lørdag den 27. november 2010

Elizabeth Ferrars, Hanged Man´s House (1974)

This crime novel is a British stand-alone. In some ways it may be compared to the Danish writer Else Fischer´s novels, and it struck me as funny that their names are so similar. The main – rather important – difference is that Ferrars is much better at varying her plots.

After the loss of her husband, Valerie Hackett keeps house for her brother Edmund who is the right hand of Charles Gair, the director of Martindale, a research station. When Charles´ dogs keep barking, Valerie goes to see why and finds Charles hanging from the roof in his own kitchen. But the police can see immediately that he had been hit on the head before his ´suicide´.

The story takes place around Martindale with a small number of characters who all have their secrets, and perhaps also reasons to kill the director. And the plot included the use of a special cupboard which made me (and the police) very curious indeed. It is great to see an idea you have never come across before.

Ferrars (a pen name) wrote nice comfort reads which I buy whenever I find one at a reasonable price.
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6 kommentarer:

Unknown sagde ...

Sounds like a great read. I'm going to check it out.

CD

Anonym sagde ...

Dorte - I'm so glad you reviewed a Ferrars novel. She did write good "comfort novels," and I enjoy them, too. I have to confess I haven't read this one yet, but it sounds like a terrific example of the kind of thing she was so good at :-).

Elizabeth Spann Craig sagde ...

You've sold me with talk of the cupboard, Dorte! I'll check this one out...thanks!

Dorte H sagde ...

Clarissa: Ferrars is almost a Golden Age writer, so if you like the good old ones, you´ll probably also like her.

Margot: yes, she is good company for a couple of hours.

Elizabeth: I think I know most of their little tricks, but the detective was very inspired by this cupboard, and I enjoyed that bit very much.

Kelly sagde ...

Well you've intrigued me with the cupboard business. And it's a stand-alone!

I'll have to see if I can find it.

Dorte H sagde ...

Kelly: I can´t imagine a used copy will cost much. And most of Ferrars´ books are stand-alones. She wrote one series, but I don´t think I have ever found any of those. She was very prolific, though, so it is not difficult to find used copies of her books in second-hand shops.