Gladys MitchellCritiques

A murder mystery story published in 1951 which I enjoyed more before the murder mystery plot kicked in. Gladys Mitchell was an English writer mainly of detective novels. She was considered in the 1930's as one of the big three female detective novelists, the other two being Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. She wrote 65 novels featuring her amateur polymathic psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley and Devil's Elbow was one of them. It would seem she is far less fashionable now as most of her books are out of print.

The novel starts with a narrative of a two weeks coach trip around Scotland, starting in London. It has been gathered from a series of letters written by the courier young Dan Jeffries to his girlfriend Em. It is a lively account describing all of the 31 passengers and the various stopping off points on the way up to the Scottish highlands. Miss Pratt one of a number of spinster passengers is the person who makes the most trouble for the likeable Dan Jeffries and it is she who is murdered following a tortuous journey over the Devil's Elbow. An investigation is launched and Mrs Bradley is called in to assist two detectives one English and one Scottish. The narrative turns to the third person at this point as Mrs Bradley guides the investigation and starts to sift the clues. Young Jeffries first person account resumes when he embarks on a boys own adventure involving motor boats and smuggling, which has been instigated by Mrs Bradley. The novel ends with Mrs Bradley solving the mystery, ahead of the two detectives who are left floundering in her wake.

The novel is well written and entertaining, but there are 31 suspects, which was far too many to hold this reader's interest and so when the big reveal was made it all felt a bit of a let down. I had to re-read a bit of it to see If I had missed anything; to aficionado's of murder mysteries it might have hit the mark. There are some strong female characters, but sexist attitudes are in keeping with the early 1950's, it became apparent that the problems caused by Miss Pratt were because of her pestering of the male passengers.
I enjoyed being plunged back into a 1950's coach trip with all the petty foibles of the passengers and the remarks and expressions typical of the period - 3 stars.

I will admit that I found this mystery confusing. Motivations for various actions of the characters just didn't seem to make sense.

Rather convoluted mystery starting with a Holmes' theme costume party. I'll try a few more, but I can't say I am fond of Mrs. Bradley. I can see why she is not as popular as Wimsey, Poirot or Miss Marple.

Sir Bohun Chantrey, a huge admirer of Sherlock Holmes, is throwing a huge weekend party in honour of the Great Anniversary. All guests are to dress as characters from Holmes’ cases. Sir Bohun has assigned a number of the characters to certain guests.

Bohun already has six members of his household attending, so he can only invite nine others. His selection is a couple who are divorcing, a matador, a cousin and the niece, a psychic investigator and her secretary, and actor to play Holmes and a Detective Inspector.

Not all invitees were fans of Holmes; some were more interested in his wealth. His announcement of his engagement to Miss Campbell really spiked their interest!

At first it looks to be a great evening with a formal dinner, dancing to a live band and a mystery solving game. But then… the fog got a bit too thick, and band got lost and was late, the guests decided to swap characters, and when the game was started the guests went their own ways instead of following Bohun’s instructions.

The guests were given pencil and paper and set out to explore the house to find elements from Holme’s adventures. The item and the story it was in were to be noted. An item appeared that was not from the ten chosen stories and no one knew why or who it was from.

The event that really got things going was when one of the attendees was found murdered the following morning. The hunt was on. Mrs. Bradley’s and Laura’s sleuthing uncovered some interesting skeletons in the peoples’ closets. There are red herrings galore to add to the puzzle. It is not the typical country house murder.

This is a new author to me and I plan to read more of her work. A very enjoyable read!

What a stunningly mean spirited book- full of misogyny, ableism and a sense that the rich are always right. Attached to a pretty poor mystery with fully unlikable characters and a very messed up system of ethics with a shockingly grotesque ending. The main detective character is like dark side Miss Marple. It almost plays as a satire of the meaningless, cruel and empty lives of the idle rich. It sort of features a trans man and manages to do basically nothing with it. None of the rich people give a shit about the murder except that it's annoying. Just... ugh.

