Duplicate Death

Rating:
Summary: DUPLICATE--but Original
Review: A better detective story than others by this author we have read. Inspector Hemingway does a good job of discovering the persons who strangled a blackmailer / drug-dealer and his mistress. The identity of the first murderer comes as a distinct surprise, although the alert reader will latch onto the second murderer as soon as the Marriages and Legitimacy Act is mentioned. Several good red herrings, a nice use of the drug trade, and plenty of wit and amusing characters (Insp. Grant, Cynthia Haddington, Lord Guisborough) make this a memorable tale.

Rating:
Summary: DUPLICATE--but Original
Review: A better detective story than others by this author we have read. Inspector Hemingway does a good job of discovering the persons who strangled a blackmailer / drug-dealer and his mistress. The identity of the first murderer comes as a distinct surprise, although the alert reader will latch onto the second murderer as soon as the Marriages and Legitimacy Act is mentioned. Several good red herrings, a nice use of the drug trade, and plenty of wit and amusing characters (Insp. Grant, Cynthia Haddington, Lord Guisborough) make this a memorable tale.

Rating:
Summary: A fun traditional British mystery
Review: Duplicate Death is a wonderful mystery of the kind that Goergette Heyer excells at--witty, cleverly plotted, and with a strong inclination towards social satire. She paints a delightful picture of London high society in the 1930s, and it's great fun to get lost in the details of balls, chaperones, debutants, etc. Amid the social whirl, there's a crafty killer at large, and two deserving young people who must do their best to solve the mystery if they are to avoid being suspected of murder--or become victims themselves.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous Death
Review: Let's get one thing straight - if you're reading for the mystery, don't bother with this one. Duplicate Death's murders are easy to solve but not even remotely interesting. Don't bother if you're hoping for the fun characters of Heyer's earlier books, either. If you're looking for unintentional humor, though, this book might be worth a look.

In Duplicate Death, a man with an unsavory past is strangled during a duplicate bridge party; his hostess that night is killed in the same way a few days later. Those who have read They Found Him Dead might enjoy a brief skim through this book, as it checks in briefly with Jim and Patricia Kane, twelve years into their marriage; the book also features a grown-up Timothy Harte, whose fiancee is a suspect in the case.

This is one of Heyer's later books and one of her worst. While her mysteries were never masterworks, for most of her career she produced good light English mystery. By the time of Duplicate Death, though, she lost most of the style that had distinguished her earlier books. And her attempts to incoporate into her works the social, political, and cultural changes of post-WWII England drained her stories of energy and fun while failing to give them any depth or realism.

Heyer's attempts at modernity actually give rise to some unintentional humor. She tries, for example, to incorporate a gay man into the plot, and the bigotry displayed as a result manages to transcend offensiveness to become ludicrous. We can either cringe or remember the era when Hemingway laments that he's got to cope with a gay man as a suspect. We can sigh in exasperation or roll our eyes at the author's attempt to convey that man's sexual preferences by having him alternate fits of tears with fits of temper. But we can only laugh when Heyer explains, with complete seriousness, that male homosexuality is caused by childhood asthma. And that's just one example. There's prejudice of every stripe on display here, and while it is going to make most modern readers wince, it's so overdone and so ridiculous that those readers are likely to be amused rather than angry.

Duplicate Death is Heyer's second-worst book and is worth reading only for the unintentional hilarity evoked by the author's unwitting exposure of her strange opinions. Those who seek competent, humorous mysteries would do well to try her earlier books, like A Blunt Instrument or Death in the Stocks. In general, most readers should skip this one.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous Death
Review: Let's get one thing straight - if you're reading for the mystery, don't bother with this one. Duplicate Death's murders are easy to solve but not even remotely interesting. Don't bother if you're hoping for the fun characters of Heyer's earlier books, either. If you're looking for unintentional humor, though, this book might be worth a look.

In Duplicate Death, a man with an unsavory past is strangled during a duplicate bridge party; his hostess that night is killed in the same way a few days later. Those who have read They Found Him Dead might enjoy a brief skim through this book, as it checks in briefly with Jim and Patricia Kane, twelve years into their marriage; the book also features a grown-up Timothy Harte, whose fiancee is a suspect in the case.

This is one of Heyer's later books and one of her worst. While her mysteries were never masterworks, for most of her career she produced good light English mystery. By the time of Duplicate Death, though, she lost most of the style that had distinguished her earlier books. And her attempts to incoporate into her works the social, political, and cultural changes of post-WWII England drained her stories of energy and fun while failing to give them any depth or realism.

Heyer's attempts at modernity actually give rise to some unintentional humor. She tries, for example, to incorporate a gay man into the plot, and the bigotry displayed as a result manages to transcend offensiveness to become ludicrous. We can either cringe or remember the era when Hemingway laments that he's got to cope with a gay man as a suspect. We can sigh in exasperation or roll our eyes at the author's attempt to convey that man's sexual preferences by having him alternate fits of tears with fits of temper. But we can only laugh when Heyer explains, with complete seriousness, that male homosexuality is caused by childhood asthma. And that's just one example. There's prejudice of every stripe on display here, and while it is going to make most modern readers wince, it's so overdone and so ridiculous that those readers are likely to be amused rather than angry.

Duplicate Death is Heyer's second-worst book and is worth reading only for the unintentional hilarity evoked by the author's unwitting exposure of her strange opinions. Those who seek competent, humorous mysteries would do well to try her earlier books, like A Blunt Instrument or Death in the Stocks. In general, most readers should skip this one.