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My DSP December started out very productively – I finished this one on December 8. Since then, I went on a short holiday getaway with my husband and have also been sick with whatever part of the tripledemic I’ve been unfortunate enough to develop, so I’ve only finished one more, which I will review shortly. I am still planning to get one more of the Furrowed Middlebrow titles read – probably something by Molly Clavering – but 4 is not as many as I had hoped to complete!
I bought Water Weed in October, after eyeing the Alice Campbell mystery tranche for a few months. There were elements of it that I really liked, and then there were elements that I felt could have been done better. I liked the main character/amateur sleuth Virginia Carew but was pretty annoyed by Glenn, and the murder victim, Cuckoo, was beyond unlikeable.
There were some plot points that didn’t startle me because Campbell definitely hints around them, but that were likely very shocking for readers of the time. The book itself had a bit of a gothic feel to it – it reminded me of one of Patricia Wentworth’s darker-toned mysteries a bit, maybe Lonesome Road or The Catherine Wheel, relying on shocking family secrets for the resolution. I will definitely read more of Campbell’s mysteries.
The other DSP that I have finished is also one of their golden age mysteries – Dead Man’s Quarry by Ianthe Jerrold.