Customer Reviews

Duplicate Death

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Duplicate Death is a wonderful mystery of the kind that Goergette Heyer excells at--witty, cleverly plotted, and with a strong inclination towards social satire. She paints a delightful picture of London high society in the 1930s, and it's great fun to get lost in the details of balls, chaperones, debutants, etc. Amid the social whirl, there's a crafty killer at large, and two deserving young people who must do their best to solve the mystery if they are to avoid being suspected of murder--or become victims themselves.

Timothy Harte from "They Found Him Dead" is all grown up and a very eligible man about town, but he has an eye on a secretary who has a shady past, much to his family's displeasure. Post war London is finely portrayed as characters struggle to hold on to the past and acclimate to the present. Timothy must turn to his old friend Sargent Hemingway to clear his fiance of being charged with murder and restore her good name.
The inner workings of Scotland Yard are shown in greater detail as the Yard adopts new methods of detection.
False leads abound until the final pages of little known mystery by Georgette Heyer, which is an early exploration of the use of drugs among the upper crust.
Nash Black, author of "Qualifying Laps" and "Sins of the Fathers."

A better detective story than others by this author we have read. Inspector Hemingway does a good job of discovering the persons who strangled a blackmailer / drug-dealer and his mistress. The identity of the first murderer comes as a distinct surprise, although the alert reader will latch onto the second murderer as soon as the Marriages and Legitimacy Act is mentioned. Several good red herrings, a nice use of the drug trade, and plenty of wit and amusing characters (Insp. Grant, Cynthia Haddington, Lord Guisborough) make this a memorable tale.

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Until I came across Duplicate Death, I had thought that Georgette Heyer wrote only regency novels. But I found this an extremely fast-paced and believable mystery. I did spot the clues, but didn't guess who did it because I'm a CSI and so all my crime-solving (except the fictional ones I write) involve scientific examination of crime scenes. There were, alas, some howlers involving looking for fingerprints, which was routinely practiced in the English police by the time that World War II was over, and we know we are in that period because reference is made to at least one person's severe injury during WWII.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Heyer's mysteries, and I fully expect to enjoy them. What I like best about her is that she plays fair: she shows the reader what the inspectors find as soon as they find it. There's none of the closed-door secrets kept from the reader, which afflict Ngaio Marsh's mysteries written at fairly nearly the same time, nor is there any sneering at people who have different accents. It annoys the chief inspector when his subordinate keeps talking Gaelic to him, and it annoys me that Heyer doesn't provide an explanation, but I can see why she doesn't.

This is a very good read.

For those of us, and there are hundreds, who are long-time, dedicated Georgette Heyer readers, this book is one of her tries at a modern murder mystery. It is an enjoyable read, particularly after Inspector Hemingway enters the scene. If you have never read Heyer before, however, I would not recommend this as your first book. Read the Regency novels first and I think you too will be hooked on her work. Then try reading her mysteries and historicals.

Even though this is one of my least favorite of Heyer's books, it's still worth reading. She is that good! Chief Inspector Hemmingway is an enjoyable character from earlier mystery novels and, while he isn't at his most humorous, he's still fun. It's mildly interesting to see what happened with Jim Kane and Terrible Timmy from an earlier book but I can't get too interested in the sullen heroine with a Secret Past. Well written and an OK couple of murders. If you've never read Heyer, don't start with this one.

I have read all twelve of Heyer's mysteries and enjoyed them all. She always has at least a couple of fascinating characters that linger in memory after the mystery is solved.

I read this for a Crime and Wine book club, and was surprised that I enjoyed it, because it didn't look like my type of book. If you're looking for an old-fashioned murder mystery, it's not bad.

Let's get one thing straight - if you're reading for the mystery, don't bother with this one. Duplicate Death's murders are easy to solve but not even remotely interesting. Don't bother if you're hoping for the fun characters of Heyer's earlier books, either. If you're looking for unintentional humor, though, this book might be worth a look.

In Duplicate Death, a man with an unsavory past is strangled during a duplicate bridge party; his hostess that night is killed in the same way a few days later. Those who have read They Found Him Dead might enjoy a brief skim through this book, as it checks in briefly with Jim and Patricia Kane, twelve years into their marriage; the book also features a grown-up Timothy Harte, whose fiancee is a suspect in the case.

This is one of Heyer's later books and one of her worst. While her mysteries were never masterworks, for most of her career she produced good light English mystery. By the time of Duplicate Death, though, she lost most of the style that had distinguished her earlier books. And her attempts to incoporate into her works the social, political, and cultural changes of post-WWII England drained her stories of energy and fun while failing to give them any depth or realism.

Heyer's attempts at modernity actually give rise to some unintentional humor. She tries, for example, to incorporate a gay man into the plot, and the bigotry displayed as a result manages to transcend offensiveness to become ludicrous. We can either cringe or remember the era when Hemingway laments that he's got to cope with a gay man as a suspect. We can sigh in exasperation or roll our eyes at the author's attempt to convey that man's sexual preferences by having him alternate fits of tears with fits of temper. But we can only laugh when Heyer explains, with complete seriousness, that male homosexuality is caused by childhood asthma. And that's just one example. There's prejudice of every stripe on display here, and while it is going to make most modern readers wince, it's so overdone and so ridiculous that those readers are likely to be amused rather than angry.

Duplicate Death is Heyer's second-worst book and is worth reading only for the unintentional hilarity evoked by the author's unwitting exposure of her strange opinions. Those who seek competent, humorous mysteries would do well to try her earlier books, like A Blunt Instrument or Death in the Stocks. In general, most readers should skip this one.

I was expecting a light, golden age type of mystery. What I found was a mystery largely lacking in charm with many unattractive characters, lots of slurs toward the gay characters, a very annoying character who speaks constantly in gaelic and a whole lot of typos and spacing mistakes. Not an enjoyable read.