Search - Detection Unlimited

Who would have wanted to murder solicitor Sampson Warrenby?

Apparently everyone in the village of Thornden.

There's no shortage of suspects to question when Scotland Yard sends one of their finest -- Chief Inspector Hemingway -- to ferret out means, motive and opportunity. You've got the village squire and his ailing wife, the victim's long suffering niece, a rival solicitor, a mysterious couple, a crime writer, a handsome foreigner, and a military officer whose wife breeds Pekenese dogs with the unlikely names of Ullapool, Ursula, Umberto, Umbrella and Uppish. Oh, the wife had motive alright: Warrenby had had the unmitigated nerve to kick poor peekie Ulysses (!!!).

Another classic whodunit from Heyer set in the mid-1950's, and one of her final mysteries. I enjoyed this one very much, and would have rated it higher except for the fact that the resolution and ending was too abrupt. It needed 2-3 more pages to smooth it out, IMO. In addition, this book would have been so much better with a map provided at the front of Chapter 1. It was hard to picture the village of Thornden and the juxtaposition of all the houses and plots of land which made up a good portion of the book. Otherwise, another winner from Heyer, whose powers of writing droll characters remains top notch.