Fri 28 Dec 2018
Mystery Review: ROBERT BARNARD – Death of a Mystery Writer.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
ROBERT BARNARD – Death of a Mystery Writer. Inspector Meredith #1. Charles Scribners Sons, US, hardcover, 1979. Dell, Scene of the Crime Mystery #4, paperback, October 1980. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1978, as Unruly Son.
I do not know how common this phenomenon is, but this is one of those mysteries in which the victim simply takes over the first part of the book and makes it his own. Famed mystery writer Oliver Farleigh-Stubbs is such an individual. Grossly overweight but definitely lord of his own manor, the man delights in being outrageously outrageous.
By which he loves to make monstrous accusations (some of which are right-on accurate), decry the foibles of his family and friends (those that he has), defame his fellow mystery writers and their craft (to the delight of readers and dedicated fans alike), and in general makes himself a boorish center of shock and disgust or even outright hatred, whenever he walks into a room.
That he will be the victim of a well-planned murder comes as no surprise, even without the hint given by the American title. But when he dies, all of the air is sucked out of the room, so to speak. The members of his surviving family, their servants, and the staff at his publishing company, formerly butts of all his deliberate rudeness — none of them are as interesting as he was. Not an ounce of real personality to any of them, at least not in comparison.
A statement of relative blandness which also includes Inspector Meredith, a colorless man whose job it is to determine who it was who slipped the victim a fatal dose of nicotine poison. The killer may be easy to determine by the reader, and perhaps even the means by which he did the deed, but why? For his/her reason, you will have to wait for Meredith to explain.
The post-murder half of the book is not bad, mind you. Robert Barnard is a better writer than that, but all in all, the end result is a decidedly uneven affair — there’s no getting around it.
PostScript: Inspector Meredith made a second appearance several years later in At Death’s Door (Collins, 1988), which I have not read.
December 28th, 2018 at 9:34 pm
I love Barnard, but it is always a problem when the most interesting character in the book is the victim.
December 29th, 2018 at 9:27 am
i like Barnard a lot too, though some series characters more than others. I’d especially recommend his short stories and historical mysteries like THE SKELETON IN THE GRASS.
December 29th, 2018 at 11:50 pm
Most of Barnard’s books are standalones, but the police inspectors that appear more than once — those that I’ve happened to read — are a rather bland bunch. Meredith shows up twice, Inspector Mike Iddie seven time, and Inspector Perry Trethowan five times. I son’t remember anything about anys of them.
December 30th, 2018 at 8:58 am
Charlie Peace was a black detective who served under some of his other detectives and had a few books of his own.
I agree, most are pretty bland.