Customer Reviews

Rising of the Moon

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

 

 

Rising of the Moon is beautifully written. Two young brothers, Simon, age 13 and Keith, age 11 are orphaned but living a fairly idyllic childhood on a farm with their goodtime older brother, stressed, prim sister-in-law and the family's delectable female lodger. The first grisly murder excites the boys' curiousity and as they play amateur detective their clumsy efforts to help their married brother make him appear guilty. Beatrice Bradley appears midway through the book, gaining their confidence and trust. The charm of the book is the style. Mitchell evokes small town/country life in postwar England. The boys fish, plan to sneak into the circus, and live a very independent life beneath the noses of their pub hopping brother and his more conventional wife.

Readers may guess the identity of the murderer but the boys are so likeable, the lovely lodger so charming that the innocence of childhood versus the horrors of a multiple killer make for a striking contrast.

HOpefully since Diana Rigg's series features the (Beatrice) Adela Bradley character the book will again appear in print.

Young women are dropping like flies in this tale of murder in a small, pre-WWII English village, but this is not quite a 'cozy' tale. The narrator, Simon Innes, is 13 years old and describes himself as the Watson to his 11-year old brother Keith. They live with their brother, Jack, and his slightly shrewish wife and with their lodger, a lovely young woman named Christina, whom the boys adore...and perhaps Jack adores as well. As as it is school holidays, they have time on their hands to investigate. A second murder seems to implicate Jack. The town is populated by the odd but intriguing keeper of an 'antique' shop, the local constable who is one of Christina's admirers and the mysterious, repellent 'rag and bone' man. Scotland Yard is called in, and arrives with Mrs. Bradley, a psychologist with 'claw like hands' who is, in fact, the true detective of the piece.

It takes a talented writer to use the point of view of children to tell a tale, but allows an innocent voice to suggest that what they see is better understood by the reader than the narrator. Simon and Keith both charming, not quite fearless, and dogged in their pursuit of trying to figure out who done it. Gladys Mitchell has done a lovely job of putting you into the place, the time and the mindset of a gentler time, when murder was a more horrible happenstance than in modern day. Her characters take a little bit of a stretch to be entirely believable, but the reader who is willing to suspend disbelief for a while will find the exploits of the kids, and the clear eyed conclusions of Mrs Bradley a well done and thoroughly enjoyable read. The need to accept the characters and a somewhat confusing description of the streets and byways of the town (a map would have helped) is what kept me from 5 stars, but it is a niggling complaint. I definitely am going to read more of Gladys Mitchell.

If you like English murders from the Golden Age (Ngaio Marsh, Margaret Allingham, Josephine Tey, Catherine Aird and the like), and you like good writing with a literate voice, you will like The Rising of the Moon.

After the first 30 pages I almost gave up. Oh too stilted I thought. Old fashioned. But as I had no other book ready at hand I continued. Then the stilted started to form its own wonderful world into which I began to fit myself comfortably. I felt at home in this small English village. The people were charming. I was caught. It's a small book, 184 pages. Such a delight. I'm glad I didn't miss it. The two young boys playing detective right into the teeth of real danger remind me of Tom Sawyer or the hero of Treasure Island. Unique. Mrs.Bradley, the lead detective, has a flavor of all the old Agatha Christie sleuths, wise, witty and warm, and a bit unknowable. Wonderful mystery to keep you company on a rainy night.

Mitchell was a wonderful writer and this book is very satisfying. Its narrator is a 13 year old boy (although he seems older than his years), who with his 11 year old brother lead a comfortable life despite losing both parents and having to live with their older married brother. The murders start almost immediately, but Mrs. Bradley doesn't appear for 100 pages, so it's mostly the boys observations that carry the story.

My one minor gripe is the absence of a map of the area, since there are so many descriptions of the layout of the town and various canals, bridges, streets, farms, manor houses, etc., that it would have been fun to follow the travels along graphically.

Recommended.

