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November 1, 2007
Envious Casca
(Warning: Oblique spoiler for the astute reader--I'm assuming most blogs are scanned so most people are safe.)
Georgette Heyer did not write only Regency romances. At some point in her career she wrote a number of mysteries in the classic tradition. Envious Casca is one of these.
As a mystery, it is fairly obvious from about midway through who was responsible for the crime. (In retrospect, properly framed, it is clear from the title alone who did it.) How the crime was committed is an interesting piece of work and ultimately revealed by one clue that becomes positively annoying in the frequency of its presentation--annoying more for the fact that it is so oblique than that it is an irritant.
The trademark work of Ms. Heyer is here in all of its glory--the witty observations, the incisive cutting through to the root of character, the dialogue, the description, the atmosphere. The writing is clean and clear and the characters marvelously drawn and well-assembled.
While Ms. Heyer lacks the incredible creativity and astute plotting that might mark out Dame Christie, Ellery Queen, or John Dickson Carr, she is one of those Golden Age writers whom I have too long neglected. (Even when I began to read her romances, I didn't give a second thought to the mysteries--partially because I had forgotten them.)
For a delightful light read in the classic mystery tradition, you could do worse than Envious Casca.
Posted by Steven Riddle at November 1, 2007 7:23 AM
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