A Good Death (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Ironside (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2008 | Series: Felony & Mayhem Mysteries

It?s 1944 and Theo Cazalle is returning to the family he left in Bonnemort, an estate deep in the French countryside, when he went off to fight with the Free French. Memories of Bonnemort have sustained him through four years of war, but when at last he comes home, he finds his world in tatters. The house has been abandoned, a family servant has been shot, Theo?s wife has been accused of collaborating, and a Nazi officer has been found dead in front of Bonnemort?s front gate. To save his sanity, Theo must restore order to Bonnemort, but first he must understand the disorder into which it has fallen. Is his wife a whore? A murderer? Or could there be another alternative?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Ironside (Death in the Garden) convincingly depicts the trauma of life in Vichy France in her compelling second novel. In 1944, after the Allied liberation, Theo de Cazalle, who faked his death four years earlier and joined the French Resistance, returns to his remote country estate, Bonnemort, where someone has slit the throat of a German officer and dumped the naked corpse in front of the house. De Cazalle suspects his wife, Ariane, believed to have betrayed her countrymen by becoming the Nazi's mistress, of the murder. Through flashbacks, which include Ariane's perspective as well as that of a Jewish schoolgirl Ariane has rescued and is concealing, Ironside deftly presents the powerlessness of her characters and the hard moral compromises they have to make to survive. Finally, amid multiple horrors and personal sacrifices, the author succeeds in making the fate of a beloved farm animal moving. (Nov.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Felony & Mayhem (October 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934609196
• ISBN-13: 978-1934609194
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #760,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great post WWII mystery!, November 21, 2008

By 

Farin (New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Good Death (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Paperback)

I was so thrilled to find a new mystery by Elizabeth Ironside on my library shelf. I read Death in the Garden over the summer and couldn't figure out who did it until the very end, so I was looking very forward to delving into A Good Death.

Set in newly liberated WWII France, A Good Death tells the story of a family broken up by the war and the mystery of a German soldier found dead on their doorstep. Ironside has chosen to jump between the points of view of four characters: Theo de Cazalle, an exiled French soldier; his wife Ariane; his sadistic daughter Sabine; and Suzie, a Jewish girl that Ariane takes in and hides from the Nazis. Ironside uses this device, not only to slowly leak how the murder actually happened, but also to show how WWII affected everyone, from the fighters to those who had to cope on the home front.

What I loved most about the book was how Ironside really captured the atmosphere of desperation and uncertainty in a nearly post-WWII world. Not only did the characters question each other's loyalty, but I did as well, and I couldn't even begin to fathom how they would all be able to pick up their lives again after all they endured.

I agree that this book may be a little grisly for some, and Sabine is, perhaps, one of the most disturbing characters ever written. Some questions are left unanswered, and the end is baffling and leaves you wondering. Overall, though, it's a fascinating historical mystery, and, again, I had no idea who did it until the end.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Death, December 6, 2008

By 

Susan A. Davis "confirmed reader" (allendale nj) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Good Death (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Paperback)

This hit a home run for me. Elizabeth Ironside combined my love of mystries and the second world war in one story. How great is that!!! the murder was secondary to the wounds of the characters from the war. the occupation of france was very interesting and you read about from all different perspectives. just great
!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard to Resist, December 22, 2008

By 

J. Moran (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Good Death (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Paperback)

In this very noir mystery, Col. Theo de Cazalle returns home to his small estate/farm Bonnemort ("good death") in Southern France. It is September 1944 and the region was liberated from the Nazis less than a month before. Just after the French defeat in 1940 the wounded Cazalle had faked his own death (to protect his family) and joined DeGaulle in London, one of the few professional officers to do so at the time. This would have made him a criminal in the eyes of the collaborationist Vichy regime and a deserter in the eyes of his Army colleagues.

Instead of the unchanged haven that he naively expected, Cazalle finds everyone at Bonnemort irretrievably marked by the war. His wife, Ariane, has had her head shaved as a "collabo" for supposedly being the lover of the commander of a small SS security unit that arrived at Bonnemort soon after the Normandy invasion. Henri, Cazalle's long time friend and employee, was captured while leading a resistance unit and executed just three weeks before. Also at Bonnemort are Sabine, Cazalle's angry and sullen 13 year old daughter, and Suzie, a Jewish girl being protected by Ariane. Cazalle had married Ariane just before the war started in 1939 after a very brief courtship. They were passionately attracted to one another and he cannot even talk to her when he sees her shaved head. On top of everything, the SS unit commander was brutally murdered on the day that his unit left Bonnemort for good, and his naked corpse was dumped in front of Cazalle's house.

Cazalle decides to find the truth about his wife, about the death of the German officer and about the execution of his friend Henri. He also must fulfill his duty to his daughter who, unbeknownst to him, was brutally mistreated in her convent school and in the village school, incidents which have left her (as one character says) "a very strange person." Cazalle soon discovers that truth is a hard commodity to find in regard to the resistance.

Author Ironside is clearly familiar with how badly split French society was not only by the defeat of 1940 but by the ensuing four years of the Vichy regime (supported by most of the French), the Nazi occupation and the Allied victory. There was no massive and unified resistance to the Germans, and those who did resist often spent as much time opposing rival groups (internal French politics remained just as bitter and divisive as in the prewar Third Republic). Treachery, betrayals and revenge were common between and among rival resistance groups and the community at large.

Cazalle works out answers that, though not complete, are at least acceptable to him. But he cannot know the "full truth" for sure. The reader will share this fate. Just as in the real France of the time, not everything is tied up and there is no complete justice.

The writing is excellent, but if ambiguity, lack of total resolution and a very dark world are not your things, the book is not for you. There is a brief epilogue set in 1999, but if anything it raises more doubt and provides no new information. One lesson is clear: Avoid civil wars.