SARA WOODS – Murder’s Out of Tune.

Avon, reprint paperback; 1st Avon printing, March 1988. Hardcover editions: Macmillan, UK, 1984 (shown); St. Martin’s Press, 1984.

   Here’s something I never noticed before. Sara Woods wrote almost 50 detective novels between 1962 and 1987, all but one of them featuring London barrister Antony Maitland. That averages out to something close to two a year, but wait. There’s more Between 1980 and 1986, there were 18 Maitland mysteries, and that’s nearly three a year. That’s a lot of wordage, and every time I have one for sale, I sell it almost immediately. Woods’ books are extremely popular.

SARA WOODS Murder's Out of Tune

   I’ve not read many of them, but I think the pattern that evolves in Murder’s Out of Tune is much the same that’s in most of them. There isn’t a lot of action until perhaps a brief flurry toward the end, but what there is this: lots of talk with family and friends, and lots of pointed discussion about the case with everybody who’s involved: the defendant, the victim’s family, and (in this case) even the inspector’s mother, Grandma Duckett.

   Lots of speculation, lots of back-and-forth about motives, and opportunities, all the Good Stuff that a good old-fashioned detective story should have.

   But if you’re a hard-boiled fan, you’re going to have a tough time with some of the dialogue. Here’s a brief quote from page 18. I think you’ll see what I mean. Maitland’s uncle, Sir Nicholas is talking to his wife Vera:

    “Like you, I have detected recently a certain relaxation in Antony’s manner, as though he had been under a strain which has now been removed. I should not, however, wish to encourage him unduly in this light-heartedness.”

   There’s a certain stiff formality (if not clumsiness) in those two sentences, but it becomes less noticeable as the tale goes on. This is a way of speaking that the characters are comfortable with, it suits them, and in the same way as when you’re watching a British film, you’re disoriented at first, but then the ear and the mind get in sync, and the feeling that you’re lost in a foreign land begins to disappear.

   In Murder’s Out of Tune Maitland is brought in to defend an actor who’s been accused of hiring a hit man to dispose of his wife, who was about to divorce him and contest his rights to visit his son. But if his client is innocent, he was framed and who else even had a motive? The murdered woman otherwise had a complete unmurderability (page 103), and that’s the difficulty that has to be overcome.

   It’s a neat puzzle, and even with no action, the mystery is designed to keep your mind in gear overtime. The problem is a good one, and the solution nearly matches it (as quite often it doesn’t).

   What’s disappointing is how Woods structures the plot so that Maitland finds the key. Having one character, not the guilty one, know something, and for no reason decide not to say something — that’s where the story’s the weakest, and it collapses just a little on this small link between the riddle and its unraveling.

   Again, I wouldn’t recommend Sara Woods as an author to anyone who’s solely a fan of action thrillers or private eye capers, and she’s not quite in Agatha Christie’s league as a puzzle-maker — maybe she was a little too prolific — but if you love Christie, you will find a lot to like in Sara Woods.

PostScript: I believe that the titles of all of the Maitland mysteries came from Shakespeare. This one’s from Othello.

— January 2003