Book: A Pint of Murder by Alisa Craig
Krishna
I have a confession to make. When I was new to the genre diversification, I did not really understand that cozy mysteries are supposed to be cozy and simplistic. As a result, my reviews of those books may have been off the mark. (See, for instance, Killed At The Whim Of a Hat review earlier). I decided not to go back and fix that review as they were my views then. Now I do understand the genre, and this book is firmly in that camp.
This is written by Charlette MacCleod under the pseudonym of Alisa Craig.
This is a series that introduces the Canadian detective from Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Rhys Madoc. (‘The Mounties always get their man’ ). What is the story?
Aunt Aggie (Agatha Treadway) dies after being ill. She hates Marion Emery, a vapid middle aged woman in the same house. Marion’s brother, Henry Druffit is a doctor and suspects food poisoning. The doctor wants to inspect the beans that Aggie ate that day but then the neighbour Janet Waldman, sister of the neighbour Bert Waldman, arrives.
Aggie’s husband Theodore was an inventor and had found, among other things, a better way to pave roads. He made his money in construction
As they are inventorying the house, Janet learns that a local bully claims that he owns the rights to one of Theodore’s patents and if it is not found and returned to him, he will be going to see his lawyer, which strikes Janet as odd.
When Janet also finds during inventory of the house in the cellar a jar of pickled beans that seems to be sealed differently from all the other jars, she takes it and goes to the clinic of Doctor Henry. She waits for him in the lobby and finally, when she takes a peek in, she sees the doctor’s body in the study!
She realizes that the doctor’s death (‘by falling on a loose carpet and hitting the head on the side of the table’) looks like an incredibly convenient accident for whoever murdered Aggie. In addition, the dent in the doctor’s head seems to have been done by a round instrument.
She decides to keep quiet for the moment but hands the other pickle jar to the sheriff who came in response to her call.
But the entire doctor’s family arrives as the house has been burnt down.
The doctor’s funeral brings the entire small city community to the church.
Finally Janet finds the patent and gives it to Marion. Meanwhile she persuades local amateur detective Fred Olson to call in the Mounties. The man who came in seems unimpressive, with the name of Rhys Madoc.
He comes pretending to be a cousin of a resident but his cover is blown wide open by gossip, starting with Sam, a hired help who has somehow found out who he is. A mountie in disguise.
Rhys starts investigating and is astounded when Dot, the servant, is given a dress by Mrs Druffit, which itself is unusual, and is found dead by a killer – Rhys suspects that the intended victim was Mrs Druffit.
Rhys also develops a fondness for Janet Waldman during the investigation, but struggles to let it not cloud his judgement or his impartiality in his investigations.
He investigates Sam, who has a well known affair with Dot. It is in fact to a tryst with him that Dot had gone and she was attacked and murdered in the semi darkness on the way back. Sam calmly asks Rhys, when questioned on why he, Sam, would have the motive to kill Dot and besides, if he wanted to kill her, why would he do it so clumsily.
Rhys comes home and finds that the family who had been missing has now been found. Elmer had taken Gilly and Bobby and had run but swore he had not seen Dot’s corpse in the front.
Now, how Rhys puts it all together forms the rest of the story. This is certainly no Agatha Christie and the author does not try to unravel the mystery of how he found it all out. The culprit is a bit surprising. His evidence is supplied by the people around when he accuses the murderer of having orchestrated three murders.
All in all a mediocre detective story. Not really bad, and the East Coast Canada colour is interesting, but in the end, something to read and forget.
The budding romance between Janet and Rhys adds warmth to the mystery, no doubt set up here to be continued through the series, like many authors do (Thomas Pitt and Chalotte in Anne Perry’s series comes to mind).
5/10
== Krishna