliance aimed to poke precise fun at specific elements. Right? Or is it just madness and layers of fiction written in a jumble with threads all tangled together until even Mitchell herself could not pluck more strings from it? There's this line about how Wodehouse is "our greatest living author" and then a sort of a legalese aside saying how this opinion "was expressed without prejudice" and "merely in the interests of constructive criticism, of course." While Mitchell borrowed enough of Wodehouse's linguistic flair that not acknowledging it might have been poor sportmanship, this...it's about Christie, right?
At least Mrs. Bradley is a lot of fun. She's awesome.
Much less fun is that there are pages of this book dedicated to a black man when Mitchell apparently only ever interacted with black folks in an advanced reader copy of Gone with the Wind.**** I will not quote any of the very many lines of dialogue but the important things to note are...a) Mitchell's depiction is heavily steeped in Americans stereotypes and b) it does utterly squat for the plot ("squat for the plot" was my nickname in college!). It makes one theory about one of the murders have an element of plausibility to it and it is possibly used by Mitchell, by way of Mrs. Bradley, to talk about certain paradoxes of British awareness of racial tensions (like she will occasionally aside about women's rights and so forth). I have no clue. Attempting to understand that would be like attempting to understand why the boat on the angry sea is yellow but the water is green.
This is all to say this book starts off strange and slightly out of order, waders through pages of various escapades only for many things to feel disconnected to the core, tosses in some jabs about black people and women, has a few clever moments, has an ending and then just sort of...pecks about in the brains. It is either too clever a parody for me to get (fully) or a strangely organized books with pages and chapters to extraneous non-sense and then a failure to finish. Either way, three-stars. I appreciate its existence but I am good with letting it mostly fall back a bit into obscurity.
And just want to return to a previous point: that map about how everything is tied together and how the murder was laid out across the geography? Awful. That's 5th grader writing a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for other fifth graders. Unless....unless...that's the point.
====
* there is at least once where she is called Mrs. Catty and I still don't know if that was typo or a Gladys Mitchell attempt at humor.
** I had to go and dig a bit to figure out that while the obvious meaning of "maggot" is on display here, in conjunction with the "salt marsh," there is another slangy meaning linked to whims and fancies. I assume Mitchell wants us to take it as sort of both.
*** While such claims are definitely in the grain-of-salt category, it must be stated that there is a sort of appendix/coda of sorts showing Mrs. Bradley's real thoughts
**** but Doug, didn't Gone with the Wind come out a decade after this book? Yes it did. That was the joke but I suspect that you, like me, know Gone with the Wind while our knowledge of books in which black folks run from ghosts going "Ah lawdin' dem spooks a gettin'!" is actually really, really low. And if it isn't, well...you know.
July 9, 2019
Burns, I believe, considered her a queer old party and wondered whether she would bite at an investment if it were put to her in sufficiently attractive terms. He could not believe that she had ever been married.
“You don’t tell me any man not under the influence of dope ever married her , ”he said to me one day when I was there alone with him.
I understood, I replied, that Mrs. Bradley had been married and widowed twice.
“Gosh!” said Mr. Burns, impressed. “Got that amount of money has she?”
It was a pity, perhaps, that I could not bring myself to repeat this observation to Mrs. Bradley, for I am convinced, from what I know of her, that she would have appreciated it to the full. I often caught the financier’s decidedly fishlike eye fixed ruminatingly upon her. He was trying, I fancy, to estimate exactly how much she was worth, and the problem was difficult. Her clothes, although odd, and, in some cases, positively hideous, were manifestly good. On the other hand, she had a gift for repartee and a fund of bonhomie which he could not associate with a woman who possessed a large fortune, unless, of course, as he said, she was a music hall star or a duchess who had floated the ancestral hall as a limited liability company. She was a far better bridge player than either Burns or Sir William, and was an adept at pool and snooker. She was also the most brilliant darts player and knife thrower that I have ever seen. She was also a dead shot with an airgun, and annoyed Burns considerably by winning five pounds from him one miserably wet afternoon by knocking the necks off ten empty wine bottles with ten successive shots. I know she did that, because I saw her do it.
