Customer Reviews

The Ivory Dagger

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

 

 

This is another winner for Miss Silver. It's a classic as well since Miss Silver has to pay a visit to a large country estate to determine who murdered the owner with his own antique ivory dagger. It seems like a straightforward case. The man's fiance is found by the body with blood on her hands and dress, but she claims she was sleepwalking, and there is really no motive for her to kill her fiance. This is a case where no one including the reader likes the murder victim. He was a rude, grasping man who made lots of enemies. But the reader doesn't really like the young fiance who is suspected of killing him either. She is a weak-willed girl that can't stand on her own two feet. One just wants her to get on with it instead of being a victim. But the other characters are good. Young Bill, Lila's previous fiance is a nice clean-cut young man, and Lila's friend Ray is also very likeable. The mystery of who killed the master though needs to be solved, and Miss Silver does that with her usual aplomb.

Escaping to novelist Patricia Wentworth's world is fraught with danger. You'll probably find yourself at a week-end house party. At these parties, it is always the case that by Sunday morning someone is found murdered.

In this novel, the ivory dagger of the title is thought to be the murder weapon. Host Herbert Whittall had shown this prized possession to his guests the previous night. Now, the bloody dagger is in the blood stained hands of the girl found beside the murdered host, the girl who had been unwillingly betrothed to him. This is the blood-soaked tableau that postpones Sunday morning's breakfast.

A precedent for this situation is found in the Donizetti opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" and Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Bride of Lammermoor" upon which it is based. Patricia Wentworth weaves illusions to these works into her own novel. For example, the guests pass their Saturday evening listening to gramophone records of excerpts from the Donizetti opera.

Mostly through dialogue, Patricia Wentworth provides the murder investigation. Motives and opportunities for murder abound. There is an incredibly long chain of witnesses who were themselves witnessed. Almost everybody does a bit or eavesdropping indoors and prowling around the garden outdoors in the wee small hours. Even Miss Silver has a stint of this, listening and seeing in at a partially open French window.

If all of this keeps you well-entertained until a confession is offered in Chapter 39, don't fail to read on until the last page. Patricia Wentworth has also contrived a long chain of confessions.

I hope this indicates the sort of enjoyment and escapism Patricia Wentworth's crime novels offer.

In what I think of as the classic Silver format, we would have a chapter or two of character development wherein the problem that will eventually spawn a murder is followed by one of the star-crossed lovers appearing at Montague Mansions to engage Maud Silver, governess-turned-PI (if she isn't already in the neighbourhood on other business). This book stretches that format; Maudie doesn't appear until chapter 17 of 45, after the murder has taken place, which might contribute to the book's unpopularity, although it's not the deciding factor. The fact that one of the female leads is a spineless clinging vine probably holds that honor, when coupled with the notion that she's supposed to be a sympathetic character - unlike, say, Sylvia in MR. ZERO, who was an exasperating responsibility to the heroine without playing one of the romantic roles. She *is* more sympathetic than her counterpart in MR. ZERO, but aggravating at the same time.

Bill Waring, collecting his wits in hospital after a train crash, received only one letter from Lila Dryden, his fiancee. The next thing he knows, Lady Dryden, Lila's guardian, has pressured her into an engagement with Herbert Whitall, and she's on the brink of marrying him. As with Sylvia in MR. ZERO, this spineless person has a good friend, her bridesmaid and first cousin Ray - but unlike Sylvia, Lila's been steamrollered into this position rather than deliberately seeking a well-feathered nest, and both Lila and Ray have other romantic interests - Ray really cares about Bill Waring, and it's she who eventually calls in Miss Silver.

Herbert Whitall quickly emerges as the victim-in-waiting. He's aggressive, with a cold-hearted possessiveness that expands past the bounds of his ivory collection: he can't bear to lose. Millicent, his secretary and sometime mistress, planned to leave when he married, but he's kept a hold on her via a forged check. Lila is terrified of him, and the one person devoted to Lila - Whitall's architect, Adrian Grey - wants to protect her. Lady Dryden appears to have more than one motive for wanting her ward to marry well. Whitall even seems to have a hold on the butler. When a dagger in his collection becomes a murder weapon, one is spoilt for choice in terms of motive. Maud Silver - Edwardian gentlewoman with a soul of steel - must see that justice is done, not to avenge the guilty, but to protect the innocent.

According to the dust jacket of "The Ivory Dagger," "Miss Silver is one of the most likeable of the spinster detectives." Be that as it may, this reissued period piece by Patricia Wentworth needs more than a likeable detective to salvage it. A classic country house mystery, "The Ivory Dagger" contains the three necessary ingredients of the genre -- a convoluted plot, a limited group of suspects, and detectives too clever by half. The plot is interesting enough but shifts too many times to be truly effective. The characters are too stereotypical to be real, even for a dated English mystery. They include a hapless heroine, a hypermacho hero, a dastardly decedent, a feckless footman, a stolid male secretary, and a spurned female secretary. Throw in an imperious titled lady and a stately butler and you get the picture.

Miss Silver is likeable and for that reason this book gets an extra star. Miss Silver's foil, Detective Inspector Abbott, is likeable as well. Another Savile Row suited, gentleman detective, Abbott is a lot more palatable than his more famous rivals, the truly snobbish Roderick Alleyn, the impossible Lord Peter Wimsey, and the downright strange Albert Campion. The third member of Wentworth's detecting trio, Chief Inspector Lamb, is the best drawn of the lot and genuinely funny.

One small point. Miss Silver has an annoying habit of communicating her thoughts by coughing in code. She coughs throughout the novel. Sometimes she "coughs gently," at other times she "coughs mildly," once she even "coughs reprovingly," mostly though she just "coughs." Miss Silver coughs a lot, although I gave up counting after thirty. She should get someone to look at her throat.

I'm a fan of Miss Silver but this is one of the most hard to swallow plots! Lila Dryden seems unbelievably helpless and emptyheaded-I find it hard to believe that a woman could be forced to marry a middle aged man who she can't stand. The other female characters are much more realistic. An extremely melodramatic plot-it would be fun to act out. For a really good Miss Silver story, read "Latter End".

Wonderful book - as are all the Miss Silver books by Patricia Wentworth.

The fiance of Lila Dryden is found murdered. The trouble for Lila is that she doesn't know if she killed him or not. Fortunately Miss Silver is called in, and this unlikely sleuth soon solves the crime.

If you love British country-house style mysteries then you will love this book.