Published 2021 by H&Q
338 pages
ISBN 978-0-00-843591-2
Genre: cozy crime
Keywords: village UK, Marlow, murder, conspiration, elderly women are useful, fun, The River Thames, rowing, flooding, place of women in society,
Grade 5/5 -
This book is like Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, but the Marlow Murder Club is a lot better.
Will I read more from this author: absolutely!
If you ever wondered what a cozy mystery is about you should read this book. I believe this book will speak especially to elderly women whom “society has decided are invisible, no one notices over the age of 40” (page 183). What I find interesting is that the author is a man who in my opinion quite well catches that feeling that being old and a woman is being useless and not worth noticing. I disagree with that statement of course, being one myself and I feel I still have a fruitful life and a lot to give.
Three strong women of different ages are our heroes:
“On the left of the trio was the perfect housewife with her flicky hair, jeggings and gilet; on the right, a solidly built oak of a woman who walked and dressed as if she was about to set sail with Long John Silver; and in between them was, the eccentric aristo who wasn’t much taller than she was wide and who was wearing, as ever her dark grey cape” (page 233). That was how Tanika the police officer saw them.
Our unlikely hero is 77 years old Judith, a widow since aged 27 but continues to carry her wedding ring to remind herself not to do any more mistakes. She is a loner; has no real friends, she inherited a big house from her equally eccentric aunt. The house is on the River Thames and Judith best enjoyment is swimming naked in the water “almost a religious exposure” (p3). She compiles cryptic crosswords for a national newspaper and therefor knowns how to think logically, playing with words and word combinations.
The book starts when Judith is swimming naked in the river she hears her neighbor, Stephen, calling out and then a gun shot. She rushes out of the water even she is naked. But by then all is quiet. At home she calls the police, they found all is OK and no one harmed. Judith is convinced that her nice neighbor has been murdered, and decided to investigate herself. She finds Stephen is in fact dead.
Marlow is a village where nothing ever happens, the only noteworthy thing is that it has won the last seven years “Best in Bloom Price”. Judith goes to Stephen’s place of work, an auction house to talk to the secretary and find out that the week before Stephen had a heated argument with a man, Elliot Howard. The next day another murder takes place a taxi drive, Ipbal Kasson, is found shot in his home. He is alone, his only contact is to his dog-walker, Suzie. Ipkal is known as a very nice man who helped his neighbor Ezra and promised to mind his dog when he died. Two deaths in two days, unbelievable. Judith takes contact with Suzie to try and see is there where any connection between the two victims.
Judith finds a younger woman in Stephen’s Garden, but she runs away when Judith tries to talk to her. Later this woman is also killed. She was a Marlow celebrity, a rower, a UK Olympic winner, she and her husband live also on the river and have a rowing club that has been damaged because of floodings during the last few winters. Judith is convinced that nice Stephan has been killed by Elliot, but he has an alibi: he had attended church choir evening as every week. When Judith goes to the church, she found Becks, the vicar’s wife, hiding in the closet.
Judith who has no real friends, Suzie, who likes dogs much more than humans and Beck’s the perfect but bored housewife find together the exciting adventure in detecting. The police do not tell anything but Tanika gives up and realizes she has three murders, that turned out to have been murdered by the same weapon, and old WW2 German luger. The only one who have any insight into the cases are our three unlikely heroes: Judith, the leader, Suzie, who has spies in all the village because everybody likes her and how she helps with their dogs. Becks the perfect housewife who is “invisible in my own life. Just a mother. A wife. And how I was being driven mad by not having any kind of independent identity.” Tanika enlists them as civilian experts and give them access to all the information. Judith figures it out, how it was done and why. She almost got killed along the way.
An absolute joy to read, many places I laughed out loudly, My Dear thought I was nuts!
A quote:
Best of all, Judith believed it was a cloak of invisibility. Every evening, come rain or shine, she’d take off her clothes, wrap the cape around herself and step out of her house feeling a delicious frisson of naughtiness. She would plunge her feet into a pair of ancient wellies and stride through the knee-high grass - swish, swish, swish! - to her boathouse. Like the rest of Judith’s house. It was pink-bricked, timber-framed, and somewhat crumbling.
Judith entered the cobwebby darkness and kicked off her wellies. She hung her cape on an old hook and, still hidden from the outside world by a pair of ancient boathouse doors, stepped down the stone slipway and into the Thames.
Comments