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cimorene1558's review
4.0
It's a good book, although I feel that the transformation of Miss Brown is fairly unbelieveable, especially when you meet her in the later books.
ashleylm's review
4.0
Very enjoyable. He waits quite a while to introduce a corpse (I think around the 70% mark!) so if you're not able to delay that particular gratification, you might prefer a corpse-first novelist. As usual with a mystery I'm happy if I can tell the characters apart, and I could do so fairly quickly. I was puzzled by the purpose of the people (something to do with pins) but I don't suppose it really mattered--perhaps it made sense back in the day, or perhaps it was always irrelevent, and they could have been in charge of "doodads" or "wickets" or "gizmos" for all the difference it would have made.
Not especially exciting, of course, but a pleasant thing to read before bed. There's something a bit off about Mr. Hare's works, like he'd read one or two mysteries but not enough to get a sense of all the genre conventions, and I actually like that.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Not especially exciting, of course, but a pleasant thing to read before bed. There's something a bit off about Mr. Hare's works, like he'd read one or two mysteries but not enough to get a sense of all the genre conventions, and I actually like that.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
cmbohn's review
4.0
I love a good old-fashioned mystery, complete with amateur sleuth and a small set of suspects. Add in a little romance and an impossible crime, and that’s a recipe for a very pleasant afternoon. My problem is that I’m starting to run out of Golden Age era books. I’ve read the whole Agatha Christie catalog, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Patricia Wentworth.
This book, by English writer, lawyer, and civil servant Cyril Hare, introduced a whole new set of characters. I loved the setting too, the British government bureaucracy during World War Two. It reminded me a bit of Foyle’s War.
Francis Pettigrew is a lawyer (or solicitor or barrister – I can’t remember) who is called up to serve as legal counsel for some ridiculous wartime agency. Apparently everyone in the agency has to room together too, so it doesn’t take long before they’re all tired of each other. But when a harmless secretary is murdered, Pettigrew is the one determined to find out why. This was a fun book, maybe 3.5 stars, that made me smile more than once.
This book, by English writer, lawyer, and civil servant Cyril Hare, introduced a whole new set of characters. I loved the setting too, the British government bureaucracy during World War Two. It reminded me a bit of Foyle’s War.
Francis Pettigrew is a lawyer (or solicitor or barrister – I can’t remember) who is called up to serve as legal counsel for some ridiculous wartime agency. Apparently everyone in the agency has to room together too, so it doesn’t take long before they’re all tired of each other. But when a harmless secretary is murdered, Pettigrew is the one determined to find out why. This was a fun book, maybe 3.5 stars, that made me smile more than once.
lsneal's review
4.0
A charming mystery set in WWII England, centered around the people working for England's regulatory department on...pins. Spending their days amidst Byzantine bureaucracy in a remote Great House, and their nights at a guesthouse during blackout hours, the characters become steadily more enmeshed with each other, and addicted to what they call "The Plot," a group attempt to write a mystery novel, which naturally ends up with one of the characters dead. I enjoyed our hero, a somewhat dusty bachelor solicitor, very much.
rellyab's review
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
agmaynard's review
2.0
War-time bureaucracy nonsense, handled satirically, collides with a parlor game creating a "murderer and a "victim" to while away the boring hours on assignment away from home. And a real killing eventually takes place...
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