No Wind of Blame

Rating:
Summary: A period piece mystery that deserves a second look.
Review: Georgette Heyer was considered an excellent mystery writer when she began writing her stories in the 1930's. No wind of blame was written in 1939 and tells a neat story of murder and social manners of the time. There is an inspector and his superintendent, many clues spread throughout the story and a little love story all rolled into one. A great read if you enjoy English village mysteryies.

Rating:
Summary: Light-hearted romance with a bit of mystery
Review: This is one of Heyer's most complicated murder mysteries. It is absolutely stuffed full of red-herrings.

As usual Heyer takes us to a classic English village, sometime in the 1930's, and into the home of Ermintrude, her daughter Vicki, Ermintrude's second husband Wally Carter and Wally's young relative - Miss Cliffe. Add to that mysterious Russian Princes, strange goings on in various shrubberies and unexpected shooting and you do have a very nice base for a mystery in the usual ironic Heyer-style.

In classic Heyer way she also mixes in a little romance, but in very un-Heyer-like move she does a switch in the romance which never ceases to annoy me each time I read it. In the beginning we are made to think that Mary Cliffe is the lead heroine and Vicki, daughter of the singularly eccentric Ermintrude, as the flaky it-girl. Somewhere in mid-book things suddenly do a volte-face and we are expected to accept Vicki as the heroine....anyway...

I don't know that this is one of Heyer's best mysteries, I rather like Behold Here's Poison - best - but it does deliver in wit and substance. It also offers a very satisfying mystery to try to work out.

Rating:
Summary: Light-hearted romance with a bit of mystery
Review: This is one of Heyer's most complicated murder mysteries. It is absolutely stuffed full of red-herrings.

As usual Heyer takes us to a classic English village, sometime in the 1930's, and into the home of Ermintrude, her daughter Vicki, Ermintrude's second husband Wally Carter and Wally's young relative - Miss Cliffe. Add to that mysterious Russian Princes, strange goings on in various shrubberies and unexpected shooting and you do have a very nice base for a mystery in the usual ironic Heyer-style.

In classic Heyer way she also mixes in a little romance, but in very un-Heyer-like move she does a switch in the romance which never ceases to annoy me each time I read it. In the beginning we are made to think that Mary Cliffe is the lead heroine and Vicki, daughter of the singularly eccentric Ermintrude, as the flaky it-girl. Somewhere in mid-book things suddenly do a volte-face and we are expected to accept Vicki as the heroine....anyway...

I don't know that this is one of Heyer's best mysteries, I rather like Behold Here's Poison - best - but it does deliver in wit and substance. It also offers a very satisfying mystery to try to work out.