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It's hard to decide whether Simon Brett is having more fun spoofing the British aristocracy or the British mystery in this hilarious book, BLOTTO, TWINKS, AND THE DEAD DOWAGER DUCHESS. Twinks is Lady Honoria Lyminster; Blotto is the Honorable Devereux Lyminster. Twinks is Sherlock Holmes to the not-very-bright Blotto. She is reading THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS in the original Greek. Blotto has been plodding through the adventures of Fu Manchu for years, never getting more than half-way through. He is desolate when Twinks tells him that Fu Manchu isn't a real person, but a fictional character. Twinks is preposterously gifted. She is such a beauty that men promise to lay down their lives for her. She speaks thirty-seven languages and does the same kind of deduction that Holmes is famous for: the murderer was 6' 4" tall, had dark hair, and walked with a limp. Blutto, on the other hand, cares about three things in the world: cricket, his very expensive car, and Mephistopheles, his horse. Blotto and Twinks have been ordered by their mother to spend a weekend at the estate of the Malmont family, one of the leading Catholic families in the area. There Blotto's mother plans to arrange a match between Laetita Melmont and her son. When Blotto once put it to his mother that he shouldn't marry Laetitia because she's Catholic, she replied, "Oh, that doesn't matter the way it used to. These days people of our sort are even marrying Americans." Blotto fakes a cold in order to avoid Laetitia, but she comes to minister to him. Horrified that he will be caught with her in his room and thus forced to marry her, Blotto finds himself saved by a scream. The Duchess of Malmont has been impaled in the back and is lying murdered in the kitchen garden. Here is the first real spoof of the mystery. A Hercule Poirot-like character is staying at the estate. He assembles everyone in the library in true Agatha Christie fashion. A self important little popinjay, he goes on at interminable length, giving the reasons for his conclusion, and points the finger at the chauffeur. Twinks and Blotto are convinced to the chauffeur's innocence. Their search for clues leads them to the room of the footman (who is 6'4" tall, has dark hair, and walks with a limp), where they uncover all sorts of literature recommending the overthrow of the aristocracy. This provides links to the crimson hand that was found on the Duchess' body It leads them to a secret society, The League of the Crimson Hand, a group known only to one member at a time. The footman (who was indeed 6'4", with dark hair and a limp, knows only one other parson, higher in rank. in the society. Brett never loses control of the plot as he takes Blotto and Twinks on one escapade after another from Wales to Scotland, involving kidnapping, incarceration, opium dens, and plots to blow up some of England's most sacred buildings. The aristocrats sometimes sound as if they've walked out of a PG Wodehouse novel, calling each other "me old carrot cake," and "me old pineapple." Those below stairs are referred to as the "oikish" class. Brett has enormous fun with the class-ridden attitudes at the heart of the Golden Age mysteries on which this series is based. Blutto is nothing if not clueless. When he once rescues the smitten Laetitia he asks her what she is reading. She says, "Thomas Aquinas." He says, "Ah, horses. I remember that word from Eton." Still, with the help of Twinks, who is much too brainy for a girl from the landed gentry in the 1920s, the pair get there in the end and readers will follow along, happily laughing all the way. § Mary Elizabeth Devine taught English Literature for 35 years, is co-author of five books about customs and manners around the world and lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, January 2012
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