I think that this is the first of the Mrs. Bradley mysteries that I have read although I did see a few episodes of the TV series starring Diana Rigg. Gladys Mitchell wrote over 60 of the between the late 1920s and the early 1980s, and The Saltmarsh Murders is the fourth in the series.
The housemaid from the vicarage giving birth is the catalyst for murder, and the young curate narrates events as Mrs Bradley uses her psychiactric knowledge to identify the murderer. At one point I thought it might turn out to be an Ackroydal murder, but it wasn’t and I didn’t manage to work out who had done it.
3.5 stars
“You don’t tell me any man not under the influence of dope ever married her , ”he said to me one day when I was there alone with him.
I understood, I replied, that Mrs. Bradley had been married and widowed twice.
“Gosh!” said Mr. Burns, impressed. “Got that amount of money has she?”
It was a pity, perhaps, that I could not bring myself to repeat this observation to Mrs. Bradley, for I am convinced, from what I know of her, that she would have appreciated it to the full. I often caught the financier’s decidedly fishlike eye fixed ruminatingly upon her. He was trying, I fancy, to estimate exactly how much she was worth, and the problem was difficult. Her clothes, although odd, and, in some cases, positively hideous, were manifestly good. On the other hand, she had a gift for repartee and a fund of bonhomie which he could not associate with a woman who possessed a large fortune, unless, of course, as he said, she was a music hall star or a duchess who had floated the ancestral hall as a limited liability company. She was a far better bridge player than either Burns or Sir William, and was an adept at pool and snooker. She was also the most brilliant darts player and knife thrower that I have ever seen. She was also a dead shot with an airgun, and annoyed Burns considerably by winning five pounds from him one miserably wet afternoon by knocking the necks off ten empty wine bottles with ten successive shots. I know she did that, because I saw her do it.
I think that this is the first of the Mrs. Bradley mysteries that I have read although I did see a few episodes of the TV series starring Diana Rigg. Gladys Mitchell wrote over 60 of the between the late 1920s and the early 1980s, and The Saltmarsh Murders is the fourth in the series.
The housemaid from the vicarage giving birth is the catalyst for murder, and the young curate narrates events as Mrs Bradley uses her psychiactric knowledge to identify the murderer. At one point I thought it might turn out to be an Ackroydal murder, but it wasn’t and I didn’t manage to work out who had done it.
3.5 stars
July 19, 2017
I picked up Gladys Mitchell's The Saltmarsh Murders in the Oxfam bookshop, because I'm always interested to try new-to-me 1930s detective stories, and grabbed it off the top of my to-read pile last week when I was looking for an easy read to follow To Lie With Lions.
The Saltmarsh Murders is the fourth of 66 detective novels featuring Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychiatrist and amateur sleuth. In this novel, she turns her attention to the death of a young woman who has recently given birth to an illegitimate baby (and the disappearance of the baby) in the South Coast village of Saltmarsh, where she was paying a visit when the murder was discovered. She is aided in this by Noel Wells, the slightly dim curate of the village. Noel also narrates the novel in a first-person style which clearly owes a lot to Wodehouse, who he mentions being a fan of.
I wasn't sure the Bertie Wooster-esque narrative was a natural choice for a detective novel, and Noel is a very sloppy narrator, with events coming out of sequence in a way that made it quite hard to follow the plot at times. The book also features a black character and contains the kind of period-typical attitudes to and language about race that are pretty hard for a modern reader to stomach, as well as some period-typical attitudes to class and a couple of incidences of painfully rendered yokel accents. Most of the characters felt very two-dimensional, with the only one who really took on any life at all being the village madwoman, Mrs Gatty, and I didn't actually find the mystery plot particularly compelling. I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of Mitchell's books (although I think I might have at least one more that I bought as a Kindle bargain years ago...).
The Saltmarsh Murders is the fourth of 66 detective novels featuring Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychiatrist and amateur sleuth. In this novel, she turns her attention to the death of a young woman who has recently given birth to an illegitimate baby (and the disappearance of the baby) in the South Coast village of Saltmarsh, where she was paying a visit when the murder was discovered. She is aided in this by Noel Wells, the slightly dim curate of the village. Noel also narrates the novel in a first-person style which clearly owes a lot to Wodehouse, who he mentions being a fan of.
