Customer Reviews

A Good Death (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries)

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

 

 

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.

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

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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.

I read this book in a day and night, unable to set it aside, neglecting everything, even reading it while eating. Elizabeth Ironside unfolds a complex story of love and betrayal, resistance and collaboration, in the Nazi-occupied French countryside towards the close of World War II.

The heroine is a heroine indeed - passionate, intelligent, resourceful - saving Jews and dissidents from the SS, almost losing her own self-respect in the double game she must play. Happily, she has a husband worthy of her - a seeker after truth at a time when just about everyone had something to hide.

Mystery writer Elizabeth Ironside has written an intriguing story of how one family and community in rural France (Auvergne) survived through the years of the Vichy regime and two weeks of direct occupation by German troops in mid-1944. The murder of an SS officer as the Germans retreated north is the focus of the slowly revealed mystery.

The investigation of the murder begins when an aristocratic colonel in the Free French Army, Theo de Cavalle, returns to his rural home after spending most of the war in exile to find his much-loved wife accused of being a German collaborator and his best friend executed by the Germans as a leader of the local resistance. De Cavalle's gradual search for the truth of what happened to his wife and family in his absence drives the story to a surprising resolution. This is achieved through a skillful weaving of narrative look backs as well as the dogged reconciliation of the colonel with his wife. A highly creative and completely stunning epilogue gives the book an originality the marks it further as a desirable read.

Author Ironsides has given the reader a heady mix of situational morality, petty politics, and madness in this intelligent book. Highly recommended.

This was the most descriptive book from Ironside yet, and I cannot say I like the change. Like Martha Grimes lately, one must wonder: is there an insistent editor, somewhere, pushing for more gory detail? I had to skim through many graphically horrible details in order to get to the actual mystery here. When I did, the outcome was really quite predictable. Also, the afterthought chapter at the end was not unexpected in its outcome, but could have used a tad more explanation. The reader is left wondering: were the acts of horror really forgotten? Is this character still a consummate liar? Most of all, did the author WANT us, perhaps, to wonder? I have to give it at least three stars, because while I may not have loved the content, Ironside is still a gifted writer. It is a pleasure to read finely-honed sentences and skillfully-woven inserted sidelines.

Some have called this a mystery, and yes, there is a death (or two deaths) that Theo de Cazalle tries to understand. But the real "mystery" at the core of this gripping book is what power - its loss, its abuse - can do to both the powerful and the powerless. To her step-daughter Sabine, Madame Ariane seems cold and controlling, but as we follow the story, we see that Sabine exercises a great deal of power herself, and that Madame Ariane is powerless in ways that Sabine can barely understand. The cycle of abuser and abused, predator and prey is repeated throughout the story, but non-didactically, in ways that enlarge our understanding of what it must have been like in fallen France.

In addition, everyone lies, from Theo, who disappears and is apparently dead for 4 years, to Suzie who must hide her Jewish identity, and the de Cazalle family that hides the existence of the pig, Lou Moussou. The lies are perpetuated for apparently "good" reasons, but the secrets create pain, for Sabine who does not know her father is still alive, for Suzie who inadvertently reveals the truth of her identity, for Madame Ariane who is forced to act as a double agent.

Theo, as he searches for the truth, seems to think that the truth will provide peace and resolution. But the point of the story is that truth can only be known by those who have lived the experience. You cannot judge if you were not there. This book is extraodinary.

Excellent condition. She writes in a manner unlike anyone else. It is very hard to put her books down.

I have read other Elizabeth Ironside books, and this was not what I expected. It takes place in France and is quite grisly -- not really my cup of tea. Her writing is excellent, as always, but I could not stomach this book and gave up after the first 100 pages. I do like mysteries but not with endless descriptions of torture, rape, etc. I will be eager to see the reviews of other readers; maybe I should have finished it, if it gets any better.