NICE CLASS OF CORPSE, A

Rating:
Summary: Modernised cosy
Review: Mrs Melita Partridge,a regular sereies creation of Mr Brett,has been called a kind of anti-Miss Marple and I can see what is being hinted at for while cast in the same fictional mould of of elderly lady snoop she is some way away from being the cosy old grandmother type who inhabit the closed world of British crime novels with a genteel setting

For one thing her late husband was a burglar and she has retained contacts with the criminal elements albeit not the more thuggish elements

Events are centred around the Devereux Hotel in Littlehampton(a town whose name is guaranted to evoke scholboyish sniggers from any Englishman given the smutty overtones it conveys)It is a residential hotel with nought but permanent residents.Residents begin dying,ostensibly accidently but we as readers are made privy to the thoughts of the murderer,for indeed the crimes are murder.The body count begins to mount while Mrs P pursues her investigations with a little help from her criminal friends.

The residents are nicely differentiated one from the other -the haughty aristocrat fallen on hard times,the fading actress,the conventional military man and his dim friend etc

The title is deeply significant for the book has the subtext of class.The hotel proprietor is obsessed by it as are some of the residents

An enjoyable light read but short of top drawer crime writing this is more for those who like crime fiction as divertissement rather than having any cutting edge