The rest is spoilers for the entire plot and reveals all the details casually but I'm writing a lot cause I'm mad about it.

This is spoiled in pretty much every blurb but just to be safe: Mountjoy turns out to be a trans man when they find him dead in the bath. There is pretty much nothing done with this - nobody shows any interest in his life at all and early suggestions his life will be investigated just don't happen. It's emphasised over and over that none of the family seem to care at all about his death and the only one who does is the outsider Carstairs. Turns out that's not a clue, they're all just arseholes. The murder is investigated and there's some attempt at suspense but then the attention abruptly shifts to an attempted murder and when they reveal they have proof who did Mountjoy's murder at the end it's kind of an anti-climax. There's no definitive evidence except what appears to be self admission in a diary which is revealed at the end so you can't work it out - although it's hardly surprising because there's only 2 people with even a vague motive and the 1 who did it is constantly portrayed as suspicious so. The only characterisation we get outside of him being an explorer is that he's timid and a bad house guest because he doesn't "golf or motor or walk or ride or swim or tennis or anything" (maybe they could have talked about his exploration stuff? no?) Apparently the only person he gets on with is Eleanor who is... the murderer. And the presumed motive is that she was mad when she found out he had a vagina. Amazing. There's a funny bit where Mrs Bradley suggests that Mountjoy wanted to marry Eleanor either for the money or because of his "sexual perversions". Horrifying!

Eleanor goes on to attempt 2 more murders that are avoided because Mrs Bradley moves the women she knows will be victims to her own room. There's never really any suspects presented for anyone other than Eleanor so the suspense is weak.

At the end Eleanor is murdered and there's a big trial where Mrs Bradley is arrested and you sort of think well she has to be innocent cause she's our hero right? Haha nah she did it, is very proud of it, all the people at the house knew she did it and support her, her lawyer son who defended her knows she did it too... it feels like such a bizarre ending and really uncomfortable. Especially when you realise they'd caught Eleanor red handed attempting murder, had witnesses to her attempting another and have the proof from the diary entry (which magically appears near the end) that she did the first murder so they could easily have got her found guilty of the first murder anyway. There was no need to murder her. At the very least I'm pretty sure they had enough evidence to get her confined to an asylum. But nope. The reasoning for why she did it is that she'd try murdering more people if she felt they were getting in between her and her love obsession but again they could just... get her arrested. It feels gross because of the positive glee everyone takes in it, including Mrs Bradley.

Mrs Bradley is constantly described as ugly, over and over, and even unpleasant to be around (she certainly doesn't seem to care much for other people's feelings or show any sorrow over deaths) but then in the end everyone is cheering for her because she... murdered Eleanor. It's bizarre - that she's presented as bad at least partly because of her looks but her redemption is murdering someone.

All the characters except Dorothy, Carstairs and Inspector Boring are pretty horrible honestly. Bertie is a lecherous man who goes too far with Dorothy after she says no and refusing to accept she's engaged to another man. His lechery is also what provokes Eleanor's attempted murder on Dorothy. He also attempts to murder Eleanor (and gets pretty damn close, apparently - she only revives from being drowned after 30 minutes of not breathing, which is absurd) which isn't something anyone cares about at all. It's just treated as totally fine.

Dorothy's fiancee G something Bing is a horrible man too. He shows no care for Dorothy's feelings and multiple times belittles her and treats her like dirt. He hates his sister even before she's hurt anyone for no obvious reason outside that she's tedious. He doesn't give a shit about Mountjoy dying.

Alistair Bing, the patriarch, also sucks. He's treated Eleanor like an all purpose servant/household manager/academic "assistant" and prevented her getting a real life (which is presented as why she ends up "snapping", not that she's shown any sympathy). He has an awful temper and hates Mountjoy for correcting his amateur archaeology nonsense and again shows basically no concern when he dies. He has an affair with a housemaid and in the end he flies off to Tibet before the trial of the murderer of his daughter, both a red herring and an example of his complete uncaring towards her and seemingly everyone who's not him.