I wasn't sure the Bertie Wooster-esque narrative was a natural choice for a detective novel, and Noel is a very sloppy narrator, with events coming out of sequence in a way that made it quite hard to follow the plot at times. The book also features a black character and contains the kind of period-typical attitudes to and language about race that are pretty hard for a modern reader to stomach, as well as some period-typical attitudes to class and a couple of incidences of painfully rendered yokel accents. Most of the characters felt very two-dimensional, with the only one who really took on any life at all being the village madwoman, Mrs Gatty, and I didn't actually find the mystery plot particularly compelling. I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of Mitchell's books (although I think I might have at least one more that I bought as a Kindle bargain years ago...).
April 3, 2023
This was a strange one. I've enjoyed the previous Mrs. Bradley mysteries for their novel and oddly modern twist on the typical cosy, but this went wrong. The story kept on longer than it should have, and then suddenly Mrs. Bradley revealed all and it was over. I had had my misgivings all along, but the end really was ridiculous--not only the explanation of the murders but also Mrs. Bradley's handling of what she found out. Not to mention the uncomfortable portrayal of the black servant, complete with rolling eyes and fear of ghosts (it's interesting to see this in a British novel) and Mrs. Bradley's claim that some women like to be knocked around by their husbands. Then, the appendix contains Mrs. Bradley's notebook, with her thoughts throughout the book, and her reasoning is just abominable. So that, coupled with the unsavory racism and sexism, did not endear this book to me.
Two elements I did enjoy: Mrs. Gatty's comparisons of her neighbors to animals, and the play-by-play of an argument between the vicar and his wife in the style of a cricket match.
Two elements I did enjoy: Mrs. Gatty's comparisons of her neighbors to animals, and the play-by-play of an argument between the vicar and his wife in the style of a cricket match.
November 3, 2017
One of the classic 'Golden Age' crime mysteries.
I really like the Gladys Mitchell Mrs. Bradley books. For that period, Gladys Mitchell touched subjects that many authors would never go near. But she managed it with such panache, that she pulled it off time and time again.
I enjoyed my third or is it my fouth reading/listening of the book...oh well, no matter. These books are always a joy to read or listen to (we need more audiobooks, please). If you like quirky, off the beaten track mysteries, theses will fill the spot.
If you like the review and would like to read my other reviews on books I have read, visit my blog at www.finalchapterreadersgroup.wordpres...... like, comment and follow.
January 27, 2021
Some of Gladys's books are really good and some are really awful. This one falls somewhere between.
Mrs B. is a great character but as often happens the author doesn't play fair with the reader and explain how she knows what she knows. I struggled with the very complicated plot although I did quite enjoy it. I didn't really understand what went on until Mrs Bradley explained in the final chapter. There is some very politically incorrect dialogue associated with an African American character but I don't believe this was malicious.
Mrs B. is a great character but as often happens the author doesn't play fair with the reader and explain how she knows what she knows. I struggled with the very complicated plot although I did quite enjoy it. I didn't really understand what went on until Mrs Bradley explained in the final chapter. There is some very politically incorrect dialogue associated with an African American character but I don't believe this was malicious.
July 29, 2012
Mrs Bradley is a strange detective, but engaging and entertaining. The Saltmarsh Murders hinges upon pregnancy, murder, smuggling and a village fete. It is unlike many "Golden Age" whodunnits, relying on psychology and anecdote over interrogation and fingerprints. It's a heady mix - perhaps, written in the 1930's, it needs some of the racial elements toned down - but seriously in need of rediscovery and reappraisal.
August 24, 2019
I’ve read 5 or 6 of Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley books now, and this is definitely one of my favourites. Small village mystery, a great narrator, affairs, babies, secret tunnels, smuggling and of course a couple of murders! Mrs Bradley’s apparently morally ambiguous approach is so different from other detective stories of the period - I love it!
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December 24, 2022The Saltmarsh Murders is one of six books reprinted (so far) in the Mrs Bradley Mysteries series by Gladys Mitchell. I’m not sure what made Vintage decide to do it but I’m glad they did. These books have been the inspiration for a short-lived 1998/9 TV series featuring Diana Rigg totaling a woeful five episodes. I guess they were too expensive to produce. There are 66 books featuring Mrs Bradley all written by Mitchell. I have a feeling that some are going to be more successfully than others. But I suspect that Vintage is presenting the cream of the crop and after reading The Saltmarsh Murders I think they are.
