School librarian Edward Crisp loves classic whodunnits so when the unpopular new headteacher is murdered he seizes the opportunity to do some amateur sleuthing. This is an old-style whodunnit set in a small seaside village where everyone knows everyone else, where there is a limited cast of suspects where almost every suspect has a secret to be uncovered, where more or less everyone has a motive for murder, and where forensic evidence is very much in the background (this is not a police procedural). The clues are well hidden but not unfairly so and there is a final twist just before the denouement.
I prefer my whodunnits to be a little more realistic and my characters to have more depth. There should be at least some sense that murder is horrid and can create enormous emotional trauma. But this novel is a worthy example of the 'puzzle' subgenre. It's a quick, light, entertaining read and well-written. The pacing follows the classic four-part structure, the body being discovered at 25% and major turning-points occurring at 50% and 75%.
I enjoyed the meta-fiction aspect to it: the amateur sleuth's side-kick keeps identifying fictional tropes, such as:
- "Sir, do you think this is a closed-circle mystery?" (Ch 19)
- "Major suspect going missing is such a cliche, sir! So it can't be him." (Ch 20)
I am definitely tempted to read the next in the series.
It is set in a fictional village near Eastbourne, where I live, and it contains a policeman (never the hero!) who shares my surname.
Selected quotes:
- "A spotlight shone on her in the dim hall, as if she was the only glimpse of light in the darkness - when in fact the opposite was true." (Ch 1)
- "For all my dad's jovial loudness, he hated confrontation. Unluckily for him he married my mum." (Ch 25)
February 2024; 282 pages
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