Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Heirs of the Body
Daisy Dalrymple Mystery - Book XXI
Carola Dunn

Constable and Robinson Crime
5 December 2013/ ISBN 9781472110831
Historical Mystery / British

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

 

Daisy Fletcher (nee Dalrymple) is back with another case, this time to help discover who the heir to the Viscountcy is. Her cousin Edgar has no children of his own, so the lawyer has come up with a list of rather distant relations who might be in line to be the next Lord Dalrymple. These number a hotelier from Scarborough, a South African diamond merchant, a sailor from Jamaica and a young lad from Trinidad. Trouble is, the sailor has vanished and it looks as though somebody wants to get rid of the other heirs too.

This is a country house murder mystery set during the golden age of classic detective fiction. The younger members of the cast enjoy themselves in a rather Enid Blyton manner while the adults detect, try to murder each other and get to know each other. All this sounds idyllic if, like this reviewer, you are a fan of that type of novel and it is, up to a point. Everything happens at a very leisurely, one could almost say desultory, pace; more so than in any of Ms. Dunn’s earlier Daisy books. With this type of fiction this is not necessarily a bad thing as the reader gets to see what all the series characters have been up to and meet several new people. Drowsy summer days pass in a dream of boating, village fetes and butterfly hunting which makes for pleasant reading, although I would have liked to have had a body earlier than two thirds through the book. If you want some gentle entertainment and are a fan of the series this one should please well enough, although in a strong series it is not the best entry.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Death at Wentwater Court, 1
The Winter Garden Mystery, 2
Requiem For A Mezzo, 3
Murder on the Flying Scotsman, 4
Damsel in Distress, 5
Dead In The Water, 6
Styx and Stones, 7
Rattle His Bones, 8 [review 1] [review 2]
To Davy Jones Below, 9
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, 10
Mistletoe and Murder, 11
Die Laughing, 12
A Mourning Wedding, 13
Fall of a Philanderer, 14
Gunpowder Plot, 15
The Black Ship, 17
Sheer Folly, 18
Anthem For Doomed Youth, 19
Gone West, 20
Heirs of the Body, 21
Superfluous Women, 22

Reviewed 2014
© MyShelf.com