Goodreads meta-data is 320 pages rated 4.31 by 2455 litizens.
Genre: krimi, period
Verdict: ambiguous.
In the heart of Little England at fictitious Littleton Cotterell in 1909 wealthy Lady Hardcastle and her redoubtable retainer Florence Armstrong, the maid of all work, including sleuthing, are settled in a Midsomer picturesque village in the southwest near Bristol. Flo narrates with a sharp eye and a sharper tongue.
Then the kinematographers come to the village, and by a mischance Lady Hardcastle offers them a roof. They had been scheduled to stay at a neighboring estate but a mysterious fire in the kitchen has made that impossible.
The kinematograpers screen an 18-minute film about the undoing of a witch to the protests of Republicans who see in filums the devil’s work. Meanwhile an aggrieved rival of the kinematographers appears at the pub with a tame journalist in tow. By the way the kinematographers include the film actors four. Finally some travelling musicians pop-in to muddy the waters and provoke a tiresome double backstory. Whew! Now that the cast is assembled, the mayhem can begin.
Because the kinematograph is the work of the devil, Christian vigilantes appears to picket, to protest, and cause trouble. The local vicar has some choice words to say about such pious thuggery that reminded me of many current tiny minds. For the Vicar God takes delight in the achievements of His creation. He’s sophisticated and wise and understands the subtleties of Man’s ingenious inventions. On the other hand, the self-proclaimed pious thugs exhibit resourcefulness only in their careful selection of scriptural texts to support small-mindedness, combing misquoted Bible verses and threats of eternal damnation.
Then the morning after celebrating until late tthe screening of the film, one of the actor is found, dressed in role, dead just as his character died in the film. The villagers were agog at seeing a film for the first time to begin with and the death — of course it had to be murder — drives one and all round the nearest bend. His death confirms the Christian thugs in their many prejudices.
The well meaning local plods are lost and Bristol CID sends in Inspector who is old mates with Her Ladyship and Strongarm. Since he has many other krims on the go back in the city, he more or less delegates the investigation to Lady and Maid.
Before you can say this is nonsense the leading lady is found dead, also in-role, in Lady Hardcastle’s very own kitchen! That makes it personal!
The Christian vigilantes make Prime Suspects. Then there is an artistic rival whose has dogged the steps of the kinematograpers across the land.
Along the way there are lessons about village life, the state of film-making at the time, the hills and dales around Bristol, and an insufferable load of banter between Hardcastle and Strongarm that pads out the story near to tedium. But they do some ratiocination to sort through all the parti-coloured herrings, which are many.
T. E. Kinsey
The approach is more didactic than I can usually abide but in this case the information is well integrated and tossed off in portions. However, I found the insertion of a lengthy double backstory first about the tender years of Strongarm and then the adventures of Lady Hardcastle distracting, tedious, and limp, the more so considering this is number four in the series. Likewise the two travelling minstrels who show up again are simply there to cue the backstories not to move this one forward, and their message about the menacing German is left on the cutting room floor, or should have been since it is not resolved. I expect it is a tease for the next volume in the series. Is it any wonder that some readers grind their teeth?
Month: June 2019
11 June
1183 BC Troy was sacked and burned according the calculations of Eratosthenes in 200 BC while he was the librarian at Alexandria. He also calculated the circumference of the earth with great accuracy for which he is recognised as a founder of geography. We have been to the site of the horse tamers.
1788 Russian explorer Gerasim Grigoriev Izmailov reached the Alaskan coast, sailing into Yakutat Bay searching for sea otters and other furred animals. He called it ‘Alaska’ from the Aleut word meaning peninsula.
1863 Sydney. In honour of the wedding of the Prince of Wales New South Wales Governor Richard Bourke arranged a demonstration of electric lighting on Macquarie Street, using arc lamps which burn very hot and emit noxious fumes.
1901 New Zealand annexed the Cook Islands. Today the Islands are a self-governing territory in association with New Zealand in foreign and defence matters, much like Tokelau and Niue.
1985 The unmanned Soviet space craft Vega 1 soft-landed a probe on Venus while it went to intercept Halley’s Comet at a distance of nine thousand kilometres and took five hundred pictures, showing a nucleus of fourteen kilometres in length with a rotation every fifty-three hours. Vega 1 now remains in orbit around the sun, causing some to worry that it is depleting the ozone layer.
12 June
1792 Captain George Vancouver landed at the site that is now Vancouver though Wikipedia does not mention him in the entry on the city. He had earlier claimed King George Sound near Albany Western Australia for the crown. Been to Rain City many times over the ages.
1912 Ottawa. The Chateau Laurier hotel opened. Its builder and owner was Charles Hays who had drowned a week earlier while travelling home the event on the Titanic. I stayed there once at a conference. Was it named for the incumbent Prime Minister, Wilfred Laurier? Does Mr Hays haunt it? Has the plumbing changed since 1912?
1923 From Appleton WI Harry Houdini freed himself from a straightjacket while suspended forty feet in the air upside down. He had toured Australia in 1910. He spent much of the latter part of his career debunking spiritualists and mediums who were defrauding the public. In do doing he clashed with Arthur Conan Doyle.
1931 The separate territories of North Australia and Central Australia were re-united as the Northern Territory. It had been entire until 1926 when it was split to make the vast real estate more manageable but sustaining two administrative centres (Darwin and Alice Springs) proved too expensive in the Great Depression. It has remained a vast singular entity since. We have been to Darwin twice and enjoyed it a lot and there is talk of visiting Alice Springs one day for the night sky.
1991 Bois Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Federation. Sales of vodka increased. Now who does he remind me of today….? Is it President Tiny?