Carstairs is probably the 2nd most sympathetic character, although him avoiding any suspicious because he knows the Chief Constable is another sign of the weird and messed up class politics and ethics in this book. Him applauding Eleanor's murder kind of ruins it too.

Still Cackling
Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle edition (December 31, 2013) of the original Gollancz (UK) hardcover (1932).

One of the most frightful-looking old ladies—(according to William, of course)—that he’d ever seen. She was smallish, thin and shrivelled, and she had a yellow face with sharp black eyes, like a witch, and yellow, claw-like hands. She cackled harshly when William was introduced and chucked him under the chin, and then squealed like a macaw that’s having its tail pulled.

After getting over the shock of meeting Mrs. Bradley in Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley #1 - 1929) I was hesitant to try another book with Gladys Mitchell's singularly odd psychoanalyst detective. I was curious however to know whether Mitchell would have pulled back on her physical descriptions which had constantly emphasized the shrivelled features and claw-like hands. Jumping ahead to read book #4, The Saltmarsh Murders, proved that this was not the case, as can be read in the above extract. The shrieking laughter continues as well.

Mrs. Bradley is on the scene in the coastal village of Saltmarsh when a series of murders occurs. The book is narrated by the village curate Noel Wells who becomes Mrs. Bradley's Watson as the case progresses. Almost all of the odd features of the first book continue in this one. The case becomes enormously complex as aside from the murders it also involves various assaults and imprisonments, a disappearance, a smuggling operation, and mystery persons scrambling across roofs in the night. Mrs. Bradley explains it all in the end of course.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/The_Saltmarsh_Murders.jpg
The spine and the front cover of the original 1932 Gollancz (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

I discovered the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries by Gladys Mitchell from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Although Mitchell was a contemporary of such Golden Age of Crime Fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, I had never heard of her previously and she is the first of the "Forgotten" that I chose to investigate. All 66 Mrs. Bradley novels have been republished in eBook & paperback by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint in the recent years 2013 to 2018.

Trivia and Links
The Saltmarsh Murders was not adapted for television as part of the short-lived The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000) starring Diana Rigg as Mrs. Bradley (the casting of Rigg ignores Mitchell's description of the character). There is a delightful homemade tribute edit which uses clips from the series at Get the Party Started: The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.

Complicated plot with two young men raised separately who are identical twins, one murder discovered near one twin, another near other twin. Grandfather adores one, dislikes the other. Mrs. Bradley involved when she sees one boy push a woman into the river. Gets a bit confusing at the end.

Vacationing with her nephew and his wife Mrs. Bradley is impelled to investigate a series of mysterious deaths and anonymous letters in the neighborhood. Somewhat complex and hard to follow plot. May not be one of her best.

The Anti-Heroine Detective?
Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle eBook edition (March 4, 2014) of the original Gollancz (UK) hardcover (1929).

"In your opinion, which is the most remarkable feature of the whole case?”
“Well, apart from the murder itself,” replied Carstairs slowly, and appearing to ruminate as he spoke, “I suppose the fact that Mountjoy turned out to be a woman is the queerest thing about it.”
“Yes, that was queer,” said Mrs. Bradley, in a curiously inconclusive tone.

The cross-dressing in Speedy Death is not even the queerest thing about the book. Further details would get heavily into spoiler territory though. Suffice to say that Mitchell's description of her psychologist turned amateur investigator Mrs. Bradley are a complete antithesis to the standard attractive, elegant and genteel detectives of the Golden Age of Crime. She is first described as:

Mrs. Bradley was dry without being shrivelled, and bird-like without being pretty. She reminded Alastair Bing, who was afraid of her, of the reconstruction of a pterodactyl he had once seen in a German museum. There was the same inhuman malignity in her expression as in that of the defunct bird, and, like it, she had a cynical smirk about her mouth even when her face was in repose. She possessed nasty, dry, claw-like hands, and her arms, yellow and curiously repulsive, suggested the plucked wings of a fowl.

