A Blunt Instrument (by Georgette Heyer)

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In re-reading my collection of Georgette Heyer’s crime novels, I reached ‘A Blunt Instrument’, which I first read in 2008. And although I usually forget who the perpetrator is in this kind of book, I could recall who it was in this one. I had worked it out within a few chapters the first time I read it, and thought it quite a clever story. 

I had not remembered any of the other characters when I picked this up to read yesterday. But it was very interesting knowing from the start ‘whodunit’, seeing how cleverly the author wove in many subplots and red herrings. I think this is one of her best crime novels, although I have been wondering whether she deliberately made it clear to the readers who was the guilty party, to make the investigations all the more interesting - and, at times, quite tense.

Ernest Fletcher is the victim in this story, which was first published in 1938 as a contemporary novel. He’s just been killed in the first chapter, so we never meet him. It appears, at first, that he’s universally liked: he lives with his sister, who is fond of him, and his many staff consider him a kind, generous man. We gradually learn that he had a weakness for pretty women, and had conducted several affairs over the years: mostly discreetly… 

Ernie’s nephew Neville is staying in the house, and I found him quite an amusing young man. He has little idea of economy and has travelled, incurring debts, around the world. His uncle has bailed him out many times, mostly good-naturedly. Neville is horrified at being his uncle’s heir, now owner of the stately home and his uncle’s fortune, as he insists that he prefers being penniless. 

A few minutes’ walk away live John and Helen North; they have been married for five years and seem to have become estranged. Helen has some debts which she daren’t tell her husband about, and it appears that she was visiting Ernie around the time of his murder. Helen’s sister Sally is staying; she’s a crime writer whom I also found rather likeable and amusing at times. 

Superintendent  Hannasyde of Scotland Yard is called in to the case, with his sidekick Inspector Hemmingway, and they’re assisted by the local PC Glass, who is a member of a strict religious sect and keeps quoting Scripture at anyone around him. 

All the main characters are three dimensional; Heyer was excellent at creating believable, well-rounded people, and I very much liked the interactions between them. Neville likes to invent stories that are far-fetched, which doesn’t impress the police. Hemmingway is thorough but not as astute as his boss who often has a twinkle in his eye as he listens to something outrageous.

Some of Georgette Heyer’s crime novels seem too straightforward compared to her contemporary Agatha Christie, although her characterisation is so good that it never much matters. But in this book her plotting is as masterful as her conversation and character-building, and once again I thought it a very good read.  Even knowing the perpetrator - who isn’t unmasked until near the end - I found it an enthralling read, and could barely put it down.

Definitely recommended if you like this kind of British light crime fiction set around the middle of the 20th century.

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