Julie Broussely is a new-to-me author, and this is her first mystery novel, I believe, and from the cover it looks like it is the start of a series, rather than a standalone story. I picked this book up, because I liked the variation her book’s premise seemed to offer for the trope of an unremarkable protagonist who finds themselves in extraordinary circumstances (as evidenced in the quoted blurb below).
Synopsis
‘Inheriting a private detective agency in a different country and from a complete stranger was absolutely not on Monday’s to-do list for London office worker Toby Solano. He soon finds himself stumbling through an unfamiliar world of peculiar crimes, unfeasibly long Dutch words, and troublesome questions about his benefactor. Toby travels to the historic city of The Hague to close the failing business and avoid financial ruin. But his plan is abruptly derailed when he is forced to investigate a suspicious death at a miniature village tourist attraction. In desperation, Toby enlists the local expertise and sharp wit of the singularly blunt Meredith Wright. It’s a race against time to solve the mystery, close the agency and avoid adopting an insistent stray cat. Set in The Hague, Amsterdam and London, Death On A Tiny Scale mixes a fiendishly twisty crime with comical observations of cross-cultural confusion. Not least, the problem of finding a decent cup of tea when you’re not at home…’
Overall Thoughts
I enjoyed how Toby is introduced, with an engaging conversational narrative voice:
‘Toby Solano, second-generation Italian and inhabitant of north London, would freely admit – without the need for any inconvenient prodding, blackmail or torture – that he had, quite categorically, never done anything spectacular in his thirty-three years. His friends and family, should they be hurriedly amassed in the room for their opinion, would happily agree. Toby might tentatively raise his hand at this point and argue that, from another angle, he had performed many impressive feats. Cuttlefish might be bowled over by his finely tuned tea-making skills, or slugs overwhelmed with his ability to burst into a spring to catch the number 46 bus when his morning alarm failed to go off. Such actions were clearly beyond the means of those species, but sorely overlooked by his fellow humans.’
Toby’s first step into extraordinary circumstances begins when he saves an elderly man from falling into oncoming traffic. Yet even at this early juncture it seems like the man’s near accident, was not quite so accidental:
‘Behind this scene of heroism and confusion, in a café with fraying lace curtains […] a pair of eyes blinked as it observed the action on the pavement […] Stepping even further back, into the realm where all things are connected, we might see that a path has unfolded. The first domino has fallen in what seems, at this stage, a bewilderingly complex pattern – an image or message we have yet to decipher. Tuesday mornings have a lot to answer for.’
Moments like this made the narrative feel like a TV drama in the way the story engages with different views on a given scene. Furthermore, this plot strand is one in which this first book does not give too much away, so I think it is more there to lay the groundwork for later novels.
The tension climbs incrementally from the cryptic note Toby receives, to him having his mobile phone stolen and then mysteriously returned. We have some gentle comedy when Toby is telephoned about his unusual inheritance as poor phone reception means he thinks the private detective agency is in Hayes, not The Hague in the Netherlands.
Initially, Toby is purely concerned with winding down the business, to avoid incurring more costs, but naturally, we know the course of events will change this and even when he is adamant, he will not keep the business going, he is still thinking about what sort of fictional crime fighter he sees himself as:
‘He saw himself as a character in a story – not the all too familiar Life of Toby Solano, but somewhere between a somewhat less athletic James Bond and a considerably less uptight Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Uptight’ seems like an odd choice of word to me, and it is not one I readily associate with Holmes. Nevertheless, Toby is a likeable lead character:
‘Toby had quite strong ideas about what qualified as an acceptable mug. It had to be just the right size to hold a proper cup of tea. Too small a cup and before you’ve even got the milk out of the fridge, its contents have stewed to something that might emerge from a cauldron. Too large a cup risks requiring an uncomfortable oversized handle and may be too heavy to hold in one hand so you end up spilling tea everywhere. If the mug is too wide the tea cools too quickly, but too narrow and he had problems getting his striking Romanesque nose in. Lastly, real bone china was best; plastic was intolerable. He’d spent a lot of time over the years honing these criteria […]’
Toby hires a temporary assistant, called Meredith Wright, to help him deal with the paperwork, and I think she is a character who works well with the intended series premise. She speaks her mind, she is intrigued by the events which have led Toby to The Hague, and she feels like more of a partner to Toby rather than your typical employee. Moreover, Toby notices her natural sleuthing instincts: ‘Her logical approach to the mystery of Mr Exford – no actual body, no certainty of death – was a good starting point for a dispassionate detective.’
As the cover suggests a cat is involved in the series, and this one charmingly slinks its way into the story. However, I would not categorise this as a cat mystery, as this particular feline doesn’t really impact the plot. The cat is more there to provide some fun antics and to allow Toby to demonstrate his caring side. I did wonder if the cat felt like inessential window dressing to attract the cosy crime market.
Toby’s focus soon centres on one determined client, who had hired the previous owner of the agency to look into the death of her husband. It was officially deemed an accident (although why would Fritz Plumhoff go to a model village at a tourist attraction, in another country (he lived in Germany), in the middle of the night?). This is a curious case which ignites a lot of questions, and Toby is forced to try and answer them to avoid getting sued.
The beginning of the novel is very strong, as the chapters are short and keep good pace, although this does not streamline the enjoyable writing style. For a good chunk of the book Toby is trying to complete all his tasks associated with the agency within four-five days, having taken some time off work (effectively arriving on the Wednesday and leaving on the following Monday). This schedule is not managed, and we then see Toby back in the UK by the halfway point, before another return to The Hague (having taken more annual leave). I think this is the first sign that this book and its plot are too long. The toing and froing backwards and forwards really bulks out the page count and I don’t think it overall helps the story. The reason for having tight deadlines for characters is to build tension, but this dissipates in this tale, and during his first visit to The Hague, Toby really isn’t able to push the mystery aspect forward. I appreciate that by sending Toby back to England, the author is able to portray his disenchantment with his current life, but I still think the pacing suffers too much.
I think Toby and Meredith have a lot of sleuthing potential, but my enjoyment of the novel increasingly sunk due to the length of the book, which was not matched with plot or case development. Toby and Meredith in some ways have too hard a case to crack, as there are not enough concrete clues to go on, meaning they lack a lot of direction. When a clue does arrive, it feels like it is used to dump quite a bit of information in one go. The final 100 pages of the mystery definitely dragged for me and there is no sense of how the case will be wrapped up and in the end the duo fall into the solution which is heavily reliant on the killer’s confession. The scene in which the solution is delivered is nearly as much a revelation to them, as it is for us the reader.
The story concludes with a very intriguing final line, but I am not sure if I will pick up the second book, as I found this reading experience quite fatiguing and enthusiasm draining by the denouement. This is a shame as there are certainly some interesting aspects of the series.
Rating: 3.5/5