Customer Reviews

The Stowmarket Mystery or a Legacy of Hate

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

 

 

This is the 3rd mystery of Tracy's that I've read recently, and all 3 have been very good. This one is about a man falsely accused of murder who hires a private eye to find the real killer. It takes place in England in the late 19th century. Tracy rarely embellishes- he doesn't bother describing the scenery or people's clothes or telling you unneccessary things about a character's past. Everything he writes pertains directly to the story. He writes in a very detailed manner, meaning that he puts in lots of seemingly insignificant things that may be of great importance later in the book. I like how he'll start a new chapter right in the middle of a conversation, which I'm sure he does to draw your attention to the imnportance of what the character just said.

I read Tracy's "Number Seventeen" and now "The Stowmarket Mystery," and I look forward to reading others by this author. Tracy should appeal to modern readers for his direct, generally unadorned style and quick-moving plots. Interestingly, despite a prose that is mostly utilitarian, you get a sometimes vivid sense of aspects of late Victorian England. If (for instance) you think that London streets were safer before the automobile was introduced, read this book.

The investigator Brett is a lawyer, a professional in the mold of Freeman's Dr Thorndyke, who discovers clues and makes connections that others miss. His relationship with the police in the form of Inspector Winter is adversarial, but not without a certain amount of mutual respect (somewhat like the Furneaux/White relationship in Tracy's "Number Seventeen").

Though I've only read 2 novels by Louis Tracy, I think he's held up better than other half-forgotten mystery writers of the period.

Reginald Brett is an attorney, who also acts as a detective. A man comes to see him, and as he recognizes Brett's imperial Turkish cigarettes, Brett gets quite interested, especially as the man was accused of killing his uncle.

This is a story that started slow for me, but it did a really nice job of building up. The plot goes in a direction that I sure didn't predict, and I really appreciated that. The Hume-Fraser family is an interesting collection.

Brett is more in the mold of Holmes, but imagine no sidekick, and more of an adversarial relationship with the police (Winter in this story).

As is often the case with older works, some of the language is racially offensive. So please be aware of that.

If you like mysteries, pick up this free Kindle version.