Death in the Stocks [Hardcover]

Georgette Heyer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1971)
• ASIN: B0014C058A
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own. Her first novel, "The Black Moth," published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote eleven detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death In Stocks is Classic Heyer, December 3, 2002

By 

"t-m-s" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death in the Stocks (Paperback)

"Death in the Stocks" was a delightful read. I have long been a fan of Georgette Heyer's Regency Novels but only recently discovered her mysteries. The mysteries are light reading - much like Dorothy Sayers - but with the marvelous character developement and amusing dialogue charateristic of Heyer. I found myself laughing out loud whenever two of the main characters (brother and sister) had a chance to analyze the mystery or have any discussions exploring the various characters' possible motives.

I advise reading this title before reading "Behold, Here's Poison" since some characters appear in both stories.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whose innocent?, July 22, 2007

By 

Nash Black "Troubadour" (Jamestown, KY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Death in the Stocks (Paperback)

Georgette Heyer's "Death in the Stocks" has all the elements of a classic Heyer "whodunit." The dialogue is brusque, the characters off-the-wall, as a cousin treads his way between his wayward cousins and a growing friendship with the Inspector assigned to discover who murdered Arnold Vereker. Then placed his body on public display, dressed in evening clothes, in the stocks on Ashleigh Green. Every person has a motive without an alibi, outside the fact the deceased was heartly disliked and avoided by his step-relatives.
Brother and sister try to protect each other and lead Scotland Yard astray, as each suspects the other. Then they turn detective and examine the clues with some of the finest dialogue in mystery fiction. To the very last the murder remains a puzzle. First published in 1935, it remains a tale to prop your feet up and enjoy.
Nash Black, author of "Qualifying Laps" and "Sins of the Fathers."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read even when you remember the solution, December 17, 2005

By 

Bookivore "The Bookivore" (Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Death in the stocks (Paperback)

Heyer wrote mysteries to read more for the fun of watching the various suspects run around than to admire the structure of the puzzle. Here we have a dead man found in the stocks on a quiet village green but the solution isn't found due to forensic work or a careful checking of alibis or schedules, but a sort of bumbling around until the murderer is impelled to strike again and again. Even so, I found the story entertaining and even plausible.

Wealthy Arnold Vereker had a family full of enemies. We're plunged into their lives, starting with his half-sister Antonia who had come down to the same town to argue with him about the forbidding of her marriage to an embezzler, and who soon brings in her attorney, cousin, and potential love interest Giles Carrington. We proceed through half-brother Kenneth, heir apparent, his girlfriend Violet and the female friend-of-the-family Leslie. Then we add on missing-and-presumed dead brother Roger who pops up to claim the fortune, throwing turmoil into everyone's schemes.

On the whole I think this would have worked better if the suspects had been snowed in somewhere but I still enjoyed watching the antics of this socially outrageous family and the poor villains they tempt to try to get their wealth one way or another.