Sat 27 Jun 2015
Review: SYDNEY HOSIER – Most Baffling, Mrs. Hudson.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters[10] Comments
SYDNEY HOSIER – Most Baffling, Mrs. Hudson. Avon, paperback original, January 1998.
This was a nice idea, based on just the one in hand, but one that was only indifferently carried out. Other readers may have thought so too, as the series lasted a total of only four books, of which this is the third.
Not that Most Baffling is bad, for it isn’t. The concept is that Mrs. Hudson, having had some success in solving mysteries on her own, has become an inquiry agent herself, independent of her boarder upstairs. Holmes himself does not appear, not does Dr. Watson, but one of the former’s discarded suits does play a small role.
Mrs. Hudson has her own Watson, so the speak, although her friend and live-in companion Mrs. Warner, or Vi, short for Violet, does not tell the story. She’s there primarily for comic relief and of course to have someone on hand to bounce ideas off of, and vice versa.
In Most Baffling, the two are hired by a lady whose husband was killed at a party under the most unusual of circumstances. In spite of a large number of people being present in the room, no one heard the fatal shot, nor did anyone see who did it.
In terms of period detail, the setting as described is at least satisfactory, and the dialogue is mostly OK, to my tin ear. In terms of the mystery itself, Mrs. Hudson and her friend Vi do not do a lot of detecting. It is more a matter of serendipitous luck, shall we say. A neighbor down the street who Mrs. Hudson happens to meet and chat with for the first time, for example, connects her with another fellow who just happens to be intimately involved with the murder.
A gathering of all the suspects in one room at the end gets us on familiar ground, to be true, but the “impossible” nature of the crime needs to be talked about, I think. I will discuss the solution to the case in more detail as part of the first comment, so please be warned in advance before heading there. All in all, enjoyable enough in its fashion, but I’m unlikely to read another.
The Mrs. Hudson series —
1. Elementary, Mrs. Hudson (1996)
2. Murder, Mrs. Hudson (1997)
3. Most Baffling, Mrs. Hudson (1998)
4. The Game’s Afoot, Mrs. Hudson (1998)
June 27th, 2015 at 9:55 pm
This is something I’d like your opinion on, if you would. It seems that the crime was committed while all of the guests at the party were in a hypnotic state, one from which they were awakened, they had been commanded to forget everything that happened.
Does this fall into the category of “fair play” detection to you? I’d say no, but on the other hand, two of the characters that Mrs Hudson comes across have featured hypnosis on the stage as part of their acts, so no one can claim that the solution came out of thin air.
And given that as a fact to work from, like one piece of magic or new technology in a fantasy or science fiction mystery, can it be deduced who the killer might be under those circumstances, and obtain proof? I think that’s what Mrs Hudson does, confirmed (unfortunately) by another fortunate piece of luck.
Here’s something else that bothered me a little, and that’s the reason why Mrs Hudson was hired in the first place. Not the one stated — that as a a woman she’d be more “understanding” while on the case than a male detective would be — but a gimmick so old that I found it difficult to believe that it could be used again.
Of course back in the days of Queen Victoria, I’d have to agree it wasn’t as old a gimmick as it is today. (Or to someone who hasn’t already read a ton of mysteries before.)
June 28th, 2015 at 3:59 pm
I started, but didn’t finish the first in the series. It was unimaginatively plotted, poorly written and unconvincing in every regard. I think I tossed it in the recycle barrel.
June 28th, 2015 at 4:07 pm
This one had just enough to pull me through it, Richard, mostly because I read it at night before going to sleep and I didn’t want to tax my mind too much. In that regard, it succeeded very well.
In all honesty, though, it really wasn’t a series that was meant to appeal to long time mystery readers. The gimmick that the detective was the Mrs Hudson was almost all the books were meant (and had) to offer.
June 28th, 2015 at 4:18 pm
It doesn’t categorize as fair play on one hand because that is not how hypnosis works, but then Christie screwed up how ventriloquism works in one (it doesn’t work if you can’t see the ventriloquist mouth). It also falls slightly into that infamous drug unknown to science category that Sax Rohmer’s stories relied on.
I always rather liked Rex Stout and Manly Wade Wellman’s assertion that Mrs. H was young, attractive, and Holmes mistress and Watson was being discreet in her description, but then save for Miss Marple, Mrs. Bradley, and Miss Pym old lady sleuths are not a favorite of mine, too much old lace and not enough arsenic.
Hypnosis though is only a subjective state and cannot be forced on anyone no matter how susceptible. Short of destroying brain cells memory will come back in the long run and even if hypnosis suppresses trauma it can only be used to suppress memory with the use of drugs and reinforcement. One time won’t do the job.
Despite television cop shows the use of hypnosis to recover memory is tricky and often as not it creates false memories rather than recovers real ones. Hypnotizing more than one person to not recall something as traumatic as murder would only work in a roomful of murderers predisposed not to remember they witnessed a crime that heinous and then only if none of them were suspects.
It might be possible to have a group of people all disposed to kill the victim themselves with strong motives and emotions and hypnotize them into believing they committed the crime or convince two lovers that the other is guilty and they have to protect each other, but it wouldn’t work on more than one or two people at best and not if they witnessed the actual killer committing the crime.
Even many skilled hypnotists admit that while it’s useful hypnosis is most a sham the hypnotized victim is in on.
Not that everyone actually followed the rules, but the classic fair play solution had to be within the realm of possibility and even in the science fiction mystery the solution is usually grounded in human nature and action (though magic is used in the detection none of the crimes in the Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett are committed by magic — and in Asmiov the solution and crime are possible given the technology he establishes and the rules he sets forth).
You scared me for a minute when I saw Sydney Hosier. I thought it was a Sydney Horler novel!
June 28th, 2015 at 4:39 pm
“It seems that the crime was committed while all of the guests at the party were in a hypnotic state, one from which they were awakened, they had been commanded to forget everything that happened.”
This sounds familiar:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0653494/
June 28th, 2015 at 5:20 pm
I’ve not seen that one, Mike. I’d have remembered it right away if I had, even though it’s been a while. I confess to having watched a few Jessica Fletcher shows when it was on, but never since.
The premise is on as shaky ground as it is in this Mrs Hudson book, in terms of mass hypnosis — I’m quite sure David’s right about that — but look at the list of actors in this one. A veritable Who’s Who of 1980s TV: Angela Lansbury, Diana Canova, José Ferrer, Murray Hamilton, Robert Hogan, Conrad Janis, Elaine Joyce, Robert Loggia, Mayf Nutter, Michelle Phillips, Elvia Allman …
June 29th, 2015 at 9:52 am
Oh, and one other comes to mind:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=982
June 29th, 2015 at 1:08 pm
For some reason, Mike, this MURDER 101 TV-movie review you did some time ago has always been one of the more popular posts on this blog.
June 29th, 2015 at 2:15 pm
Steve – I would love to know that reason!
June 29th, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Most baffling!