Anyway back to the book itself. The first surprising thing is the narrator. If you’ve watched the TV series Mrs Bradley turns and talks directly to the viewer so I was wrongly expecting this would be a first person or a third person story focusing on Mrs Bradley. But no the story is told by Noel Wells, the curate of the sleepy village Saltmarsh, who finds himself the sidekick of sometime detective and full-time Freudian Mrs Bradley.
Together they get to see into the lives of several key members of the village. And that is a clever device as Well’s gives all the connections to everyone who matters and can also report his own thoughts on the investigations as well as giving Mrs Bradley’s insights. He also acts as a buffer between what we suspect and what Mrs Bradley is thinking. There is an added touch at the end with an extract of Mrs Bradley’s Notebook for the period, which makes some of her actions a little more understandable, and if you thought she doesn’t care enough about what happens you might think differently after reading it.
I’d expect that Mitchell herself had several notebooks when writing this tale as the plot is complex for such a narrow cast. The complexity comes from the examination of human nature and the way we think and act. She unravels the means, motive and opportunity of the murder. And as she pulls and follow the threads as the suspects mount up as there are plenty of motives for murder here.
It’s not all serious though Mitchell is having fun through Mrs Bradley you can tell as not only is she a wonderfully colourful she is sharp and humourful even if it’s a morose at times. She is presenting larger than life characters for her to examine and analyse and she makes references to other writers and their characters offhandedly.
Now this is a novel of its time. It was published in 1932 and it’s setting includes servants and one of these servants is black. He plays an important part of understanding of the crime. The reason I mention it is that I’m glad that one part has been left uncensored. The part has strong racist remarks from one character to another but they are a reflection of the characters that make them. I must admit to be a little shocked at their inclusion in the original but it would have been wrong to change them now because they may cause offensive. I hope it’s not just me that thinks that. And it’s more eye-opening moment for how far we’ve come rather than something that overshadows the novel.
I guess it does illustrate why books are reflections of the time they are written. Even if they are larger than life they do show a mirror to the thinking of the time on certain thought and feelings that might not shared now. There is a strong moral tone especially as we’re seeing things from a curate but he and the vicar are both practical when thinking of the actions of their flock. For example if a girl gets caught with child the couple end up marrying after the fact. And that is where the trouble starts here. She doesn’t marry but has the child and no one knows who the father might be.
There is much to love in this novel. The characters. The plot. The read hearings. The nostalgia for simpler times. And the knowing that there are several motives that can be found if one looks hard enough for murder even from people who wouldn’t go as far as to actually kill.
But most of all it’s Mrs Bradley that makes this worth reading. She makes a unique and intriguing detective. I’m looking forward to reading When Last I Died next then hopefully Tom Brown’s Body then only another 64 to go… well the other thee reprints… for now at least.
Anyway back to the book itself. The first surprising thing is the narrator. If you’ve watched the TV series Mrs Bradley turns and talks directly to the viewer so I was wrongly expecting this would be a first person or a third person story focusing on Mrs Bradley. But no the story is told by Noel Wells, the curate of the sleepy village Saltmarsh, who finds himself the sidekick of sometime detective and full-time Freudian Mrs Bradley.
Together they get to see into the lives of several key members of the village. And that is a clever device as Well’s gives all the connections to everyone who matters and can also report his own thoughts on the investigations as well as giving Mrs Bradley’s insights. He also acts as a buffer between what we suspect and what Mrs Bradley is thinking. There is an added touch at the end with an extract of Mrs Bradley’s Notebook for the period, which makes some of her actions a little more understandable, and if you thought she doesn’t care enough about what happens you might think differently after reading it.
I’d expect that Mitchell herself had several notebooks when writing this tale as the plot is complex for such a narrow cast. The complexity comes from the examination of human nature and the way we think and act. She unravels the means, motive and opportunity of the murder. And as she pulls and follow the threads as the suspects mount up as there are plenty of motives for murder here.
