Today is Forgotten Book Friday, a weekly meme usually hosted by Patti Abbott at her blog, but today's hosting duties are being done by Todd Mason at SWEET FREEDOM. Don't forget to check in and see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today.
My entry for this week is THE DEATH OF COLONEL MANN by Cynthia Peale, the first in the Beacon Hill Mysteries which debuted in 2000. (Is it just me or does the year 2000 seem like yesterday?) The series is only three books along, the last book, THE WHITE CROW being published in 2002. (The second book is titled, MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER.)
The lure of this book and, in fact, the series, is the colorful atmosphere, the details - social and otherwise - of 'Victorian' Boston - very similar to Victorian London, except, I suppose, for the accents.
I also like Cynthia Peale's characters, all of whom seem to me well suited to the ritualized world they live in. Especially Addington Ames, who is both a gentleman and a sleuth and quite familiar with the strictures of Boston society. His keen mind as well as his physical description reminded me a bit of Sherlock Holmes.
Ames stood with his eye pressed to the glass. His tall, thin-legged figure looked as storklike as the tall, thin-legged tripod. In rapt silence he gazed up at the stars.
In this debut, Ames - to save his young about-to-be married cousin Val from disgrace, must ferret out the killer of Colonel William d'Arcy Mann, a reviled publisher of Boston's most scandalous gossip sheet - a blackmailer whom no one is crying any tears of grief over. (The character is based on a real Colonel Mann (with a different middle name) who had plied his vile trade in Manhattan.) In Peale's story, Mann had gotten hold of some indiscreet letters which, if they came to light, would put an end to Val's marriage into a very proper Boston Brahmin family.
To avoid disgrace, Addington Ames, with the help of his spinster sister Caroline and their boarder Dr. John MacKenzie must search for a murderer well-hidden among Boston's elite society - a fierce world...Harsh and unforgiving, as much a battlefield as in any war.
Though the book could have benefited from a more jaded p.o.v. and a soupcon of humor, I still liked what Peale made of it.
Though the book could have benefited from a more jaded p.o.v. and a soupcon of humor, I still liked what Peale made of it.
As you can probably tell, THE DEATH OF COLONEL MANN is basically a period cozy but perhaps with a bit more elegance. The sort of book that would make a chilly winter night more enjoyable, perhaps with a nice cup of tea in your best bone china at your side. So why am I writing about it today? Well, because if I put it off until the appropriate weather settles in, I'd probably forget about it. You know how old lady memory works - or doesn't.
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