It has been around a year (give or take a couple of weeks) since I last read and reviewed a mystery by Patricia Moyes. I have a few titles by her sitting on my TBR pile, but I chose this one from the multitude, I must admit, because of the cover art of the Rinehart Suspense edition. Another reason suggested by my husband is that I was partially influenced by the fact we had just finished watching the recent BBC series, Lugwig (the main character loves and write crosswords).
Synopsis
‘When Henry Tibbett, Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, receives an anonymous crossword puzzle in the mail, he assumes it is just a prank. But when, bored with a slow summer, he begins to fill in the empty squares, he realises that he may have something deadly on his hands. The answers are names of friends and relatives of people who died under suspicious circumstances – and one clue warns that more deaths may follow. The names in the puzzle lead Henry to an elegant country home on the Isle of Wight. He and his wife, Emmy, have been invited there by Sir Robert and Lady Pamela Oppenshaw for the annual literary weekend of the Guess Who, an exclusive mystery writers’ club. The members, Henry and Emmy soon discover, are a mischievous group of bitterly competitive authors painstakingly concealing their true identities with pseudonyms. Harold Vandlike, a brilliant lawyer and mountain climber with a penchant for practical jokes […] William Cartwright, a respected doctor; Fred Coe, a prominent left-wing economist; Myrtle Waterford, the unassuming wife of the manager of a well-known bank; Barbara Oppenshaw, the rebellious, confused daughter of the hosts; and Peter Turnberry, her spurned fiancée – each of them has more than one carefully guarded secret. Suddenly, the weekend goes awry when one of them, an expert horseman, dies in a riding accident. Everyone seems satisfied that it is just that – an accident. But Henry suspects foul play. Then when another guest disappears, Henry and Emmy search for a connection […]’
Overall Thoughts
When I read this synopsis, I initially wondered if Moyes was echoing the premise of Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse (1961), but having now read it, I can confirm that Moyes takes her plot in a different direction. It was interesting reading the dedication to A Six-Letter Word for Death as Moyes ‘spent two unforgettable years in the Royal Air Force during World War II’ on the Isle of Wight. She would go on to holiday there several times, so it sounds like it was a place she knew well. It is one of the key settings in this story, although not the only one, as the narrative covers a fair bit of ground, geographically speaking.
Chief Superintendent Henry Tibbett does not have high hopes when he first receives the crossword and some of the clues that go with it:
‘Henry looked at it and sighed. He had, admittedly been hoping for an interesting case to crop up, but he doubted that this would be it. The combination of the cheap mass-produced envelope and the fancy handwriting added up in his mind to one word – crank.’
It is intriguing that Henry is not sent all the clues in one go, but he has them drip fed to him instead by a ‘lover of justice’. This gives the initial setup a more enigmatic feel. Henry gets a suspect from a previous investigation to help him solve the crossword. This suspect was a bishop and part of the Manciple family, who we first see in Murder Fantastical (1967). Moyes seems rather taken with this family, as they crop up again in the later novel, Twice in a Blue Moon (1993). Whenever a member of Manciple family is mentioned, you can be sure some comedy is bound to follow.
As disclosed in the blurb, the members of the Guess Who, mystery writer’s club, all work under pennames. I did wonder if any of the names were nods to real life crime writers. I wasn’t sure, although there is one member who is a left-wing economist, which may be a reference to G. D. H. Cole. If anyone knows about any of the names, then do share below. The reasons these characters have pennames are rather stereotypical, such as the respectable wife who wants to write rough gritty mysteries, whilst a serious male academic wants to write gothic romances.
Due to the social milieu of the story, there is some interesting metafictional conversations. For example, Harold Vandlike says to Barbara Oppenshaw:
“You, my dear Barbara,” he went on, “are the only one of us who purports to portray an actual Scotland Yard detective. And I cannot remember that Chief Superintendent Tibbett’s cases have ever remotely resembled those so brilliantly solved by Superintendent Barrows.”
“There is no need to be sarcastic, Harry,” said Barbara. “I write in what is known as the great classic tradition, and my books sell better than yours.”
