A review by avrilhj
Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell
1.0
I kept reading this book to find out if it could possibly continue to be as bad as it began. And it could! The story begins when the body of a dead woman is found in the bathroom that had been thought to be occupied by Everard Mountjoy. Within a few pages it is agreed that the body IS that of Mountjoy, the well-known and apparently male explorer. Fascinating in a 1929 novel, yes? No! Almost nothing is made of this. We learn nothing about Mountjoy’s life or their decision to become an explorer. We do find that Mountjoy was engaged to Eleanor Bing, a woman who no one likes. The police inspector supposedly investigating Mountjoy’s death says of Eleanor “there’s some young women that are past all bearing, and, if you’ll excuse an entirely unofficial opinion, sir, would be better out of the way; and Miss Eleanor Bing is one of them”. p. 95
Mountjoy’s engagement to this unattractive lady is the subject of sneers: “The feature of this case which I have not yet been able to fathom,” said the Chief Constable slowly, “is why the woman Mountjoy ever allowed herself to become formally engaged to poor Miss Bing. After all, it was a cruel thing to deceive a woman like that. And she must have known that marriage was an impossibility.” ... “The other explanation,” went on Mrs. Bradley, “may sound to you extraordinary, but it is more probably the correct one. Have you heard of sexual perversion?” The Chief Constable nodded. “Not a pleasant subject,” he said briefly. “I do not propose to discuss it,” Mrs. Bradley assured him, “but I do suggest that Mountjoy may have formed a very real and, for the time being, a very strong attachment to Eleanor Bing.” p. 105
But later, after Eleanor herself is murdered, her diary reveals it was she who proposed to Mountjoy, and then murdered them: “It is torture,” another entry read, “to be with my dear Everard as much as I am, and to know that he has no desire to caress me ... I want Everard to be manly and sunburnt.” “Deuced awkward for Everard. I wonder why on earth she ever consented to become engaged to Eleanor,” mused Carstairs ... “After all that, to find that Mountjoy was a woman simply turned the poor girl’s brain. Mrs. Bradley was right - Eleanor killed Mountjoy - but who the devil killed Eleanor?” p. 165
One character tries to murder Eleanor: “Well, I decide I must kill Eleanor before she could harm my Dorothy ... I sprang over the sill like a cat, and rushed at the girl, and with a terrific feeling of savage joy - I could have laughed and laughed aloud for the sheer, hellish pleasure of it! - I held Eleanor’s head under water, while the two taps beat a devil’s tattoo in my brain as they splashed crazily into the bath!” p. 134. The police don’t care about this attempted murder, as the Chief Constable says to the Inspector: “Personally, I’m more inclined to think Eleanor Bing was shielding someone she was fond of. Don’t say a name, Boring,” he concluded, laughing, “or I shall have to institute an official inquiry, and I’m not a bit keen, really, on charging a perfectly harmless person with attempted manslaughter.” p. 151
But it is the detective figure, Mrs. Bradley, who does murder Eleanor, although she doesn’t see it as murder: “I did not, in the everyday, newspaper, pot-house sense of the word murder Eleanor Bing. I merely erased her, as it were, from an otherwise fair page of the Bing family chronicle.” Eleanor was a frustrated spinster, sent mad by her repressions, a danger to beautiful girls and the murderer of Mountjoy. The book suggests that we agree with the character who concludes, “I think that if that old woman did do Eleanor in, then she deserves to be regarded as a benefactor of the human race!” p. 188
Cannot believe how awful this book is. A complete failure as a ‘mystery’ because there is no mystery, and deeply misogynist, homophobic and misanthropic. Ugh!
Mountjoy’s engagement to this unattractive lady is the subject of sneers: “The feature of this case which I have not yet been able to fathom,” said the Chief Constable slowly, “is why the woman Mountjoy ever allowed herself to become formally engaged to poor Miss Bing. After all, it was a cruel thing to deceive a woman like that. And she must have known that marriage was an impossibility.” ... “The other explanation,” went on Mrs. Bradley, “may sound to you extraordinary, but it is more probably the correct one. Have you heard of sexual perversion?” The Chief Constable nodded. “Not a pleasant subject,” he said briefly. “I do not propose to discuss it,” Mrs. Bradley assured him, “but I do suggest that Mountjoy may have formed a very real and, for the time being, a very strong attachment to Eleanor Bing.” p. 105
But later, after Eleanor herself is murdered, her diary reveals it was she who proposed to Mountjoy, and then murdered them: “It is torture,” another entry read, “to be with my dear Everard as much as I am, and to know that he has no desire to caress me ... I want Everard to be manly and sunburnt.” “Deuced awkward for Everard. I wonder why on earth she ever consented to become engaged to Eleanor,” mused Carstairs ... “After all that, to find that Mountjoy was a woman simply turned the poor girl’s brain. Mrs. Bradley was right - Eleanor killed Mountjoy - but who the devil killed Eleanor?” p. 165
One character tries to murder Eleanor: “Well, I decide I must kill Eleanor before she could harm my Dorothy ... I sprang over the sill like a cat, and rushed at the girl, and with a terrific feeling of savage joy - I could have laughed and laughed aloud for the sheer, hellish pleasure of it! - I held Eleanor’s head under water, while the two taps beat a devil’s tattoo in my brain as they splashed crazily into the bath!” p. 134. The police don’t care about this attempted murder, as the Chief Constable says to the Inspector: “Personally, I’m more inclined to think Eleanor Bing was shielding someone she was fond of. Don’t say a name, Boring,” he concluded, laughing, “or I shall have to institute an official inquiry, and I’m not a bit keen, really, on charging a perfectly harmless person with attempted manslaughter.” p. 151
But it is the detective figure, Mrs. Bradley, who does murder Eleanor, although she doesn’t see it as murder: “I did not, in the everyday, newspaper, pot-house sense of the word murder Eleanor Bing. I merely erased her, as it were, from an otherwise fair page of the Bing family chronicle.” Eleanor was a frustrated spinster, sent mad by her repressions, a danger to beautiful girls and the murderer of Mountjoy. The book suggests that we agree with the character who concludes, “I think that if that old woman did do Eleanor in, then she deserves to be regarded as a benefactor of the human race!” p. 188
Cannot believe how awful this book is. A complete failure as a ‘mystery’ because there is no mystery, and deeply misogynist, homophobic and misanthropic. Ugh!