Wed 1 Dec 2010
R. C. ASHBY – Death on Tiptoe. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1930. Greyladies, UK, paperback, December 2009. No US edition.
A house party in a 12th century Norman castle in Wales is the setting, and the characters make up quite a Christie-like cast: young dissolute and irresponsible heir; portrait artist/womanizer; flirtatious heiress; pouty melodramatic young woman jilted by the artist; lovestruck governess; two bratty children; vengeful British Major; reserved and sensible barrister; failed diplomat who is an utter twit; his wife who is love with someone else; and the host and hostess, Sir Harry and Lady Undine Stacey.
It is Lady Stacey — a transplanted French woman with pretensions to becoming a great baronial estate holder — who is the victim. The opening chapters quite brilliantly plant the seeds for her cruel murder, and there are at least four characters who outright threaten her prior to her body being discovered three weeks later in a chest in the attic where she had hid during a game of hide and seek (an entertainment for her guests).
Cleverly done, fairly well clued, with quite a bit of misdirection. Melodramatic ending with a somewhat surprising culprit and an intriguing motive. Ashby would later expand the idea of this Gothic detective novel in He Arrived at Dusk (reviewed earlier here ), a far better book with more effective use of folklore, legends and supernatural content.
December 1st, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I love the list of characters!
December 1st, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Have you read Out Went the Taper? Catalogue of Crime says that one scamps detection in favor of the supernatural. There’s another one, apparently, Plot Against a Widow, that I have never seen.
I bought Tiptoe from Greyladies last year and it’s a nice copy and the transaction went very smoothly. They have some other older mystery titles by lesser-known women as well.
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:32 am
I have OUT WENT THE TAPER. Meant to read all three Ashby book I own in one month last summer and was loking forward to it. I always thought it had more supernatural aspects — must’ve been that Barzun listing echoing in my brain. But then I read elsewhere on the internet in a brief disparaging review by Nick Fuller that it’s filled with gangsters. And so I’ve avoided it for several months. But I’m sure I’ll get to it soon.
December 4th, 2010 at 12:28 am
After all these reviews I am going to have to finally get around to reading Ashby now. I wonder whether anyone has ever seen Plot Against a Widow? Her other Ashby novels besides Taper and the two J.F. Norris reviewed here seem to be extremely rare-I’ve certainly never seen a copy!
January 5th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
[…] â— Death on Tiptoe – R.C. Ashby. (I loved this! But I have a penchant for Gothic elements in the detective novel. My review for this book can be found here.) […]