Sun 17 Jan 2021
Archived Locked Room Mystery Review: RICHARD FORREST – The Death at Yew Corner.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
RICHARD FORREST – The Death at Yew Corner. Bea & Lyon Wentworth #5. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, 1980. Dell / Scene of the Crime #76, paperback, 1984.
Connecticut’s own amateur sleuthing team of Bea and Lyon Wentworth are back at it again. This is the fifth case they’ve tackled in tandem, which doesn’t yet put them into the superstar category of a Mr. and Mrs. North, but it is enough to start attracting them some attention.
In this one Bea, who has just lost her bid for a state congressional seat, finds a place to vent her energies when an old friend dies in a mysterious nursing home accident. Joining her in her investigation is her husband, Lyon, author of all those marvelous children’s stories about the Wobblies.
Murphysville, which may or may not be Middletown in disguise, is also the scene of an ugly ongoing confrontation between the management of the convalescent home and its angry, militant employees. There is a connection, as Bea soon discovers.
A surprising number of other bizarre deaths follow, culminating in the fascinating puzzle of a murder committed in a locked bathroom. Just as you begin to think that the book has gone off the deep end completely, however, author Richard Forrest suddenly snaps everything into place, and what’s more he makes it look easy.
Bea Wentworth, as the star of the show, may remind you a bit of TV’s ultra-liberal Maude, from the series of the same name. Bea, however, is not nearly as prone to loud histrionics to make her point. In spite of various and sundry temptations, she manages to stay her level-headed best in this outing, and she helps pull it off rather nicely.
Rating: B
The Lyon and Bea Wentworth series —
1. A Child’s Garden of Death (1975)
2. The Wizard of Death (1977)
3. Death Through the Looking Glass (1978)
4. The Death in the Willows (1979)
5. The Death At Yew Corner (1980)
6. Death Under the Lilacs (1985)
7. Death On the Mississippi (1989)
8. The Pied Piper of Death (1997)
9. Death in the Secret Garden (2004)
10. Death At King Arthur’s Court (2005)
January 17th, 2021 at 3:19 pm
re: deaths in bathrooms. I listened to a mystery this week where a businessman stabbed his rival in a sauna. But apparently neither man went into the steam room with anything but a towel. Police were baffled until the towel-boy remembered that the murderer had a toothbrush with him. It turned out the ‘toothbrush’ was not made of plastic but of dry ice. After the stabbing, the ‘weapon’ melted away.
January 17th, 2021 at 3:34 pm
I wish I’d said more about the locked room mystery in this one, because while I remember the book, I can’t recall anything about how the bathroom gimmick was set up and then explained.
In terms of the mystery you listened to, Lazy, I’m sure I’ve read that neither ordinary icicles or dry ice would be strong enough to kill anyone. Fact or fiction? Anyone?
January 17th, 2021 at 4:46 pm
It’s a nice enough trope, but it probably wouldn’t work very well in reality.
The existing research on this wasn’t done wirh dry ice, but if it were an ice knife, it wouldn’t work. Ice with polyester in it would be harder but then how do you get rid of the polyester?
How do i know what i’m talking about? Watch this video from the fascinating Japanese Youtube channel Kiwami where the man makes knives from all kinds of materials including pasta, dried fish, chocolate and ice. Pasta beats ice, btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1GzOadFYpg
The whole channel is fascinating. A worthwhile corner of Youtube.
January 17th, 2021 at 8:28 pm
As you say, Sai, fascinating!
January 17th, 2021 at 7:01 pm
Haha. I don’t play a doctor (not even) on TV, but yes –even as a know-nothing layman –I would agree ice-weapons are probably just a convenient trope.
I do enjoy the little bit-of-business in the novel (‘Six Days’) and screenplay (“‘Three Days’ of the Condor”) where educated amateur Joe Turner (Robert Redford) argues with his CIA colleagues about ‘ice bullets’. That was fun.
The only possible exception I might wonder about is …’quickrete’? Or whatever it was called during WWII, when the Brits contemplated giant floating landing strips in the Atlantic Ocean, floating on ships made of ice? Ice mixed with sawdust?
January 17th, 2021 at 8:40 pm
I’m not sure about dry ice, but ordinary icicles have killed people and pets falling from roofs though more from the blow than impalement, and ice is certainly hard enough to penetrate soft tissue though it is an impractical weapon and nowhere near as clever as you might think.
Whether an ordinary icicle broken from a roof or tree would be much use is questionable, but a handmade one could certainly do some damage as the one in one Anthony Gethryn mystery does used correctly.
As for Forrest I never really got into him. Just not my cup of tea and bordering on cozish if not cozy rather than the sophistication and wit of the Norths.
January 17th, 2021 at 8:50 pm
Although the discussion of committing murder by icicle impalement has been interesting, it’s good to finally see a comment on the real subject at hand, that being Richard Forrest and his contributions to detective fiction over the years. Contributions that I think it’s safe to say have been largely forgotten. And even while I enjoyed this one, I was never tempted to read another.
Too cozy for traditional detective fans, perhaps, but not cozy enough for cozy fans?
January 17th, 2021 at 11:05 pm
Steve,
That last sentence nails it. He was neither one thing or the other. He had some success still, but in the long run not enough to be remembered much.