I liked it a lot, it was good. Sure she seems to have a love for rooms and furnishings, but it’s quite forgivable - she doesn’t waste too many words in descriptions generally, but always describes every room, how big, how furnished.. but maybe that gives also a sense of what kind of character lives in it.
This is the only book that made think of Agatha Christie ever, really; the trick at the end, when they reveal the murderer, made me think ‘a Christie trick!!’ which is a high compliment. Of course, if you spotted it right away, the rest of the book might seem quite boring, so lucky me that I didn’t.
In a few words, the story
Commander Adam Dalgliesh investigates on the murder of a man at the Dupayne Museum in London: that’s a museum dedicated to the interwars years, so 20s and 30s. There are rooms dedicated to paintings, to authors, to documents, and there’s also a room dedicated to the most famous crimes of those years, called the murder room. The man, owner of the museum with his brother and his sister, has been burned to death in his car. Later on another body is found, in the murder room.
The book is divided in ‘books’: the first one is just an introduction to all the characters and the museum; in the second we have the first murder and the investigation starts; third:second victim, investigation continues: fourth, third victim, more or less and solution.
Pieces that I liked particularly:
“now we construct our own morality: ‘what I want is right and I’m entitled to have it’ “
young Muriel Godby “was prepared to offer loyalty, dedication and energy, and was aggrieved when these attributes were less valued than more enticing gifts—physical attractiveness, gregarious good humour and a will to please”
“Neville thought we were too obsessed with the past—history, tradition, the things we collect. He said we clutter ourselves with dead lives, dead ideas, instead of copying with the problems of the present”
It is presented like everybody had a reason to kill Neville Dupayne because he wanted to close the museum, while the others wanted it open. The sister for her own reason that I don’t remember (gave her status to be connected with the museum?), the brother who found in it a new reason to go on, in a way, the only thing that might revive his interest; Muriel who had finally found her place after a difficult life; Tally who lived in a cottage, a dependance of the museum and would have to move out if it was closed; Mr Calder-Hale who nobody knows it but is dying and wants to finish something before that and needs the museum for some reason (gosh what a bad memory I have).
The girl that was killed was a different story, she was hiding in it for her own reason (secret meeting with another party) and saw the murder and was therefore killed herself.
Big SPOILER ahead,
name of the killer right here, just a warning.
So, there should be a third murder, and it seems it’s going to be Tally because she just remembered something but can’t reach Dalgliesh to tell him, seems the perfect scenario for the witness that gets shut up. She’s assaulted yes, but not killed. When the murderer drives away fast, there is an accident and a motorist dies. He’s considered the third victim.
Now, I don’t have good powers of observation or of concentration for that matter, so it was not too difficult to fool me, but still I think it was beautifully done, because it goes like this: Tally finds the body, calls the Dupaynes than calls Muriel and only then she calls the police. They arrive and see the scene, talk about it not likely to have been an accident, not even a suicide, but a murder. A can of petrol there in the garage has been thrown over him, and then lit on fire in his beloved car. After establishing facts at the scene, they go see the witness: Tally’s waiting with Muriel keeping her company in such a shocking time, and we read this:
“she (Tally) had expected Muriel to be efficient and calm but the kindness surprised her. Admittedly Muriel’s first words on arriving had been to complain that the shed with the petrol should have been locked, she had said so to Ryan more than once”
and that’s what Tally thought at the end, that Muriel mentioned the petrol before the police did. How could she know?
And yet, we had just read about it, so it was not news to the reader, so it easily passes unnoticed that the character had not heard everything we just read.
Nice.
There are characters that have appeared in previous books, I haven’t read them yet but it’s obvious that it is so, and not only Dalgliesh’s cop partners, but also the girl he’s in love with, it feels like we should know her already. In this book, at the very end he writes her a letter asking her to marry him, and she accepts.
ITA la stanza dei delitti (credo.letto in inglese)
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