Rating: 5/5
Review:
Hugely enjoyable
I very much enjoyed the first Miss Seeton book I read and I
am coming genuinely to love the series.
They are all very well written and extremely entertaining.
Books featuring a spinster in a small English village who becomes
involved in solving crimes don't look very alluring at first glance because
they just sound like a lazy Miss Marple rip-off. They certainly aren't, though; I made the
mistake of allowing myself to be put off by this for some time, but when I
finally tried one I found it very good.
The first three in the series collected here are all extremely enjoyable
and an excellent place to start.
What makes these books stand out from the huge slew of
average cosy-crime is the quality of the writing, which is excellent. The plots are good and involving, but what I
enjoy most are the wit of the books and the very fine and beautifully deft
characterisations. Heron Carvic has a beautiful way of painting recognisable
and believable characters with a few neat phrases or lines of dialogue (as do
his successors in writing the series, by the way). Although they are different in many ways,
this and the wit of the books put me a little in mind of Edmund Crispin – high
praise, but well deserved, I think. They
are hugely enjoyable, and whenever I read a Miss Seeton, I become involved,
smile often, laugh sometimes and always look forward to reading some more.
This little passage from quite early in Book 1 (Picture Miss
Seeton) may give an idea of what I mean.
A policeman informs the proper, upright Miss Seeton that, "She was
a known prostitute."
"Oh, dear," Miss Seeton exclaimed. "A very hard life; such late hours – and
then, of course, the weather. And so
unrewarding, one would imagine." I
loved that; it's humorous but shows so much about Miss Seeton's character in a
couple of sentences – and "unrewarding" is a perfect adjective for
her to use.
I'm delighted that I was persuaded to try these books, and I
would warmly recommend them to anyone who enjoys well-written, witty crime.
(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)
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