Description from the back of the book:
Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom -- but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family and their servants are quick -- perhaps too quick -- to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman.
An amateur sleuth, Dr. Eustace Hailey, is visiting in the area, and because of his reputation with solving crimes, was called in before Inspector Dundas arrived to check out the body and the scene of the crime. Dundas is not happy with that situation and does not wish to work on the crime with anyone else. Yet he doesn't make much progress with his investigation, and irritates the family and the people who live in the surrounding area. Eventually he changes his mind and asks Dr. Hailey for his help.
From the first, the victim is presented as a saintly woman who was always trying to help people and was loved by all. Eventually this is debunked as the depth of the toxic family relationship between the laird of Duchlan and his sister Mary, and the younger members of the family, the Laird's son, his wife, and their young son, is revealed bit by bit.
Most of the book focuses on the locked-room aspect, which is one of the problems I have with some locked-room stories. The search for the answer to who could have done the crime and who had the motivation, plus how the murderer could get into and out of the locked room, seemed very repetitive.
Although I had a negative attitude about reading this book when I found out that it was a locked-room mystery, I did not regret reading it. I would even read another in the Aubrey Heiling series if I could find one. There were some good points. I enjoyed the setting in a castle in Scotland in the early 1930s. The solution at the end was a big surprise to me and there was more variety than I realized because of the contrasting of the varied approaches and the skills used by the sleuths, both from the police and the amateur sleuth. Also, it has a gorgeous cover.
3 comments:
There have been so many locked room mysteries and I am always more interested in who the killer is and why they did it rather than how they got out of the locked room. But this book sounds like its worth a try.
It's too bad there is much repetition over the locked room aspect. Repetition can drive readers like me a bit nuts. But it's good it has other things to offer -- like the woman wasn't too saintly after all .... and that cover is very alluring.
That really is a beautiful cover, Tracy. And I like the Scottish setting. The house itself seems eerie, maybe because of the dysfunction, and I've found that that sort of setting is effective for building tension. The locked room aspect isn't for everyone, and you're right that authors can spend too much time on it. But it does sound like an interesting mystery.
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