It’s not all serious though Mitchell is having fun through Mrs Bradley you can tell as not only is she a wonderfully colourful she is sharp and humourful even if it’s a morose at times. She is presenting larger than life characters for her to examine and analyse and she makes references to other writers and their characters offhandedly.
Now this is a novel of its time. It was published in 1932 and it’s setting includes servants and one of these servants is black. He plays an important part of understanding of the crime. The reason I mention it is that I’m glad that one part has been left uncensored. The part has strong racist remarks from one character to another but they are a reflection of the characters that make them. I must admit to be a little shocked at their inclusion in the original but it would have been wrong to change them now because they may cause offensive. I hope it’s not just me that thinks that. And it’s more eye-opening moment for how far we’ve come rather than something that overshadows the novel.
I guess it does illustrate why books are reflections of the time they are written. Even if they are larger than life they do show a mirror to the thinking of the time on certain thought and feelings that might not shared now. There is a strong moral tone especially as we’re seeing things from a curate but he and the vicar are both practical when thinking of the actions of their flock. For example if a girl gets caught with child the couple end up marrying after the fact. And that is where the trouble starts here. She doesn’t marry but has the child and no one knows who the father might be.
There is much to love in this novel. The characters. The plot. The read hearings. The nostalgia for simpler times. And the knowing that there are several motives that can be found if one looks hard enough for murder even from people who wouldn’t go as far as to actually kill.
But most of all it’s Mrs Bradley that makes this worth reading. She makes a unique and intriguing detective. I’m looking forward to reading When Last I Died next then hopefully Tom Brown’s Body then only another 64 to go… well the other thee reprints… for now at least.
June 22, 2020
Кто-то тут явно виноват.
Идея дивная, женщина-психиатр расследует убийства опираясь на труды Фрейда и Юнга. Учитываем время написания - это вообще удивительное нечто, потому что в Великобритании до конца 60-х, если я правильно помню применяли электрошокер и так лечили, а вовсе не терапией, ну и то что у них женщина доктор в это время тоже сильно. Кстати, в России электрошокер забросили почти сразу после революции, и отсталые, это конечно же мы.
Но при всем великолепии идеи, учитывая и героиню, которая похожа на ящерку, а это же всегда прекрасно, хоть герои не одного со мной мнения, нет разнообразия во второст��пенных героях. То есть их много, так много, что в какой-то момент ты чувствуешь себя героем Миронова из "Невероятных приключений итальянцев в России", который зациклился, считая львов: "Сто сорок девять, сто сорок девять, сто сорок девять..." Их, конечно, не ужас как много, но ощущение, что их раскидали по карте и ни в какую группу для облегчения запоминания их нельзя объединить. При этом, если не говорится какое-то симоронское* имя героя (*то, что характеризует персонажа, например, пастырь, негр, контрабандист, актриса), то узнать его по имени или по тому как он говорит, или действует нет никакой возможности. Ну, мы, конечно, все друг другу братья и сестры, и не сильно уникальны, но все же не до такой степени, чтобы не отличить различных по характеру/мотивации людей. И это говорит вам человек, который Аурелиев всех в "Сто лет одиночества" отличал)))) Отличает героев только их приметы и место пребывания. Если присмотреться внимательно, то "живыми" выступают только основные герои истории, сама сыщица, герой который историю рассказывает (он не столько живой, сколько его ни с кем не спутаешь, от его имени все же ведется повествование), убийца и сумасшедшая, с которой занималась сыщица и именно она являлась помощницей для нашей героини при нерешенных задачах. Все остальные герои - это фон, которым не уделили внимания. Да, им придали мотивацию, но словами нашего детектива, при этом переставь их местами, а мотивации не меняй, все будет словно так и былО.
