Harriet Devine's Blog

Death in Fancy Dress by Anthony Gilbert

It's always a great joy when a nice fat parcel from The British Library appears in the mailbox. At this time of year it's a bit like an early Christmas present and there are seasonally themed Crime Classics titles in there to help the festive mood. In fact although Death in Fancy Dress is set in the winter months, it's not actually Christmas. But a fancy dress ball in a country manor house is close enough, even if the ball itself has the shadow of blackmail and murder hanging over it to darken the mood. 

At the start of the novel we encounter two young men who meet by chance in an Indian bazaar. Tony Keith, a lawyer, is the narrator, and when he and his old school friend Jeremy Freyne make their way back to England, they are approached by the Secret Service in the person of one Edward Philpotts, who asks them to investigate a troubling epidemic:

men and women have been committing suicide with alarming frequency, and its noticeable that they are practically all people in what we term the superior walks of life.

As the suicides are invariably prefaced by mysterious phone calls, it seems certain that blackmail is the cause. Tony and Jeremy are despatched to a grand country house, Feltham Abbey, which appears to have some connection with the epidemic, in the hope that they can discover the identity of the blackmailer, known as the Spider. There's quite a crowd already at the Abbey: Tony's cousin Eleanor, widowed after the death of her first husband, is now married to self-made industrialist Nunn; her pretty eighteen-year-old daughter Hilary, who's being blackmailed; Nunn's lively widowed sister Mrs Ross; and a young man, Arthur Dennis, who is engaged to marry Hilary. There are obviously servants there as well but they don't get much of a mention, apart from the highly efficient butler Hook. Then, just down the road, lives Sir Ralph Feltham, Eleanor's cousin and the actual owner of the Abbey. Sir Ralph is a bad lot with a reputation as a womaniser, and everyone is deeply concerned that Hilary is getting too close to him - he has expressed his intention of marrying her and she refuses to rule out the possibility. To make matters more complicated, Jeremy has decided Hilary must marry him.

Perhaps not everyone would decide to throw a fancy dress ball under these decidedly tense circumstances, but the general feeling is that it will cheer everybody up. The ball is to be an unusual one in that grand expensive costumes are banned - instead guests are supposed to spend as little as possible on dressing themselves up. This leads to a curious confusion in which the dead body of a tramp, found in a local pond, proves on investigation to be that of Sir Ralph, heavily disguised in tattered clothing and expertly applied make-up. So now there's a murder to investigate in addition to the blackmail. Are they linked? Tony and Jeremy put their heads together and come up with a convincing solution - but is it the right one?

There's a great deal to enjoy in this clever, well-written novel. The murder is quite a long time coming, but there's lots of appealing detail and scene setting along the way. The book was published in 1933, when the shadow of WW1 still hangs in the air. The characters are particularly well-drawn - I especially liked the talkative Mrs Ross, who, though neither young nor beautiful, is immensely attractive and, at the ball, is surrounded by a crowd of admirers. Then there's the flighty young socialite Hilary, who goes to the ball in a pair of scanty pyjamas and carrying a teddy bear - under her defensive surface she's suffering from a lot of pressure and her psychological struggles are well observed. And if you appreciate misdirection, there's plenty of it here.

As for the writer of this enjoyable novel, Anthony Gilbert is a pen name assumed by the writer Lucy Malleson (1899-1973). She also published as Anne Meredith and her Portrait of a Murderer (which I've read and enjoyed and believed I'd reviewed but apparently didn't) is another Crime Classic. A bonus in this latest edition is a couple of her standalone short stories. Here's hoping the BL will bring out some of her series featuring what the blurb describes as 'her famed, unconventional, and magnificently named detective Arthur Crook'. I can't wait to meet him!

 

Child Reading

This is called Practicing, and it's by the Belgian painter Gustave Leonard de Jonghe (1829-1898). The child looks a bit too young to be actually reading so is probably just looking at the pictures?

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I got on to Barbara Kingsolver earlier this year when I read and very much enjoyed two of her novels in July -- reviews here. Of course I knew that The Poisonwood Bible was her most famous work, but for some reason I avoided reading it - I'd somehow got the idea that it might be heavy going. However, when it was my turn to choose this month's book for my reading group, I decided it was time to plunge in and give it a go. I've just finished it and of course loved every minute. Just shows how wrong your preconceived ideas can be.

I suspect I may be the only person in the world not to have read this, but anyway here's what it's about. The novel starts in 1959. Nathan Price, an evangelical Baptist missionary, uproots his family - wife and four daughters - from their Georgia home and transports them to a small village in the Belgian Congo. His purpose, of course, is to convert the Congolese to Christianity, an ambition which, though he never abandons it, is fated to be a total failure. Meanwhile the women in his family have to adjust to life in a small and, by American standards, wholly uncivilised world.

The story of what happens is told by five voices, Orleanna the mother, whose narrative originates many years after the events, and the four daughters. Rachel, the eldest, is fifteen, and a typical American teenager. She is appalled by the lack of all the things she values in life and despises the Africans and the village they inhabit. Then there are the twins, Leah and Adah, a few years younger. Leah at first idolises her father and completely buys into his harsh evangelical religious views, though this will change later. Adah has been born with a part crippled body and appears not to be able to speak. Her intelligence, however, is great, though somewhat quirky - she plays with words and loves to create palindromes. The youngest child is Ruth May, aged just five. All four children (and their mother) have been forcibly submerged in the King James Bible - a punishment for the children, in addition to beatings, is to write out a hundred verses from an extract chosen by their father. Orleanna too can't escape her indoctrination:

'in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee'. Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms.

The whole narrative of this long book spans several decades, so we not only find out about the actual day to day life of the family in the village but also how their lives have progressed since their rather dramatic escape from Africa. I understand that some readers would have preferred to have this section omitted but I found it fascinating to see how each protagonist dealt with the aftermath of what was an extremely stressful period of their lives.

And of course this is also a book about colonisation. When the novel starts, the Congo is a colony of Belgium, but within a relatively short period the country gains independence and becomes Zaire. The resulting political upheavals have little effect on the daily lives of the villagers, but they do affect the Price family, who are strongly advised by expat American acquaintances to leave at once. Nathan Price however believes his mission is not yet accomplished and so the family clings on. Deprived of the regular deliveries of basic necessities they become poorer than the poorest local inhabitant.

Barbara Kingsolver is a wonderfully readable writer and I found this book enthralling from start to finish. It was only when I got to the end that I discovered it had been voted the best ever novel for reading groups. So I'm looking forward to a lively discussion when my group meets next week.

Child Reading

Or, to give it it's full title, 'Little Girl with Kitten Reading by a Fireplace. This is by James Pelham (1800-1875), sometimes referred to as James Pelham the younger, though who James Pelham the older was I have no idea.

Girl Reading

This very charming painting is by Charles Chaplin (1907-1987) no, not that one. Follow the link to his rather brief but interesting Wikipedia entry.