Fri 22 Apr 2011
GLADYS MITCHELL – The Death-Cap Dancers. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1981. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition. Originally published in the UK: Michael Joseph, hc, 1981. Paperback reprint: PaperJacks, Canada, 1986.
Of all the many writers of the Golden Age of Detection, Gladys Mitchell’s career lasted longer than most of them. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley appeared in most of her mystery fiction, with Speedy Death being the first, appearing in 1929, when she was 28. There were some 66 in all, and Dancers clocks in as a mere number 59, some 52 years later, when the author was 80.
Over the years I can recall reading only one other one, which one I’m not sure, but it was toward the middle of the run and I can remember saying to myself, “My, that was a strange one.†(My review of the book may turn up one of these days, as I go through the old fanzines in which they appeared, and if so and when, I’ll be able to tell you more.)
This one begins when a threesome of young women (in their 20s) on a rustic vacation together invites a fourth to stay with them in the cabin they’ve rented – the fourth, as chance would have it, being a niece of Dame Bradley.
Which is of course the connection needed when a series of two murders and one nearly fatal attack on a third member of a traveling troupe of folk singers and players begins to occur. In each case, a deadly mushroom is placed in the victims’ wounds.
The book is leisurely paced, with a rather minimalist approach to story-telling. Characters are wont to speak in huge chunks of dialogue, for example, with a rather straightforward and simple plot, not annoyingly so, but quite noticeably.
Mrs. Bradley, a trained psychologist by trade, is not brought physically into the story until about the two-thirds point, presumably to protect her niece and her new friends from being under suspicion by the police. And even though the police have gone on to other suspects, the good lady stays on to give them a hand.
Not that they especially need it. There is only one suspect who fills the bill, someone whom the rather bland Mrs. Bradley spots right away but refuses to name for unspecified reasons, a state of affairs that eccentric sleuths in the Golden Age were also wont to do.
A not terribly impressive novel of detection, in other words, but strangely enough I enjoyed the book anyway. Other than Dame Bradley (also strangely enough) the characters are largely lively and vivid and you can tell them apart without a scorecard.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Hmmm, that’s the only time that I’ve ever heard Mrs Bradly called ‘bland’! I’ve read a few Mitchells, although they’re mostly from the early and middle portions of her career. She always seemed determined to plough her own furrow, and all the books seemed very different from the work of her contemporaries. I love the weirdness of the novels, and when she is given a chance to shine, the Pterodactyl like Mrs Bradley is a terrific creation.
April 23rd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Bland she was in this one, and from what I remembered of our earlier encounter, I was expecting a lot more from her.
Off in another direction, somewhat, I watched the first episode of the recent Mrs. Bradley TV series, and with that, I was really disappointed. Not even the most admirable Diana Rigg in the title role salvaged this one for me.
Much wandering around on her part, but doing no detective work to speak of, as I recall. Or maybe I was in the wrong mood at the time.
If anyone can say more about the series, pro or con, please do.
April 24th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Steve,a lot of her later books are bland and dull, to be honest (Symons classified her with the Humdrums, which seems bizarre, but he based this view on a reading of six middle period books, evidently–for Symons Humdrum came to mean “anything I, Julian Symons, find boring”). Her best work, in my opinion is from the 1930s.
Even among her later books, Death Cap Dancers is exceptionally dull. Yet it was one that was reprinted in paperback. Odd.
April 25th, 2011 at 9:13 am
The TV series was weird. Rigg was apparently advised by the producers not to read the original books. I got the impression that they were just interested in doing another period crime series with a female detective. They did a similar thing a few years before that, when the cast Nigel Havers as Raffles. They removed Bunny Manders, changed the setting of the books to the Edwardian era, and made the main character independently wealthy. The Rigg series removed Laura Menzies, made Bradley’s driver a major character, and made old Mrs Croc glamorous!
If you can forget the books, the series does have some charms, but I can’t forgive them for murdering the original books! It seems pointless to make such sweeping changes to the originals if they aren’t relying on the author’s name to sell the series.
April 25th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
They even made it clear that Mrs. Bradley was having it off with George, her chauffeur.
Diana Rigg was good, but hardly resembled Mrs. Bradley, except perhaps in her bluntness. But then in one of the “Marple” adaptations, they turned Miss Marple into an annoyingly pixieish Bohemian; so no one is safe.