The Bells at Old Bailey
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Moonstone Press
Published:2nd Sep '19
£8.99
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It was not until the fifth death in Long Greeting that Miss Tidy made up her mind to go to the police. It was not a sense of civic duty that compelled her but the arrival of two letters that made it clear her life was in danger. The local villagers had been agitated for months over whether the seemingly unconnected deaths were the suicides they appeared to be. Better to say nothing of her intentions though, not even to her immediate circle: the staff of the Minerva hat shop who worked for her, or Léonie, her old Breton maid. Nor would she mention the letters to her interested neighbours or the rector, who had buried four of the victims, or even to Owen Greatorex, the novelist of international reputation, who seemed disarmingly gentle. For who was to be trusted? Scotland Yard is soon on the scene but more deaths occur before Detective-Inspector Raikes puts the pieces together. Dorothy Bowers (1902–48) was a champion of “fair play” mysteries, in which all the clues are cunningly displayed within the story. She combined a satirist's eye (particularly for village life) with a penetrating view of character. A master of the red herring, The Bells at Old Bailey (1947) was her fifth and last novel. Bowers died in 1948 from tuberculosis, having been inducted the prestigious Detection Club a few months earlier.
When a series of threatening anonymous notes drives Bertha Tidy to the police, she is put off with the statement, "These things are worth usually no more than the paper they're written on. You were prompt to put the matter in our hands and we'll see you come to no harm." Twenty-four hours later this proprietress of a hatshop, tearoom and beauty parlor is murdered. Scotland Yard in the person of Detective Inspector Raikes goes determinedly to work on the case, which may be related to five other deaths under suspicious circumstances. Skillfully plotted against an authentic English background, the story draws to a climax not wholly unexpected. It proves that a whodunnit can be a literate and entertaing excursion into murder rather than a hackneyed, pace-ridden dialogue-laden cliche.
-- Jack Glick, The New York Times * Transatlantic Mayhem *“Skillfully plotted against an authentic English background….[the story] proves that a whodunit can be a literate and entertaining excursion into murder”
* The New York Times *“A really good detective story. Five suicides (or murders?) in one village may seem a little extravagant; but Detective-Superintendent Raikes goes about the business unravelling the tangle with more than competence. This is good writing, with the telling, character-revealing phrase skilfully used. Readers who prefer the detective story pure and simple should make a note of this one.”
-- Laurence Meynell * The Sunday Times *The Bells at Old Bailey is a village job with sinister spinsters on the slopes of schizophrenia, and plenty of gossip in the tea shoppe.
-- Maurice Richardson * The ObservISBN: 9781899000111
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
285 pages