Sat 5 Jan 2019
DELANO AMES – She Shall Have Murder. Jane & Dagobert Brown #1. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1948. Rinehart & Co., US, hardcover, 1949. Dell #493, US, paperback, 1951. Perennial Library, US, paperback, 1983. Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2008. Manor Minor Press, US, annotated trade paperback, November 2014. Film: Concanen, UK, 1950 (with Rosamund John as Jane Hamish and Derrick De Marney as Dagobert Brown).
Jane and Dagobert are not yet married in this, their first case of actual murder. Their relationship is complicated, and it takes a while to sort things out. They are (apparently) lovers, and I am sure Jane calls him her fiancé, but the fact is that Dagobert is already married but is (apparently) going through divorce proceedings.
This is the first of the series I’ve read, but I am fairly sure that some point along the line — there were twelve books in all — they did get married. Jane is the sensible one with a steady job as a secretary in a law office), and it is a little perplexing at times what she sees in him. His is notoriously unemployed and flits from one interest to another like a moth on a holiday.
The big conceit in She Shall Have Murder, and an amusing one, is that Jane should write a mystery novel whose characters are her bosses and fellow employees at work. But when one of the firm’s oldest clients dies, fiction becomes truth, and Dagobert has a new interest: that of amateur detective work.
The telling of the tale that follows is bright and witty, and with Jane narrating the story, she gives Dagobert a few well-deserved jabs. Dead is an old and uncomfortably paranoid old lady whose visits to the law office are sadly barely tolerated by the staff. When she is found dead, everyone but Dagobert is convinced it was suicide, but as it always happens in detective novels, it turns out that he is correct. It was not.
This was written back in the post-WWII when the British had to insert shillings into a gas meter box to obtain heat, and since a good deal of the plot depends on this, it makes the story rather dated, especially for US readers. Of the many characters, I also found only the main protagonists, Jane and Dagobert, particularly interesting, and of the others, rather than the least likely, it was the least interesting who was the killer.
January 5th, 2019 at 9:41 pm
A latter day Nick and Nora Jane and Dagobert had charm to spare and if at times the proceedings got a bit too much they were mostly fun the Brown’s visiting exotic locales and even running a bookstore in the States in one book. Ames also did well by his later sleuth Juan Llorca of the Guarda Civil, though the Brown’s were his masterwork for my money.
De Marney ironically also played Slim Callaghan, another slightly disreputable and untidy British sleuth.
January 5th, 2019 at 9:48 pm
For me, this one slowed down considerably about halfway through, but so have a lot of detective mysteries recently, so I assume it is at least partly me.
I don’t know why I passed this series by for so long. I’ve accumulated several if not all of them over the years. It’s time to get at them!
January 5th, 2019 at 11:30 pm
I have been looking to see if a dvd of the film is availed, and all I have found so far is a bunch of people also looking for the film.
I did find one website offering a free download but I wasn’t about to go there nor should you either.
January 6th, 2019 at 12:49 am
My family had to put shillings in the gas meter when I was growing up, and I’m not that ancient!
January 6th, 2019 at 1:05 am
There some crucial plot points about shillings and gas meters in England in Christianna Brand’s GREEN FOR DANGER too, also late 1940s. How long did they last?
January 6th, 2019 at 1:11 am
You cn get the answers to almost everything online. Here are a bunch of people reminiscing about them:
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090306073354AASJ1uN&guccounter=1
January 6th, 2019 at 1:13 am
If you look closely at the third cover image down, in the insert in the shape of a circle, you can see the fingers of someone’s hand putting a shilling into a slot.
January 6th, 2019 at 9:31 am
I had no idea there was a movie version. I read a couple of these, but Jackie was a big fan and read the entire series.
January 8th, 2019 at 4:08 am
Inspired by your review, I’ve just read this novel. It was fantastic! I can’t wait to read other novels by Ames, and possibly see the movie version one day.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:12 pm
The rest of the series should not be difficult to find, but I’ve been looking for the movie, too, and so far, I’ve had no success at all. As you say, maybe one day!