| She Died a Lady | [] | (1943) |
| Author: Dickson | Detective: Merrivale | Type: CD |
Publisher's Blurb
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Comment 1 (Grobius)
1st-person narrative; sort of a romance novel; WW2; well done; you can really get into the characters and care what happens to them more than in most of Carr. This is one of CD's best books, in spite of H.M.'s shenanigans involving a motorized wheelchair. It is particularly good with characterization, and also describing the early days of World War Two. There is also, for once, a fully justified cover-up by H.M. at the end. The 'puzzle' is pretty good too, if not up to classic standard.
For one thing he has some very convincing women characters, although CD is not noted for good characterization of that sex (they are either bitches or ginches); the women in this book are well-described, from Rita to Belle, especially the latter. Also the men are not as stereotyped as usual. There are glimmers beyond formula detection of actual real people -- maybe writing from a first-person journal viewpoint helped out the author's narrative technique, certainly makes it an unusual H.M. book and also explains some of the cover-up of clues better than normally. Point of view is very important sometimes in a mystery and it's too bad CD/JDC didn't follow this precept as often as he should have. Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd, unfair as it has been called, only works because of the narrative technique, and to my mind that is a legitimate way to bamboozle the reader.
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Comment 2 (grobius)
An unusual departure for Carr, going for a first-person narrative by a major participant. The narrator ranks up with the best characters (and most decent) he ever created.
For another thing he has some very convincing women characters, although CD is not noted for good characterization of that sex (they are either bitches or ginches); the women in this book are well-described, from Rita to Belle, especially the latter. Also the men are not as stereotyped as usual. There are glimmers beyond formula detection of actual real people -- maybe writing from a first-person journal viewpoint helped out the author's narrative technique, certainly makes it an unusual H.M. book and also explains some of the cover-up of clues better than normally. Point of view is very important sometimes in a mystery and it's too bad CD/JDC didn't follow this precept as often as he should have. Christie's "Murder of Roger Ackroyd", unfair as it has been called, only works because of the narrative technique, and to my mind that is a legitimate way to bamboozle the reader. But this is one of Carr's few books where you really feel compassion for the characters. Well done, a masterpiece.
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Comment 3 (The_Thin_Man)
With so many convincing characters and such an excellent narrator, the ending of this otherwise excellent book should have been really poignant. That it's not is down to the insufficient characterisation of one key player (explained very well by H.M, it nonetheless doesn't work for me) and the contrasting frustration at the COMPLETE LACK OF CONVINCING EVIDENCE against the murderer. (The facts mentioned by H.M. could all be explained in various ways other than the ones that he states, and most of them are practically impossible to notice anyway.) One would think that Carr, of all people, would not commit this fault - but then one remembers "The Mad Hatter" and "It Walks by Night". It is very closely comparable, in fact, to "Mad Hatter", especially in the way that the central antagonist's character only really appears at the very end of the book, too late for me. Nonetheless, this is a great Carr, one of the few of his books where one can sympathise with the detective as well as some of the other characters (H.M, thanks to a rare moment of humility, is nicer here than in any of his other books.) |
Comment 4 ()
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