“That may or may not be true,” said Harry, who knew very well that it was. “The fact remains that your plots are ridiculously elaborate and fanciful. First of all, you maroon a small group of people on an island or in a snowstorm or some such artificial situation. Then you produce clues of whimsical erudition – for instance, all your victims may be ladies named after Shakespeare heroines, so that after the demise of Juliet Jones and Miranda Brown, we may be fairly dure that Portia Smith is in for trouble. And –”
“I’ve never used that one,” said Barbara thoughtfully.
“And finally,” Harry went on, “your detective assembles all the suspects and arranges a reenactment of the crime, which unmasks the villain. Can you imagine that happening in real life?”
“It would be interesting to know,” remarked Bill Cartwright, “how a real detective would react if he found himself faced with a so-called classical fictional crime.”
Vandlike’s remarks about the snowstorms and island feels rather like a nod to works such as And Then There Were None (1939) and Murder on the Orient Express (1934). I found this an interesting passage as despite Vandlike’s comments, Barbara still maintains that her style of mystery writing is the more popular. Given this was written and set in the 1980s this slightly surprised me, as I felt like classic/traditional mysteries would have been less popular. The story that follows explores Bill Cartwright’s query as Tibbett does get to tackle a cold case and a current suspicious death, via the crossword he is sent, and he gets a final reenactment scene.
Nevertheless, I think some of the descriptive sections remind you that this tale is set in the 1980’s and not the 1930’s:
‘Carnworth Manor, as Sir Robert himself often laughingly remarked, was just the sort of place where an English murder mystery of the 1930s would feel at home. A compact but beautiful house, it dated from the mid-eighteenth century. A spiral staircase ascended from is circular marble entrance hall, in the centre of which a small fountain boasted a bronze dolphin that incessantly vomited water toward the dome roof some eighty feet above.’
The word ‘vomited’ certainly felt jarringly unpleasant and seemed a bit odd. Perhaps it is a comment on excessive wealth, but it nevertheless was a bit off-putting.
I have another question for the reader. When Henry Tibbett is giving his talk to the Guess Who club, he remarks on the crossword that he has received: “I don’t think I have ever read a book in which clues were forwarded to the detective in the form of a crossword puzzle.” I was curious if this was true? Are there earlier examples of this?
Tibbett’s talk is a great moment in the book, where he explains how he solved the crossword puzzle and how it related to the crime writers present, whose pennames he has equally solved. Yet this is only a quarter of the way into the novel, so despite everything looking like it is wrapped up already, the reader is still keenly anticipating the moment when murder will spring up. You just know when one person asks for a private meeting with Tibbett later that day, that this person is never going to get the chance to talk with Henry.
Unfortunately, from this juncture though, the reading experience became poorer for me. After the riding “accident” occurs, Henry naturally does some investigating, but when he does make significant discoveries, he chooses to make them without witnesses, and he does not reveal to others what he sees and he even provides the opportunity for someone else to come along and tamper with and remove that evidence. I didn’t see the point of this, as the removal of the concrete and tangible evidence just makes Henry Tibbett’s job harder, so much so, that his sleuthing has to occur outside of working hours and due to his lack of official standing the suspects are unsurprisingly resistant to help. The way Henry creates obstacles for himself starts to come across as narrative delaying tactics. The plot’s trajectory is obvious, e.g. this accident is a murder, but the story is very slow in getting to that point.
After a while, the narrative goes in an unexpected direction, when one of the suspects goes missing. This part of the plot has some interesting elements, but the way Moyes handles it, it feels again like the author is stretching her plot out. Consequently, my interest started flagging a lot at this point.
The finale in which Tibbett reveals the solution repeats a lot of what the reader already knows, which given this is not a substantial case, means the pacing drags. The reenactment has a rather ridiculous bit to it, as does the full solution, as there is one character who is requested to do something, no questions asked and it just felt odd, that despite everything that happens subsequently, they don’t think to mention what occurred. I feel like Henry Tibbett guessed quite a bit of the solution, as a lot of the real evidence is the suspects just finally sharing what they know. The backstory is quite extensive, and the solution does include a fair bit of new information for the reader.
Reflecting on the book as a whole I feel the opening was strong, but the rest of the novel did not live up to it. I think it could have been a clever mystery, it just needed more clues, and it needed Henry Tibbett to be officially and directly investigating the case, as that would have picked up the pace.
Rating: 3.5/5