Для меня это обидное разгильдяйство автора не дать героям каких-то отличительных особенностей, не надо потирать нос или моргать часто, но мы формируемся из нашей среды и наш лексикон формируется вместе с нами. Движения, позы, как мы используем слова, как строим предложения - это может выделить нас. Так и тут - это могло разделить героев, так чтобы читателю было понятно кто перед ним. Возможно я зря наговариваю на автора, учитывая, что она пользовалась психологией и описывала какие-то особые приметы состояний и во всем виноват именно переводчик, который не понимает тонкостей английского языка в различных сословных группах. Тогда за книгу и читателей обидно. Нет возможности влюбиться в книгу, когда ее переводит человек на автомате, не вдаваясь в нужные в данном случае подробности. У меня нет и шанса прочитать что-то еще от автора, потому что я боюсь той же мешанины героев, которые будут просто менять имена, а являться в сущности одним человеком. Возможно, я перечитаю книгу в другом переводе, если кто-то возьмется такое сделать.
А так получается, что с очень интересной идеей, с разбором всего спектра человеческих душ, книга вышла средняя. Ты видишь там зайчат разума, но увы, они гибнут из-за второстепенных персонажей, которых кто-то проворонил. Поэтому именно в этом переводе я не могу рекомендовать читать книгу. Не знаю, пробуйте читать оригинал или ждать другой перевод, возможно книга дивно хороша)))
Идея дивная, женщина-психиатр расследует убийства опираясь на труды Фрейда и Юнга. Учитываем время написания - это вообще удивительное нечто, потому что в Великобритании до конца 60-х, если я правильно помню применяли электрошокер и так лечили, а вовсе не терапией, ну и то что у них женщина доктор в это время тоже сильно. Кстати, в России электрошокер забросили почти сразу после революции, и отсталые, это конечно же мы.
Но при всем великолепии идеи, учитывая и героиню, которая похожа на ящерку, а это же всегда прекрасно, хоть герои не одного со мной мнения, нет разнообразия во второст��пенных героях. То есть их много, так много, что в какой-то момент ты чувствуешь себя героем Миронова из "Невероятных приключений итальянцев в России", который зациклился, считая львов: "Сто сорок девять, сто сорок девять, сто сорок девять..." Их, конечно, не ужас как много, но ощущение, что их раскидали по карте и ни в какую группу для облегчения запоминания их нельзя объединить. При этом, если не говорится какое-то симоронское* имя героя (*то, что характеризует персонажа, например, пастырь, негр, контрабандист, актриса), то узнать его по имени или по тому как он говорит, или действует нет никакой возможности. Ну, мы, конечно, все друг другу братья и сестры, и не сильно уникальны, но все же не до такой степени, чтобы не отличить различных по характеру/мотивации людей. И это говорит вам человек, который Аурелиев всех в "Сто лет одиночества" отличал)))) Отличает героев только их приметы и место пребывания. Если присмотреться внимательно, то "живыми" выступают только основные герои истории, сама сыщица, герой который историю рассказывает (он не столько живой, сколько его ни с кем не спутаешь, от его имени все же ведется повествование), убийца и сумасшедшая, с которой занималась сыщица и именно она являлась помощницей для нашей героини при нерешенных задачах. Все остальные герои - это фон, которым не уделили внимания. Да, им придали мотивацию, но словами нашего детектива, при этом переставь их местами, а мотивации не меняй, все будет словно так и былО.
Для меня это обидное разгильдяйство автора не дать героям каких-то отличительных особенностей, не надо потирать нос или моргать часто, но мы формируемся из нашей среды и наш лексикон формируется вместе с нами. Движения, позы, как мы используем слова, как строим предложения - это может выделить нас. Так и тут - это могло разделить героев, так чтобы читателю было понятно кто перед ним. Возможно я зря наговариваю на автора, учитывая, что она пользовалась психологией и описывала какие-то особые приметы состояний и во всем виноват именно переводчик, который не понимает тонкостей английского языка в различных сословных группах. Тогда за книгу и читателей обидно. Нет возможности влюбиться в книгу, когда ее переводит человек на автомате, не вдаваясь в нужные в данном случае подробности. У меня нет и шанса прочитать что-то еще от автора, потому что я боюсь той же мешанины героев, которые будут просто менять имена, а являться в сущности одним человеком. Возможно, я перечитаю книгу в другом переводе, если кто-то возьмется такое сделать.
