Rating: 4/5
Review:
Enjoyable but flawed
I generally enjoyed Thou Shell Of Death, but it has its weaknesses.
This is classic
Golden Age stuff: a famous War Hero who is now a virtual recluse
receives some threatening letters. Naturally, he throws a Country
House party for all the people he thinks may possibly be responsible
and asks Nigel Strangeways, the private detective, to join the party
to try to work out what is going on. Well, of course he does – who
wouldn’t?
The whole set-up was
like a very laboured Agatha Christie, but with more pretension and
condescension toward anyone who is not connected to the nobility and
living in an expensive part of London. I found it very wearing.
However, after 80 pages or so, there is a death, the plot begins to
move and a little wit started to show, too. The development was well
done and kept me reading; it is tightly, if not wholly plausibly,
plotted and it’s an enjoyable read. I found the dénouement rather
a trial as the long slog through repeated convoluted explanations
became a bit of a chore.
Overall, this is an
enjoyable Golden Age detective novel. Its posh, well-connected
detective puts it in a similar sort of genre as Dorothy L. Sayers or
Margery Allingham; for me it’s nothing like as good, but much of it
makes a diverting read if you can wade through the turgid opening.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
(My thanks to
Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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