This is the fourth book in the Virginia and Felix Freer series. Previously I have read the first two books in this series: Last Will and Testament (1978) and Frog in the Throat (1980).
Synopsis
‘Virginia and Felix Freer, the separated but still semi-attached couple who have figured in several of Elizabeth Ferrars’s recent novels, are both present at a party – Virginia because the hostess is an Australian friend returning home, Felix because he happens to live in the flat below hers. Among the guests are two or three connected with an antique-dealer and his wife who live near Virginia and whom she has come to know. Within a couple of days both Virginia and Felix are involved with murder: Virginia in the small town in which she lives, Felix in London, when an insignificant fellow guest unconnected with anyone else at the party is found dead in an adjoining flat. With his inclination to make mysteries about himself (what exactly is the nature of the new job he is so coy about?) and to unravel them when they concern other people, Felix is convinced that the murders must be linked.’
Overall Thoughts
Virginia Freer gets the narrative ball rolling by introducing us to the key characters and I think they are linked plausibly enough. Interestingly, near the beginning of the book Virginia seems to suggest that her fractured marriage and her subsequent separation from her husband has made her a better amateur sleuth:
‘Looking back, however, I am inclined to think that perhaps the three years that I had lived with Felix had made me particularly sensitive to the sound of a lie, though his lies were usually more colourful than Rose’s little story. It may have been that she looked at me a little too hard while she was talking and that Marcus began to tap the floor with his shoe with an odd nervousness. But I did not ask any more questions.’
However, I would not get your hopes up too high, as in contrast to the other two Freer mysteries that I have read, I think Virginia operates less as an amateur sleuth in this case. She is more the sounding board for other character’s ideas, and she also ferries news and information to individuals such as her husband Felix.
Despite the first 50 pages focusing on Virginia’s friend’s leaving party, I did not feel like I particularly knew either of the victims well. The murders occur soon after the party, but due to the lack of familiarity with the characters, the choice of victims was neither surprising nor unsurprising. It did feel like it could have been anyone. Nevertheless, I was curious to see how the death which takes place in a flat near to Felix’s home ties into the murder of Virginia’s antique selling friend. The fact the victims did not know each other and were killed in different places complicates the puzzle.
Felix is a bit cagey when talking about the death which happened in his block of flats. The way he does this makes it more baffling than it needs to be, and it runs the risk of dragging out the plot. It slows down the pace and almost gives off a false sense of tension. Fortunately, this situation is rectified, and I think the reader does just have to accept that whilst Felix likes solving crimes, he hates involvement with the police.
At first glance the title might give the reader the idea that this will be a theatrically set mystery, but that is not the case and instead its meaning is explained by something Felix says to Virginia part way through the story:
“[…] but it’s _____ I really care about and I’ll tell you why. She’s somehow such a very minor character. You know what I mean. Think of all those Westerns you’ve watched on television when dozens of men fall off their horses, stone dead, with bullets or Indian arrows in them, and you don’t give a thought to them or their poor horses either. You only worry about what’s going to happen to the hero and the bad buy and the barmaid with a heart of gold, and you wait breathlessly for the final scene when right is going to triumph. It’s only in very sophisticated films that it sometimes doesn’t. But actually each of those dozens of corpses that littered the prairie and whom you’ve forgotten all about probably had a story in him that was every bit as interesting as the one about the characters who survive to the end. D’you see what I’m trying to say? _______ fell off her horse so very early on and the police think it’s just a commonplace crime of burglar who was scared and killed her on the spur of the moment before making off with her few quid, and they’re going to give _____’s death twice the attention they’ll give hers. But its hers that means most to me.” [Names of the victims have been removed by me.]
This is a nice touch, as it reveals Felix’s kind nature and his valuing of the underdog or the overlooked. Usually, minor characters are murdered later in the book in order to pad the plot out or to help the police catch the killer. So, it is interesting seeing such a character be murdered as a primary victim. I think it changes the nature of the detecting required in terms of the lines of questioning the amateur sleuth will need to take.
There is not much of a police presence on the page. This is a conversation heavy book, but I have to admit that I was not fully gripped by this story, and I was easily distracted. There is perhaps less page time where Virginia and Felix are talking and working together, which may not have helped. Moreover, because of this it feels like a longer explanation is needed at the end to reveal the solution. When I got to the end of the story it felt like the case I had just read was less tangible and more theoretical in a way, due to the conversational emphasis of the narrative. A previous reader pencilled in their rating too and gave it a 4/5, which is not far off from my own rating. Looking at the Freer novels I have read so far, my favourite is Frog in the Throat because Felix and Virginia work more closely together on the page and it felt like more happened in the story.
Rating: 3.75/5