Customer Reviews

The Dying of the Light: A Mystery

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

 

 

The solution to this mystery, "The Dying Of The Light", is as clever as any of Mr. Dibdin's work. The matching of wits, the misdirection, and words so carefully chosen, create a wonderful adversary for the inspector. That his adversary is at least an octogenarian, creates a duel that is just that more interesting.

This story is a bit like the board game that requires the players to solve, who did what to whom, where was it done, and what was the weapon of choice. The setting is a home for the aged, and the environment is which they live could be described as one created by a satanic Dickens. This atmosphere is what I did not care for. A good mystery does not require the degradation of a character, humiliation does not shock as much as it makes the reader uncomfortable, and for me it does nothing but detract from the tale.

I have commented on many other of this Author's work, so I will not repeat the thoughts here. The resolution was excellent, the action leading to it however, barely made the book a worthy read.

Dibdin is, in my opinion, what the mystery genre needs; a quality literature writer who happens to use mystery as an excuse to tell his story. His humor is deliciously dark and at times shocking. What sets him apart is his focus on relationships. The solution to the mystery is not nearly as important as how the characters interact. Dibdin deserves much more respect than we Americans have given him. Dibdin is what mystery should be. I also recommend the Aurelio Zen series for a "detective" with a distinctly melancholy personality.

The scene appears to be an ordinary country house hotel, inhabited by the usual cast of characters, including the Colonel, the playboy, the clergyman, a rich invalid and, of course, the usual murderer. Rosemary Travis and her friend Dorothy Davenport need only find the clues to unmask the murderer's identity.

Except that, of course, nothing is as it seems at the Eventide Lodge which isn't even an ordinary country house hotel. No, Eventide Lodge is a truly awful nursing home run by William Anderson and his sister Letitia and dreadful things seem to be happening to the small number of geriatric residents living there.

Why did Hilary Bryant die, and what happened to George Channing? Is another resident involved, or could it be the proprietors?

When Dorothy herself dies, the night before she is due to leave Eventide Lodge for terminal cancer treatment in hospital, Rosemary may have a mystery on her hands. Or perhaps not: Dorothy may have killed herself. Or, if not, who did and why?

`There is no room for sloppy guesswork or vulgar sensationalism.'
In fewer than 200 pages, Michael Dibdin creates a mystery which I found more interesting for the descriptions of Eventide Lodge and the ways in which the characters interact than for the solution itself. It's a quick read and an enjoyable one despite its bleak black aspects: any place remotely like Eventide Lodge needs its own Rosemary Travis.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Michael Dibdin's 'The Dying of the Light' is a short, contrived, sometimes brutal little mystery, but it shines beautifully within all the aforementioned characteristics. It is just the write length, the contrived plot is what makes it tick, and the brutality, though shocking and disdainful, sticks in your mind long after the book has been closed, leaving an indelible mark.

The novel starts out with Rosemary and Dorothy, two old ladies who are friends at what we believe to be something of a manor house, or possibly an old-fashioned hotel? At any rate, the story begins with a list of stock murder mystery suspects reminiscent of the golden-age crime capers. They are all gathered in a cozy lounge, and we believe Rosemary and Dorothy to be our sleuths. Soon, however, events unfold, and we discover that we have been tricked by the sly author, Dibdin. The awful, creeping realization of where exactly our two old ladies are, and what is transpiring there, is the first of many chilling plot twists that take place.

Many mysterious and even horrible things begin to happen once the book gets going, and our two elderly heroins *do* become sleuths (sort of), and some of the other characters peppering the book make for good adversaries. As I said earlier, it is all somewhat contrived, but as long as you just go along with it, you should have a bracing read. Some parts of novel are intense, some parts slightly comical, but *every* part is of interest.

If you have a nice, solitary evening free, draw the curtains, dim the lights, and settle-in for 'The Dying of the Light'. It is a mystery of a different kind.

Nothing terribly special about this book, the author relies on the fact that he can shock you with events to make you want to cringe, but not much else. What this book lacks is a real mystery, and as a result the reader is never really drawn into the story, he or she merely turns the pages to see how it all ends out. What keeps this book from receiving a rating below mediocrity, however, is it's cleverness in it's ability to shock the reader. All this book has that's terribly interesting is shocking, bu

It's a cute story with a circuitous trail of red herrings used to reach a different end to a non-mystery story. The writing is good, but the story is Dibdin-lite.