I am on a roll with these British ladies of crime. My latest discovery is Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983). From 1921 to 1961 she worked full-time as a teacher…and also wrote over 66 Mrs Bradley mysteries. Even more than Agatha Christie! There were a few other books as well; such an amazing output over a very long career, which make it strange that she’s almost disappeared from view.
I can’t go too far into the plot of Speedy Death without introducing spoilers, however initially the set-up seems to offer nothing too unorthodox. Basically, it’s a classic country house mystery, with family and guests gathered at the house of Alastair Bing to celebrate his birthday. They are his adult daughter Eleanor (who still lives at home), his son Garde with his pretty fiancée Dorothy and best friend Bertie, explorer Mr. Mountjoy and friends Mr Carstairs and Mrs. Bradley. However things get weird very quickly. It’s enough to say that the victim Mountjoy, who was found dead in the bath, was not what he seemed.
The character of Mrs Bradley was familiar to me, because I’d watched a few episodes of a late 1990’s TV serial, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries, starring Diana Rigg. Aristocratic and stylish, she was aided by a devoted chauffeur (Neil Dudgeon of Midsomer fame) and made crime-solving seem like a breeze. Her outfits were the bee’s knees in 1920’s chic; a bit like a mature Phryne Fisher, in fact. But that’s not the character Gladys Mitchell created. Psychoanalyst and amateur detective Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley is first described like this:
…dry without being shrivelled, and bird-like without being pretty. She reminded Alastair Bing, who was afraid of her, of the reconstruction of a pterodactyl he had once seen in a German museum. There was the same inhuman malignity in her expression as in that of the defunct bird, and, like it, she had a cynical smirk about her mouth even when her face was in repose. She possessed nasty, dry, claw-like hands, and her arms, yellow and curiously repulsive, suggested the plucked wings of a fowl.
Bizarre! Especially those arms. Actually, she’s oddly endearing but as far away from Phryne Fisher or Jane Marple as you can imagine.
The Rising of the Moon (1945), written 16 years into the series, is a different kettle of fish. Not a classic crime or a ‘cosy’; in fact, it’s almost a ‘coming-of-age’ story embedded in a crime novel. I loved it. Though Mrs Bradley makes an appearance as an odd fairy godmother figure, it is two young boys, Simon and Keith Innes, who do the majority of the sleuthing. Instead of an arch and witty omniscient narrator, we have 13-year-old Simon telling the story.
We soon reached the river, which, in parts, became the canal, and all at once I began to feel horribly nervous. I set a quicker pace, and the way Keith followed close behind me convinced me that he, too, hardly relished the adventure.
The moonlight fell white on the grass of the open spaces, and in shafts of greenish yellow between the thin-leaved trees. The river gurgled and splashed, and every now and then it was as though furtive little creatures scurried between our feet among the grasses, or rustled in last year’s dead leaves. From a distant farm a dog began to howl.
‘Get a move on,’ said Keith. ‘We’ll never get home at this rate.’
‘Do you want to get home?’ I asked, my own teeth beginning to chatter.
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered. ‘It’s a beastly night to be out.’
I felt the same, and without another word, I broke into a run. Keith stayed just at my heels, like a long-distance runner who intends to let his rival make the pace. But we were not in rivalry. We were merely two children, suddenly stricken with panic, running away from ourselves…
Simon and his younger brother Keith have been orphaned, and live with their brother jack, his wife June, nephew Tom and lodger Christina in a crowded little house in a small riverside town on the Thames. The town is beautifully realised and you could probably draw a map is you were so inclined, because the boys are free to roam in and around the streets, lanes and alleys, and along the river, where there are towpaths, canals and bridges with river-folk dwelling in house-boats and on barges. They know the locations of all the pubs, shops and public buildings and because it’s a small town, they know lots of the inhabitants, too. They’re especially friendly with the eccentric proprietress of a junk shop, who allows them to make a playground of her shop and ferret through her stock.
The boys’ life becomes darker when the circus comes to town, and a terrible murder is committed. Their pursuit of the Ripper-style killer carries with it the innocence of imaginative kids, avid readers who spend half their time as heroes in a a world of thrilling adventure, so The Rising of the Moon has hints of Gothic novels and Boy’s Own adventures, of Enid Blyton and Charles Dickens. But Simon and Keith also live in a believable household, with routines and meals and washing-up, with disagreements and family friction, so there’s a kind of social realism there, too. The love and loyalty between the boys is quite moving, as is their adoration (on Simon’s part, infatuation) with the kind and affectionate lodger Christina.
I’m keen to try more Mrs Bradley.