After that introduction, Mitchell doesn't miss any opportunity to further describe Mrs. Bradley as having grinned fiendishly, cackled and having a harsh cackle of eldritch laughter, and looking like some ghoulish bird of prey with claw-like hands and like an amused and mocking death’s-head with her reptilian smile. She is the smartest person in the room of course.

See cover at https://grandestgame.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/mitchell-speedy-death.jpg?w=465
The spine and front dustcover of the original hardcover edition of “Speedy Death” as published by Gollancz (UK) in 1929. Image sourced from Grandest Game Wordpress (linked below).

Although the culprit and the motive will likely be obvious to most readers quite early on, it seems to take the longest time for everyone else to get on the same page. By that time there are further murder attempts and yet another death. Finally someone is arrested, but then the twists become even more twisted. It will make you wonder whether it wasn't written as a parody of the crime fiction of Mitchell's contemporaries. But then she went on to write 64 more of them, so further development must have been along a more serious line, as 65 parodies would seem to be an unrealistic stretch for a series character.

I discovered the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries by Gladys Mitchell from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Although Mitchell was a contemporary of such Golden Age of Crime Fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, I had never heard of her previously and she is the first of the "Forgotten" that I chose to investigate. All 65 Mrs. Bradley mysteries have been republished in eBook & paperback by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint in the recent years 2013 to 2018.

Other Reviews
Speedy Death 1929 by Gladys Mitchell by George Simmers, Reading 1900-1950, September 15, 2015.
WARNING: This following link contains major plot spoilers, but it also includes interesting excerpts from contemporary reviews in 1929. Speedy Death (Gladys Mitchell) by Nicholas Fuller, Grandest Game Wordpress, December 5, 2021.

Trivia and Links
Speedy Death was adapted for television as the pilot episode of The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000) starring Diana Rigg as Mrs. Bradley. I could not find a trailer or a posting of the episode (the entire series is available on Britbox in Canada) but there is a delightful homemade tribute edit which uses clips from the series at Get the Party Started: The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.

I have watch and enjoyed the Mrs. Bradley mysteries on PBS, starring Diana Riggs, so the Mrs. Bradley character in this first book in the (long) series was a shock! Nothing at all like the Diana Riggs character, she appeared to me to be a cross between Miss Marple and one of the witches from Macbeth - many times in the text, she is described as cackling and she clearly comes across as an intelligent but not nice person.

The mystery itself I found disappointing after a very promising beginning - a man at an English country house party is murdered in his bath, only he turns out to have been a woman who had been disguising herself as a man. Pretty risque for 1929!

You know that feeling when you've read this book before -- like who's going to forget the Hound of the Baskervilles being chained in an abandoned railway station. Typical Mitchell. Compelling. Wonderfully written. But awfully shaggy for golden age purists.

Atmospheric and Mrs. Bradley is always good company. But the solving of the mystery isn't really there, and the denouement drags on long beyond its being interesting.

Death At the Opera by Gladys Mitchell is the 5th book in her mystery series that features Mrs. Bradley. In this outing, Calma Ferris, a self-effacing, meek and not very talented teacher is killed just before she is to go on stage in the school’s presentation of The Mikado. Although the inquest sets a “death by suicide” verdict, the head master of the school believes the woman was murdered and so calls in Mrs. Bradley, an unconventional psychoanalyst and amateur detective to investigate.

Overall I enjoyed this mystery. There were a lot of twists and red herrings to wade through but I found the characters interesting and I enjoyed reading about them. Although I found the side story about a serial murderer at little bit odd, it didn’t detract from the final outcome which was both satisfying and surprising.

