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SWEET POISON
by David Roberts
Carroll & Graf, February 2000
277 pages
$22.00
ISBN: 0786708190


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

David Roberts has written a fine roman a clef homage to the period country house mystery. He follows the classic form, introducing all the characters visiting that partiular August weekend, and having an amateur detective finally solve the case. This one is a little more political and harder edged than the golden age cozy.

It's 1935 and Lord Edward Corinth, younger brother of Gerald, Duke of Mersham, is recklessly driving his Lagonda toward the Elizabethan castle that was his childhood home, when he crashes into a ditch after trying unsuccessfully to pass a slow moving hay wagon. He resigns himself to the fact that he will be late for dinner, and is riding peacefully on the load of hay when another car, driven by Verity Browne, tries to pass. After some discussion, Ned and Verity back the car up, turn it around, and head for Mersham Castle.

When they get there, dinner is over, but the men are still at their port and cigars in the drawing room. Gerald is a pacifist. Their older brother, Franklyn, had been killed in the earliest days of The Great War, and he is trying to prevent the next one so his brother will not have died in vain. He has been giving a series of dinners, getting men of varying political views together, to try and achieve this end. This weekend, in addition to Gerald and his wife Connie, the guests are Lord Weaver, influential Canadian newspaper owner with his wife and stepdaughter; Sir Alistair Craig, VC, who sees very clearly that the Germans are dangerous, a widower; Peter Larmore, a Conservative MP womanizer and gambler,with his wife; Cecil Haycraft, Socialist pacifist Bishop of Worthing and his wife Honoria; and Baron Helmut von Friedberg of the German Embassy in London who claims to have the ear of Hitler and who is distantly related to the Duke.

Verity and Ned clean themselves up and are having a cold collation when suddenly, the General goes into spasms and dies. He has ingested cyanide. The Chief Constable of the county is called and he brings Inspector Pride of Scotland Yard, his weekend houseguest. All agree to mention only that the General died unexpectedly, but within a couple of days, the Daily Worker, the Communist party newspaper, prints the truth about the death, and the story is picked up by the 'respectable' newspapers. It appears that Verity, who entered the house in the guise of a columnist for a posh slick upper class magazine, is really a member of the Communist party and a reporter for their newspaper, despite the fact that she is the wealthy daughter of a respected, albeit, left-wing, attorney.

The period details seem accurate, with one possible anachronism. The politics of the time are clearly indicated, and the characters involved are at least partially drawn from history...the newspaper baron for example, is based on Lord Beaverbrook (no, not Conrad Black although he is also a conservative Canadian) This first novel is very readable. The attractive cover of the UK trade paperback would not be out of place on a Dorothy Sayers novel..

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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