Murder by Candlelight - Faith Martin ***
By Brian Clegg
If P. G. Wodehouse had set out to write a murder mystery, it would have been a lot better than this one… but there is no doubt that Faith Martin intends to give a Wodehouse-lite feel to this 1920s village-set murder mystery.
Arbuthnot (Arbie) Swift could indeed be a Wodehouse central casting character, generally interested in enjoying himself and not troubling his brain excessively. But for a lark he has written a best-selling book combining ghost hunting exploits with a travelogue, and so gets hauled in with Val, the Amazon-like daughter of the local vicar, to sort out mysterious happenings at a local house that lead to murder.
The problem with Arbie is that, although he has the indolence of a Bertie Wooster, he is a sharp thinker, able with the assistance (and growing affection) of Val to work out what is happening, solve a locked room mystery and generally bring things to a positive if murderous conclusion.
It isn’t by any means a bad cosy crime novel – it trundles along with very occasional moments of Wodehouse-like humour and rather too much dependence on stereotype characters and comments. We have the chance to work out what happened ourselves and it all comes to a satisfactory conclusion (apart from Arbie not realising quite how suited Val is for him, and vice versa). Mildly entertaining for an autumn read.
You can buy Murder by Candlelight from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Bookshop.org
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.
Source: http://brianclegg.blogspot.com/2025/11/murder-by-candlelight-faith-martin.html
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