Apparently Gladys Mitchell had been a school teacher and I believe she has given us a real treat with the school setting, capturing the petty jealousies and strange relationships that exist between the staff. Of course, it is always fun to read about Mrs. Bradley, with her odd appearance, mismatched clothing and cackling laugh. I did think that this book showed a more sympathetic side to the character and I appreciated seeing this softer side.

Keith y Simon Innes son dos hermanos que disfrutan de las vacaciones de Pascua bañándose en ríos, revolviendo los cachivaches de la tienda de antigüedades y colándose en el circo, cuando su existencia se ve alterada por el brutal asesinato de la equilibrista. Se trata de un «destripador» que actúa las noches de luna llena, y los crímenes no tardan en multiplicarse. Su hermano mayor, Jack, se encuentra entre los sospechosos, y los niños se ven obligados a investigar los terroríficos sucesos. Recreación de una infancia provincial inglesa de entreguerras, relato macabro, siniestro cuento de hadas, esta novela es uno de los principales clásicos inéditos en castellano de conocida como «época dorada» de la ficción detectivesca anglosajona.

Agatha Christie-like mystery but much, much scarier.

I'm not sure what I think of this. It dragged a bit in the middle, mostly as the plot was so odd. So much was crammed in that by the time I got to the end, I barely remembered the beginning. It seems like another book entirely that started with a dead man – who was really a woman – in the guest room bathtub.

But Mitchell's writing is strong and very readable. She painted a very compelling country house setting with characters that really worked well in the plot, even if they're rather 2 dimensional in that way I find all third person, golden age crime characters to be. My biggest gripe is that there is an awful lot of unspoken truths throughout the dialog. Two people talking about the murder, sharing information and one starts to reveal Something Important when the other gasps "You don't mean..." and the other cuts him off and exclaims "Exactly!". And the reader is left saying "what? what do you mean? what the hell did I miss?!"

Of them all, I liked Carstairs best; I am conflicted about Mrs. Lestrange Bradley though. I like her intelligence and her strength and I'm offended on her behalf of the way she keeps getting referred to as an ugly old lady. Mitchell gives us her age via formula, by stating that her son is 39 and she was 18 when he was born. With a bias that grows stronger every day, I hardly think 57 is an age that warrants 'ugly old lady' status. But Mitchell sacrifices a great deal of Bradley's humanity for the sake of her intelligence and strength.

This led me to an interesting personal quandary because the character she most reminded me of is my personal ideal of literary perfection: Shelock Holmes. He too is cold, calculating, analytical to the extreme, and designed to be unpleasing to the eye, so why do I find him to be the acme of literary perfection, but am left unsure, at best, about Lestrange Bradley? I was set to face some hard truths about my own gender bias, but thankfully that can be saved for another day, as the answer really is much simpler: Holmes' analytical genius is grounded in facts and hard science; Lestrange Bradley's on psycho-analysis. That is my bias; I don't condemn psychoanalysis, but neither do I trust it, and I do not find it all that interesting.

So, long story short, this is a book with merit and definitely worth reading, especially for anyone who enjoys classic crime, and Mitchell's writing is worth seeking out. I just don't know if I enjoyed it enough to pursue other books in this series.½

As ever the books of Gladys Mitchell require a little adjustment if you are used to the more famous golden era writers*
However usually the writing compensates for the any effort, and Bradley is a sly, quirky, witty heroine, whom you like in spite of yourself.
However The Saltmarsh Murders is not a book that modern readers will warm to, or at least, I sincerely hope not. Between the deeply offensive racism, and I don't mean a casual of-its-time racism, I mean truly offensive even by the era descriptions of a Black manservant, his relationship to another character and the excusing of certain actions because of the "provocation" of race to a white community, from midway through made this a book I wouldn't recommend.
I know some people will happily read it, excusing it as "the period" attitude but personally I would sooner not leave these attitudes go unremarked or unchallenged.

