Customer Reviews

Murder Begins at Home

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"Murder Begins at Home" is the second installment (and, I believe, follows "She Shall Have Murder") of twelve in the long-forgotten Dagobert and Jane Brown series of mystery novels written by Delano Ames. The novels are written in first person from the perspective of Jane Brown - a successful mystery novelist whose husband, Dagobert, is an amateur detective and otherwise (perhaps like Ames himself) prefers scholarly pursuit to the distaste of sullying himself in the work of ordinary men. Luckily, this British couple seems to be seldom without a murder to solve.

Perhaps this isn't the best novel to judge the entire series upon as it finds the Browns vacationing in remote rural New Mexico, well outside of what would seem their normal context. All the same, much of the prose describing the southwestern landscape is beautifully written and separates Ames's writing from the thinner, script-like pages of other pulp scribes of the era. Unfortunately, the pace becomes tediously slow in the meantime. The witty banter of the Browns is reminiscent of Nick and Nora or Tommy and Tuppence and their playful relationship is the most successful aspect of what becomes a dreary, by-the-numbers whodunit. Many of the characters are, at best, struggling over life choices pitting monetary gain over personal success, mundane work against intellectual reward. There is also a tendency, as with many works of this era, to fall back on simplified Freudian psychology. Local law enforcement is, of course, inadequate and, like most of the other American characters, a bit stupid - thus the need for our amateur sleuths. At worst, several characters seem two-dimensional in some hypnotized, otherworldly sense. In a similarly negative way, one thing that does stand out is a very unsympathetic portrayal of a troubled child. The story takes an unexpectedly grim turn when the child dies and every character seems to hold an oddly unnatural, callous view of the event. The whole thing seems out of place with the lighthearted tone set by Jane and Dagobert. The climax is a satisfactory solution to the puzzle and the answer is sensible without being obvious, though is based in part on long-outdated technology. Ultimately there is little to distinguish "Murder Begins at Home" from the glut of other similar mysteries that have piled up over the years, but there is enough working well here to lead me to believe that other novels in the series may well be lost classics. If so, do yourself a favor and try the others first.