Detection Unlimited (by Georgette Heyer)

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I’m glad I decided to re-read Georgette Heyer’s crime fiction novels, as they’re a bit different from her better-known Regency romances. I’ve just finished ‘Detection Unlimited’ which is the last of the twelve crime books she wrote. I last read it in 2017 and had a vague memory of the outcome, although I had not recalled the perpetrator. These books were written as contemporary novels set in the middle of last century. This one was first published in 1953. 

This book starts with a gathering of several people at an afternoon tennis party. We meet Mr Drybeck, a solicitor, setting out to walk to the party. He meets a couple of other folk who live in the same village, and their conversation is quite revealing. We meet Mrs Midgeholme, who breeds dogs whose names all begin with U, and who treats them as if they were her children. We also meet Gavin Pleinmeller, who writes mystery stories and is quite outspoken. 

At the party there are several other residents who all know each other to some degree. I found the numbers a bit overwhelming and went back to make myself a list of people to refer to. Henry and Adelaide Haswell are the hosts of the party; they live at a large house called The Cedars. Their young adult son Charles is home, and he’s quite friendly with a young woman called Abby; she has a sense of humour and I liked her very much. Abby has an aunt, Miss Patterson, who doesn’t attend the party but plays a significant part in the novel.

And there are more. The one person who is not present is Sampson Warrenby, a ‘newcomer’ to the village whom nobody seems to like very much. He’s seen as encroaching, and is known to be very demanding, sometimes unkind to his niece Mavis. Not that anyone is particularly fond of Mavis, either, as she’s rather dull but they all feel rather sorry for her. She’s at the tennis party but is not a good player. 

Inevitably, someone is found dead as folk are going their separate ways. It seems clear that the victim has been shot by a common sort of rifle, but almost anyone who had been at the party could have done the deed. The local police are stuck so they call in Chief Inspector Hemmingway. I do like Heyer’s Scotland Yard policemen.  Hemingway is excellent at making friends with people and listening to their rambling, often discovering important information which others would miss. 

Rather than making a list of people I might have done better trying to construct a map of the village, as the geography is referred to several times. Distances and viewpoints are quite significant through the book, and I’m not good at visualising. But it was beyond me to do so, and I don’t think it mattered. Hemingway and others spend quite a bit of time checking locations, and working out who might have been able to commit the crime. 

But they don’t seem to be getting anywhere. At least ten people could possibly have been in place with a rifle at the estimated time of shooting, and most of them have some motivation. They all realise this, too; there’s some light-hearted sections of the book as several of the village residents present their own theories about who the perpetrator was, and how it happened. There’s also some low-key humour in the banter between Chief Inspector Hemmingway and his assistant, Inspector Harbottle, who has not worked with him before. 

Around three-quarters of the way through the book I vaguely remembered how the crime was committed, and was aware of little snippets of clues that I almost certainly missed the first time around. I didn’t remember who was eventually unmasked, but I did start to get an inkling, which proved to be correct.

Heyer’s crime novels don’t have the brilliant twists and turns of Agatha Christie’s, but her characters are far more three-dimensional. As much as anything this is a character-driven book rather than a mystery; while some of the people are undoubtedly caricatures, others are realistic and I felt as if I were getting to know some of them. There’s even a gentle low-key romance which unfolds. 

I always like Georgette Heyer’s writing style, and her characters’ conversation, which is often peppered with satire. She doesn’t force anything but lets the reader draw their own conclusions. It doesn’t feel particularly dated, despite the lack of technology, and overall I liked it very much. 

Recommended, if you like this kind of gentle crime fiction from seventy years ago. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's Book Reviews