Out on their Easter holiday, brothers Simon and Keith Innes, thirteen and eleven respectively, decide, on a lark, to sneak into a circus that has set-up in the neighborhood for the holiday. To sneak into it they have to travel across Dead Man's Bridge to get to a hole in a fence that borders the circus and Mr. Taylor's field. As they approach the bridge they see a silhouette, and that silhouette has a large and shiny knife. Their night is to end in disappointment, because when they decide to follow the shadowy figure, they inexplicably lose it, and then they are caught breaking into the circus. Frustrated, they go home only to find out the next day that a circus worker has been viciously slain by what will be called "The Ripper", and they may have seen the murderer.

Being the intrepid and industrious lads that they are, they decide to investigate the crime on their own during their time off. They are however hampered by the fact that they are orphans living with their older brother Jack, his wife June, Jack and June's three-year-old son Tom, and their beautiful lodger, the factory girl Christina. A woman with whom both Simon and Keith are in love with, and whom June hates.

A circus performer is arrested, and the circus leaves town. Then there is another murder of another young lass while the circus performer is in custody. Unfortunately, as the story rolls along, it seems unthinkable, but inevitable, that Jack may be involved in the murders. After all, why did he arrive home after a murder all muddy and wet, and where did that big knife of his go that he used to have? Jack says that he lost it, but did he? The boys are in a quandary, and due to circumstances that they feel that they are caught in, they will go on to make a mistake that will only make things worse. Then pops up another knife. Are there two murder weapons, and if not, who owned the right one(s)?

As usual as it seems with Gladys Mitchell's mysteries, Mitchell takes her time to tell her working class mystery. This is just as much a mystery as it is a story of two brothers, their Easter adventure, a love story of two brothers for a much older woman, and their family life. There will be red herrings, obvious suspects and unexpected plot twists, and while the ending won't be as shocking as it was in 1945, the identity of the killer will certainly surprise some. For those readers who find that the killer's identity not much of a surprise will still love how certain characters of this novel fit into all of this.

Also, as seems to be the way of one of Gladys Mitchell's Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley mysteries, Mrs. Bradley doesn't make her appearance until late in the novel and her appearance never seems to change in any of the novels of Mitchell's that I have ever read. On page seventy-eight of "The Rising Of The Moon" she is described as ". . . an unusual-looking old lady with sharp black eyes, a yellow face, hands like claws and a general expression of knowing all about you. . ." which is the same description that is given of her in "Late, Late In The Evening" in 1976 thirty-one years later. Although THAT novel's main story seemingly took place at about the time that THIS novel is narrated, see below for an explanation. The world changed throughout the years, but Mrs. Bradley never did.

It's interesting to note that this eighteenth novel in the Mrs. Bradley series was published in nineteen forty-five, and yet the Second World War is never even mentioned. The narrator (Keith) is relating something that has happened in the past (just like the story structure of the novel "Late, Late In The Evening"), so while WWII was just ending, and while this novel's story takes place even further back (the worldwide depression?), no outside political or social influences are ever mentioned. I don't know why this is, but it DOES give the novel a timeless feeling. It's also interesting that the killer is nicknamed "The Ripper" when it is possible that some of the people in this novel, as were some of the readers of this novel's original printing, could have been young children when the real Ripper was running amok.

What's most interesting though is that this novel could have been the template for the later "Late, Late In The Evening". Like that novel, this novel also had young people as the lead characters, with one of them being the narrator from some vague and indeterminate future. Also in common with each other is that there are shadowy guardians (neither pairs of children in either novel have attending parents), eccentric possible murderers, children working as Mrs. Bradley's ersatz investigators, almost useless formal authority figures, etc. Unlike "Late, Late In The Evening" however, this story here is much more smoothly told, with Mrs. Bradley almost being reduced to being a supporting character. And like her other novels, Mitchell is just British beyond repair, and she makes no effort to clean up the novel's language, as her characters literally wallow in this period's slang, colloquialisms, and informalities as filtered through Simon's narrations. Much to my delight. This was a fun English countryside mystery that can be read by any mystery fan of any age, and it was filmed once with Diana Rigg (Mrs. Peel) as Mrs. Bradley. This novel is worth all five stars.

For this site I have also reviewed these other Gladys Mitchell/Mrs.Bradley books:

Mrs. Bradley #46: Winking At the Brim - Large Print by Gladys Mitchell
Mrs. Bradley #48: Late, Late in the Evening (Linford Mystery Library (Large Print)) by Gladys Mitchell.