Today I am reviewing my 18th read by Elizabeth Ferrars and it is one of her non-series titles. I felt like I must have read quite a chunk of her books by now, but having looked up her bibliography, I am not even half-way, as Ferrars wrote over 70 books! So, I have a way to go yet!
Synopsis
‘The pretty pink Edwardian dress that Leila Guest had worn to a fancy-dress ball turned up next morning, blood-stained and bullet-torn, in a bundle of clothes for the local charity shop. And Leila herself, young and pretty second wife of Sir Edward Guest, the retired vice-chancellor of a university, was mysteriously missing from her home. But Elizabeth Ferrars is far too wily to disappoint her readers with so obvious solution. Awkward questions soon arose. How did the pin dress come to be included with Leila’s cast-off clothing which had been collected the day before the ball? Where was Sir Edward’s ex-brother-in-law, who had apparently disappeared at the same time as Leila? Were the two disappearances connected? Who was responsible for the petty thefts from the Guests’ bungalow which had been puzzling them for months? There can be few less likely sleuths than middle-aged Ruth Winter, laid low with a bout of flu. Yet even though she had the assistance of her daughter and her daughter’s fiancé, a detective inspector, it was Ruth’s knowledge of character and her careful deductions that brought a murderer to book.’
Overall
I selected this Ferrars to read from my TBR pile as I felt the blurb contained intriguing plot possibilities, particularly regarding how the dress was added to a bag which had already been taken away. I also thought the choice of female sleuth sounded interesting, especially in how she is spatially and geographically restricted due to her illness. I was curious to see what effect this would have on her sleuthing.
The novel starts with Ingrid (Ruth’s daughter) and her fiancé named Martin, struggling to find a suitable house to buy. Their experience reveals some interesting differences in their relationship, and perhaps reflects the changing attitudes of the 1970s:
‘The house agent’s particulars had sounded so promising that for once she and Martin had been really hopefully. But when they saw the place they had both agreed that even if they spent a lot of money on it – and where was that money to come from? – it would still be horrible. Pokey, dark rooms, no cupboards, a kitchen with fittings that dated back to the beginning of the century, a faint smell of dry rot and a garden too small to be interesting but big enough to be a nuisance and overlooked by all the houses round it.
In its way it had been as bad as the house that they had looked at last, which had been very recently built and had all modern conveniences but in character was not unlike a rabbit hutch, standing cheek by jowl with identical houses on either side of it. But if she and Martin went on like this, if they insisted on being perfectionists, would they ever get married?
The irony of the situation was that Ingrid was ready to move into Martin’s bedsitting-room today, tomorrow, or any day that he chose to name. It was he who insisted coolly, inflexibly, that they must begin as they meant to go on.’
Cohabiting, without being married, was not a new thing for the 1970s, but it is not something I have overly encountered in my mid-20th century mystery fiction reading. Delano Ames’ Jane and Dagobert Brown in their debut investigation, She Shall Have Murder (1949), is perhaps the closest example I have had, and even then there is a degree of ambiguity.
An ongoing mystery for me was how no one else caught Ruth’s flu giving that she is still making her daughter her morning cup of tea, and she is generally spending chunks of time with Ingrid and Martin. Ruth does have a bona fide link to the main mystery as her lodger, Ronald Starkey, is Sir Edward’s missing ex-brother-in-law. From the beginning we are encouraged to regard Ronald as dubious, as he claims to be a writer, yet there is no evidence of any such activity taking place, and it is more likely that he is scrounging money from Sir Edward.
The pace is brisk initially and another link in the chain which draws Ruth closer to the central mystery is that Ingrid does Ruth’s slot at the charity shop, and she is there when the dress is found in the bag. The use of the charity shop, I felt, brought this type of plot and story up to date.
Ruth’s flu means that by and large she must receive information second hand and equally must delegate others to find things out. It is therefore a bit of a shame that Ingrid is a bit of a wet blanket when asked to make some enquiries. She has to be pushed to do her bit of developing the investigation and she is part of the reason why there is a slow development of the case. The police, via Ingrid’s fiancé, do not get involved until page 70-ish. This is partly due to the fact that Sir Edward claims his wife is off visiting.
I would not see Ruth as being akin to Miss Marple, as she is too trusting and she sees the good in everyone, even when it might not be there. Moreover, when Ruth learns new information, she often chooses the least worst, hope for the best, interpretation. Bizarrely it is by getting a temperature that Ruth is propelled into searching Ronald’s room and she finds something which casts a doubt over the death of Sir Edward’s first wife. I think Miss Marple would have been less surprised by this discovery, being wiser to Ronald’s true character in the first place.
Ferrars’ novel has an unusual structure, as despite human blood on the dress, no corpse is found even by the 75% mark. Nevertheless, two people remain unaccounted for. Are they alive or dead? Are they together or alone? The mystery is arguably more about identifying what crime if any has taken place and to whom.
Ruth’s eureka moment takes places off the page and her decision making after this point is somewhat questionable. I won’t say more due to spoilers. I feel like the solution was good, but Ruth’s evidence was flimsy. It does not help she largely sleuths away from the reader’s gaze. Overall, I think the story had clever elements, but it needed a stronger sleuthing team to bring it together more convincingly.
Rating: 3.5/5