А так получается, что с очень интересной идеей, с разбором всего спектра человеческих душ, книга вышла средняя. Ты видишь там зайчат разума, но увы, они гибнут из-за второстепенных персонажей, которых кто-то проворонил. Поэтому именно в этом переводе я не могу рекомендовать читать книгу. Не знаю, пробуйте читать оригинал или ждать другой перевод, возможно книга дивно хороша)))
November 12, 2021
Honestly, I hardly know what to think. I was so happy to discover this series (65 books free with Kindle Unlimited! Heaven!) by an author I'd never heard of. I thought I was reading the first book, but I see that I need better information. I really want to read them is the order in which they were published. I'm a huge fan of early 20th century writers. I don't know how I'd never read Gladys Mitchell before. Now that I have, I'm a fan. The book is meaty, funny, well written, and spooky, not to mention the fact that it is not told from Mrs. Bradley's POV. So original, I can't help but enjoy it. Mrs. Bradley isn't even a likable character. I have watched the Mrs Bradley Mysteries, but I would never have known they were connected until I read it here in the reviews. They bear absolutely no resemblance to one another.
As to the story, I can't hold with people marking her down for the prejudices which were normal for her day. The story is remarkable. One reason I read old books is that I love the language and character of the times in which the books were written. It is nonsense to criticize an author for not holding to our way of thinking 100 years later. They wrote for the people of their time, not ours. I actually had a harder time with Mrs. Bradley's Freudian atheist thinking, excusing adultery, incest, and murder, shielding the murderer on psychological grounds, than with the position of Yorke. I really had a hard time with the behavior of the (supposed) Christians, but that was the way of Religion in those days, and often in these days. People are people. They behave badly, no matter what century they were born in. The story is rich and convoluted, so much so I had a hard time following her straightforward explanation at the end, there were so many red herrings thrown out until I read the diary very cleverly provided for the Noels of the world. The characters are interesting and enjoyable. I made the mistake this week of reading two murder mysteries at once. The other author did not compare well will Miss Mitchell.
Speaking of Noel, I thoroughly enjoyed his POV and his relationship with Daphne. His position in the household was so uncomfortable, (I think he knew the truth about Mr. Coutts from the start) yet he had William and Daphne as sidekicks so his life was not a complete misery. I wonder what their lives will be like together now. Mrs. Bradley's tendency to tease Noel and try to get him to correct conclusions was too funny, and a clever way to communicate with the reader, though a lot of it went over both our heads. I'm hooked on Mrs. Bradley. Now to figure out which book I should have read first and get on with it.
As to the story, I can't hold with people marking her down for the prejudices which were normal for her day. The story is remarkable. One reason I read old books is that I love the language and character of the times in which the books were written. It is nonsense to criticize an author for not holding to our way of thinking 100 years later. They wrote for the people of their time, not ours. I actually had a harder time with Mrs. Bradley's Freudian atheist thinking, excusing adultery, incest, and murder, shielding the murderer on psychological grounds, than with the position of Yorke. I really had a hard time with the behavior of the (supposed) Christians, but that was the way of Religion in those days, and often in these days. People are people. They behave badly, no matter what century they were born in. The story is rich and convoluted, so much so I had a hard time following her straightforward explanation at the end, there were so many red herrings thrown out until I read the diary very cleverly provided for the Noels of the world. The characters are interesting and enjoyable. I made the mistake this week of reading two murder mysteries at once. The other author did not compare well will Miss Mitchell.
Speaking of Noel, I thoroughly enjoyed his POV and his relationship with Daphne. His position in the household was so uncomfortable, (I think he knew the truth about Mr. Coutts from the start) yet he had William and Daphne as sidekicks so his life was not a complete misery. I wonder what their lives will be like together now. Mrs. Bradley's tendency to tease Noel and try to get him to correct conclusions was too funny, and a clever way to communicate with the reader, though a lot of it went over both our heads. I'm hooked on Mrs. Bradley. Now to figure out which book I should have read first and get on with it.
October 8, 2019
3.5 stars..
Intriguing ... Decently plotted fairly clued mystery with a clever solution and nice finish ....But.......
Well...I did not enjoy it that much about 80% of the way...
This was my first Gladys Mitchell and I was hoping she would turn out to be find(for me ) like Allingham..but alas...Not even close.
The book is written in such an odd,chaotic, confused manner ...It's half serious half farce all the time.The characters are not described physically but only by their actions and dialogue...You know someone is large or someone is beautiful but that's that..
