Books › Behold, Here's Poison
Behold, Here's Poison
403 pages
A delightfully barbed drawing-room mystery where the suspects are as insufferable as they are entertaining.
What it feels like
Reading this classic Golden Age mystery feels like being invited to tea with the most delightfully dreadful family in England. The pleasure here doesn't come from pulse-pounding action, but rather from the razor-sharp, endlessly entertaining dialogue of a deeply dysfunctional clan trapped together under suspicion. The atmosphere is cozy yet distinctly barbed, steeped in the claustrophobia of drawing-room politics and petty grievances. The narrative unfolds at a steady, deliberate pace, allowing the reader to savor the wry, cynical tone and the theatrical absurdity of the suspects. It is a puzzle box wrapped in a comedy of manners, perfect for readers who prefer their murders solved with a cup of tea, a raised eyebrow, and a devastatingly witty retort.
- Mood
- cozy yet barbed
- drawing-room claustrophobia
- amused
- Tone
- wry
- cynical
- witty
- theatrical
- detached
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- toxic family dynamics · facade of respectability · greed and inheritance · upper-class absurdity
- The writing
- Crisp, elegant, and heavily reliant on sparkling, razor-sharp dialogue.
- The arc
- Begins with amused observation of a highly dysfunctional family and deepens into a satisfyingly tangled intellectual puzzle.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love Golden Age whodunits where the murder takes a backseat to the vicious, highly entertaining banter of terrible relatives.
Content notes
- murder by poisoning
- family dysfunction
About the book
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #2
When Gregory Matthews, patriarch of the Poplars, is found dead one morning, imperious Aunt Harriet blames it on the roast duck he ate for supper. After all, she had warned him about his blood pressure. But a post-mortem determines the cause of death as murder by poison. Suspicion falls immediately amongst his bitter, quarrelsome family. Each has a motive; each, opportunity.
It falls to the quietly resourceful Inspector Hannasyde to sift through all the secrets and lies and discover just who killed Gregory Matthews. He faces the deadliest test of his career when members of the wealthy Matthews clan begin to die, one by one. With motives everywhere, it is no easy case for the inspector to solve in time to spare the next victim. Meet the Matthews -- while they last... Gregory, Harriet, Gertrude, Zoe, Guy, Stella and Randall.
Description from Open Library.
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