Bingo: Borrowed. I borrowed this online book from the library.
This light-weight mystery by Georgette Heyer is set in a familiar milieu: a weekend at an English country estate filled with a plethora of guests. There is the heroine, her sister, the sister’s bombastic and wealthy husband who owns the estate, a broke nephew, a man in love with the sister, a down on their luck couple whose flirtatious wife mesmerizes the bombastic husband, a middle aged widow, a vicar and his judgmental wife, and the son who brings his “exotic” (read: not English) flamboyant fiancée to the gathering.
Like the previous book of Heyer’s I read, this one fairly trumpets who the victim will be way in advance. Virtually everyone has a motive, which is established in the first few chapters. However, it takes a while to get to the murder: it doesn’t happen until nearly thirty percent in.
The murder happens and an inspector from Scotland Yard is brought in. Unlike, say, a Christie novel, the detective isn’t much of a character in and of himself. He is a serviceable, gentleman-like investigator, no more or less. The book follows him as he ably interrogates all the house guests, family, and servants one by one.
The questioning of the house guests is a bit tedious as we learn virtually nothing new—the characters just rehash what we already know. The inspector is also a bit repetitive, as when a character says they can’t remember something, he presses them multiple times (“Please try to recall,” “Are you sure you don’t remember?”). He also questions everyone about how they spent every minute of their time, in tiresome fashion.
The story trundles along in expected fashion, with a slight diversion of the inspector having feelings for our heroine and most improbably asks her to marry him after spending maybe an hour total in her presence throughout the investigation. The murderer is outed, and it was a bit of a surprise. It was a perfectly decent ending and I have no complaints.