The murders victims are not described well at all before they are dead and it takes about 50% of the book before we know that they are dead..
The narrator curate is a confused goat as Mrs. Gatty says and Mrs. Bradley is oblique most of the time .This results in endless circuitous passages of discussion where nothing gets cleared up and water becomes more muddied.The prose is fluid but writing is meandering and out of focus .
The book is surprisingly modern in its outlook..Or rather mrs. Bradley is..She is a Freudian and correspondingly blunt and direct about things considered as taboo for discussion.I do not recall any other GAD book incorporating incest,sadism,masochism,inverted nymphomania, intercultural sex etc. all at once.
I have no objection to a negro character being called a nigger as such...It was like that at that time (Though Burt and his nigger seems to be from an earlier era ..Say 1890s ...hmm)and censoring books written 90 years ago does not help anything.
All in all,it's not a book that has made me a fan of Mrs.Bradley but it was not bad enough to write her off for ever...I will still try "When Last I died" when I get my paws on it..
Intriguing ... Decently plotted fairly clued mystery with a clever solution and nice finish ....But.......
Well...I did not enjoy it that much about 80% of the way...
This was my first Gladys Mitchell and I was hoping she would turn out to be find(for me ) like Allingham..but alas...Not even close.
The book is written in such an odd,chaotic, confused manner ...It's half serious half farce all the time.The characters are not described physically but only by their actions and dialogue...You know someone is large or someone is beautiful but that's that..
The murders victims are not described well at all before they are dead and it takes about 50% of the book before we know that they are dead..
The narrator curate is a confused goat as Mrs. Gatty says and Mrs. Bradley is oblique most of the time .This results in endless circuitous passages of discussion where nothing gets cleared up and water becomes more muddied.The prose is fluid but writing is meandering and out of focus .
The book is surprisingly modern in its outlook..Or rather mrs. Bradley is..She is a Freudian and correspondingly blunt and direct about things considered as taboo for discussion.I do not recall any other GAD book incorporating incest,sadism,masochism,inverted nymphomania, intercultural sex etc. all at once.
I have no objection to a negro character being called a nigger as such...It was like that at that time (Though Burt and his nigger seems to be from an earlier era ..Say 1890s ...hmm)and censoring books written 90 years ago does not help anything.
All in all,it's not a book that has made me a fan of Mrs.Bradley but it was not bad enough to write her off for ever...I will still try "When Last I died" when I get my paws on it..
June 13, 2019
After getting rather bored of the far too predictable Ngaio Marsh but still wanting to read classic mystrey stories I've switched Gladys Mitchell and three stories in I've liked her better. Like all the classic authors she has a particular slant to her detectives and her's for Mrs. Bradley is basing everything on psychology. Not a bad tack but of course since it is the psychology of the 30's much of which is held in poor regard almost a 100 years latter. Because we don't have that mindset it's a bit harder to figure out who did it. Also another I dislike is that Mrs. Bradley is much too lenient on the murderers in her books of letting murderers get away with it which perhaps is based on her own feeling about her own crime committed.
I do like that she is not appealing person in really any way. While Christie thought Poirot was a pompous ass and Marple a busy body, Allingham and Sayles both created hero detectives that were idolized by their creatures and the people in their stories.
This story has racial slurs in it used by both the black character and white characters and the portrayal of the black character which was probably considered positive reads as a gross caricature now. For the most part the book kept my attention but like almost all classic mysteries could have been faster paced. I did like how it showed the real views of pre-martial sex, women with self agency and played with religious morals. I can't help but see the author's own views of tradition and the religious based morals coming through Mrs. Bradley.
I do like that she is not appealing person in really any way. While Christie thought Poirot was a pompous ass and Marple a busy body, Allingham and Sayles both created hero detectives that were idolized by their creatures and the people in their stories.
This story has racial slurs in it used by both the black character and white characters and the portrayal of the black character which was probably considered positive reads as a gross caricature now. For the most part the book kept my attention but like almost all classic mysteries could have been faster paced. I did like how it showed the real views of pre-martial sex, women with self agency and played with religious morals. I can't help but see the author's own views of tradition and the religious based morals coming through Mrs. Bradley.
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