Customer Reviews

Very Private Enterprise

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

 

 

This is a great blend of mystery, with some humor thrown into it also, done in a style that will appeal to anyone that likes Englsh murder mysteries.A rather normal civil servent is found murdered with a ritual dagger (no spoiler, it happens quickly) and a Scotland Yard detective is on the case.

Catches your attention early and holds it until the end. Will look for others from her.

This is the third book I have read by Elizabeth Ironside - she knows how to spin a tale! I have a partiality toward british mystery writers - she was not a disappoinment.

A Very Private Enterprise is the third book I've read from Elizabeth Ironsides. All that I have read are sophisticated and well written, frequently with an international twist.

One of my great recent finds. I've passed her books on to several friends with rave reviews from all. Try it!

'A Very Private Enterprise' is a good mystery/adventure novel (not just my cup of tea) by Elizabeth Ironside [Pseudonym of Lady Catherine Manning, wife of the British ambassador to the U.S.] It is set in India and is very well written. This
is a very nice Felony and Mayhem paperback edition.

Over the past five years I have read the entire oeuvre of Elizabeth Ironside with pleasure, ironically ending my reading with her first novel, A Very Private Enterprise. Ms. Ironside is a talented writer in the tradition of the English mystery, but she always gives you a little something more, which makes her a pleasure to read.

In this case, that little something more is the setting, which is a diplomatic post in post-Raj India. Hugo Frencham, a high-level civil servant and collector of Tibetan antiquities is found dead one morning, stabbed by a ritual dagger. Whitehall dispatches George Sinclair to solve the murder and clean up the mess. The identity of the murderer is known almost from the first by the reader but not by the characters involved, making this a whydunnit rather than a whodunnit and this and the slightly skewed setting make for a very good read.

Several things are wrong with Frencham's life. First of all he has entirely too much money both in accounts, antiquities and other treasures found in his house after his death. No matter how Sinclair tries to square it Frencham's possessions just don't match up with his salary and there is the hint that he may have been spying or selling secrets. During his investigation of the facts, Sinclair meets and falls in love with Janey, a friend of Frencham's and Janey states that the investigation is a non-starter because no life, no love no personality can be simply unpacked linking motive a to action b, though ironically it is to Janey that the murders truth is finally revealed.

The writing is solid and literary in the tradition of the English mystery and the characters are well-developed enough to be real though a few standard British archetypes do sneak in. Violence and sex are kept to a tasteful minimum. Highly recommended to fans of English mysteries as is all of Elizabeth Ironside's work.

I enjoyed this more for the insight and local color of India and Kashmir than the murder mystery. Ironside is a good writer and her characters were not stereotypical and predictable. The part set in the mountainous region reminded me a bit of "The Rose of Tibet," which I can also recommend.

I liked this best, of the three Ironsides I have now read. For one thing, I like her masterful handling of the fact that the reader knew from chapter one who the murderer was; yet this reader still had to finsh the story! I came away from it acknowledging that both lovers have important secrets, now, from each other, and this does not sound like the ideal foundation for a relatiosnhip--that, and the fact that they are so vastly different from one another! I get the impression, three books on now, that Ironside herself is rather cynical, or at least jaded, about lasting love.

I found it a bit tedious in the beginning but enjoyed the plot in mid to end of the story.