My review of Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder is available on Pajiba.com. Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone occurs a few years later, set in 1929 just before the stock market crash. Dandy Gilver is the wife of a country gentleman, the mother of two teenage boys, and a detective in the partnership of Gilver & Osborne, which illustrious agency has aided in the solving of several murders as well as insurance scams and jewel robberies between books.
The deadly measure of brimstone, with its associations of hellfire and witchcraft, is in fact the foul-tasting mineral waters of a spa in the tiny town of Moffat near the Scottish border, where people came during the Victorian era to “take the waters” and more recently to enjoy steamrooms and massages–and possibly other, more illicit–and as well as supernatural–goings on. What the comfortable and well-fed patrons don’t realise, however, is how desperate the owners of the spa are to make a profit. The doctor and manager of the spa are brother and sister, but have differing ideas of what to do with the place they inherited, and a patient was found dead under awkward circumstances… Dandy and Alec Osborne arrive into the town to solve a mystery, and Dandy’s family accompanies them to convalesce from pneumonia and whooping-cough. Soon even the family realises that something is rotten, quite apart from the sulphur in the drinking water.
Brimstone is a great read–the chemistry between Dandy and Alec crackles with familiarity and respect, the subplots are slightly unlikely but well-written and good fun, and seeing a maternal Dandy interact with her children–in previous novels away at boarding school or busy with estate managers brings a new dimension to the lady detective. I’ve really enjoyed the whole series of Dandy novels, and I hope there are more to come.
Cannonball Read V 