Sat 27 Jun 2009
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: PATRICIA MOYES – A Six-Letter Word for Death.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[9] Comments
by Kathleen L. Maio:
PATRICIA MOYES – A Six-Letter Word for Death.
Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1983. Holt Rinehart and Winston, US, hc, 1983. US paperback reprint: Holt/Owl, 1985.
In the late Fifties, as many of the Golden Age masters of the British mystery were retiring or expiring, new blood (so to speak) entered the field. Many of the younger generation turned their hands to more realistic mystery forms, but a few novices stayed with the old ways and true.
Such a writer is Patricia Moyes, whose dedication to the classic British puzzle has been a comfort to cozy fans since Dead Men Don’t Ski (1959).
A Six-Letter Word for Death is but the latest in a long-running series featuring Chief Superintendent Henry Tibbett of Scotland Yard and his wife, Emmy. It is a classic country-house mystery set on the Isle of Wight. A publisher invites a group of pseudonymous mystery authors called the Guess Who for a weekend house party.
Meanwhile, Henry (invited as guest expert and lecturer) has received a series of clues by mail crossword-puzzle sections indicating that the party guests may an have skeletons in their closets. When murder follows, Tibbett’s investigation intensifies to a classic, if overly melodramatic, confrontation with suspects and murderer.
Moyes manages to poke a bit of affectionate fun at mystery fiction and its creators. She also creates a traditional tale much more satisfying than some of her recent work set in the West Indies. Moyes takes a touch of the police procedural, a dash of the husband-and-wife mystery/adventure, and creates a very pleasing product in the style of the Golden Age.
A Six-Letter Word for Death is one of Moyes’s best mysteries of the last ten years. Other notable Tibbett cases are Murder a La Mode (1963), Johnny Under Ground (1965), and Seasons of Snows and Sins (1971).
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Being a lover of crossword puzzles, I’ve always been intrigued by the the title of this book, but I’ve never gotten around to reading it.
Which leaves me torn between Kathi’s review and Mike Grost’s more negative appraisal in the comment he left following Marv Lachman’s recent review of FALLING STAR, also by Moyes. “Not enough mystery,” he said.
Two excellent critics of mystery fiction, and they disagree. Solution? Read it myself. There’s no other choice!
June 28th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I haven’t read it in a while, but I remember it as one of the better Moyes mysteries. It’s a pity that she is virtually out-of-print. I enjoyed Tibbett and his wife – though I agree that the West Indies mysteries were not as satisfying; too much drug culture and thriller-type plotting for my tastes. But I’d recommend this one, based on my admittedly hazy memories.
June 28th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hope I’m not misleading folks about A Six-Letter Word for Death. Only read it once. Found it inoffensive – but dull. It just didn’t seem inventive in its mystery plotting.
I’m terrible at crosswords and related word games: acrostics, Hangman, Wheel of Fortune. (Much prefer Logic Puzzles – which I can actually solve! Have never been able to do crosswords.) So maybe I’m not responding to a crossword puzzle mystery in the way other people might.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’d forgotten that I’ve read one of Moyes’ West Indies mysteries when I commented earlier after Marv’s review of FALLEN STAR.
It was probably BLACK GIRL, WHITE GIRL, and I’m in agreement with you, as I didn’t enjoy it all that much either. What’s worse, it probably kept me from reading more of Moyes’ work for several years afterward.
I imagine that this happens all the time, maybe to you also, Mike. Someone reads one of an author’s lesser works (or one that just doesn’t work for them) and ends up ignoring the rest of his or her books, not knowing that they’d be right down their alley.
— Steve
June 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Steve,
This happens all the time!
I usually sample an author. If the sample is good, one reads more. If it’s not-so-hot, that’s the end. At least for a long time.
This leads to one knowing a lot more about authors one likes, that thoise one dislikes. I’ve read almost all the Ellery Queen’s (never read COP OUT). He’s a favorite writer. But only read 1 novel and 2 short stories by Moyes. Maybe the rest of her work is full of classics!
June 28th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
There’s also the Problem of Negative Criticism.
Usually, people like an author because they see something positive in him or her.
I like John Dickson Carr because:
Great impossible crimes.
Eerie atmosphere.
Zany humor.
Vivid history.
Complex plots.
But when I read A Six-Letter Word for Death, I didn’t see anything good in it.
Does that mean:
1) There isn’t anything good in it?
OR
2) There’s plenty good in it, but I just failed to see it – maybe because I’m new to Moyes work?
It’s really impossible to tell.
This is the Problem of Negative Criticism:
when something looks like hack work, is it? Or is the critic just not getting it?
This is one reason why my site concentrates on good books. I’m sure there are some really good impossible crimes in Carr. It’s right to say so!
But I’m not sure at all about Moyes and all the others that just seem sort of empty and uninteresting…
June 28th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’m sure I slip up on this every so often, but I try my best not to be overwhelmingly negative on any book I read and report on, and of course the same applies to movies, too.
My basic philosophy in reviewing is to try to explain why something didn’t work for me, but if I can, I also try to suggest why someone else might enjoy what I didn’t, or perhaps why some other aspect of the book or film might be what they’re looking for.
The primary thrust of a review is my own reaction, of course, but I also usually try into consideration the perspective of what the author was trying to do, and how the results compare with other authors working in the same field, so to speak.
What’s true, though, is that it’s sometimes harder to write reviews on books and movies you really love. You run out of superlatives!
— Steve
June 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The best we can do when we review a book or film is tell the reader why we liked it, something about the plot, and maybe a quote or two to support our point. And at times it is hard to explain why we like one book or writer and not another.
Sometimes all we can say is: This appealed to me for these reasons, you might like it too.
There is bad though and good. It isn’t entirely subjective.
I’m not much of a cozy fan, but enjoyed Moyes, likely because my first experience was a positive one. I try not to judge on just one book unless it is really bad. Sometimes even a good book can fool you if the writer doesn’t write another.
I’m not much on crosswords either, so this one likely wouldn’t be of as much interest to me, though a good writer can make almost any subject interesting (the Emma Lathen team). I don’t usually read a mystery based on the subject alone though. If I did I’d have never read a really good one based on the Dewey decimal system used by libraries.
Nice to see Moyes still has readers though. She wasn’t a favorite, but she was one of the reliables. You knew what you were getting with her books — not a bad thing for any writer.
October 16th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
[…] Maio’s 1001 Midnights review of A Six-Letter Word for Death, reviewed here, agrees with this opinion. On the other hand, I fear that in the same passage of 18 years, Patricia […]