*It takes a while to adjust to the style of the Mrs. Bradley series; certainly I find them unlike most of the other golden era offerings. The writing is superb, the settings range from melodramatic to classic (country house, quiet village etc.) but there are elements of gothic fiction not just in the plotting but in the characters. Mrs. Bradley is a grotesque if likeable figure. Her infuriating habit of explaining the crime away one way, only to renounce that explanation and explain it another way, coupled with her rather ungenerous habit of holding the cards too close to her chest for even the reader to see, can be irritating but the compensation of the witty, and atmospheric writing helps.

It takes a while to adjust to the style of the Mrs. Bradley series; certainly I find them unlike most of the other golden era offerings. The writing is superb, the settings range from melodramatic to classic (country house, quiet village etc.) but there are elements of gothic fiction not just in the plotting but in the characters. Mrs. Bradley is a grotesque if likeable figure. Her infuriating habit of explaining the crime away one way, only to renounce that explanation and explain it another way, coupled with her rather ungenerous habit of holding the cards too close to her chest for even the reader to see, can be irritating but the compensation of the witty, and atmospheric writing helps.

This book is one of the more standard, classic plots; a disappearance, a murder, a dollop of romance and lots of her trademark psychology. The characters are likeable and there's plenty of false leads, and suspicious characters. My only real quibble was the solution felt flat, slightly unsatisfying but it's well worth the read like most of the series.

Gladys Mitchell books are both classic detective fiction and unusual examples of the same.*

The Longer Bodies was a satisfying read, one of the most overtly funny and with some absolutely unforgetable characters, noticeably the mad Great Aunt whose eccentricity leads her grand nieces and nephews to vie for their inheritance. A very enjoyable read. Would have been 5 stars except for the rather jarring notes, where highly unlikely explanations are given for clues.


*It takes a while to adjust to the style of the Mrs. Bradley series; certainly I find them unlike most of the other golden era offerings. The writing is superb, the settings range from melodramatic to classic (country house, quiet village etc.) but there are elements of gothic fiction not just in the plotting but in the characters. Mrs. Bradley is a grotesque if likeable figure. Her infuriating habit of explaining the crime away one way, only to renounce that explanation and explain it another way, coupled with her rather ungenerous habit of holding the cards too close to her chest for even the reader to see, can be irritating but the compensation of the witty, and atmospheric writing helps.

Good plot, but a bit outdated. Tey and Marsh age a bit better.½

anti sex vicar's wife kills 2 women in small village, solved by Mrs. Bradley

At last, a straightforward mystery by Gladys Mitchell.

When Mrs Bradley’s three young friends go for a boating vacation on the Broads, they run into dead bodies and danger. Mrs. B. discovers links to a previous case, and the game is on.

This is a leisurely book with some suspense here and there, and lots of Mitchell’s trademark humor. The girls are brave and resourceful, making believable heroines.

A special bonus is the title’s place within the story.

Recommended for mystery lovers, especially those who loved the Dana Girls mysteries.½

Mrs. Bradley solves village murders

Another intricate plot from Gladys Mitchell. This one involves a twist on the unreliable narrator, the Dunkirk rescue, many boat trips and lots of swimming, and of course a mysterious death.
Not my favorite in this series, but I do enjoy it when Mitchell portrays young women as brave and not stupid.

The Saltmarsh Murders by Gladys Mitchell is the fourth book in her Mrs. Bradley series of murder mysteries. Originally published in 1932, this book felt more like a spoof on Agatha Christie than a full on mystery what with the odd characters and Mrs. Bradley’s rather off-hand approach to solving the murders. I did find some of the social issues that it raised rather outdated but the story is clever and the memorable characters, including that of Mrs. Bradley, made the book a fun read.

The book is narrated by the curate, Noel Wells, and through him we are privy to a number of village secrets and concerns. The vicar’s wife thinks that her ex-housemaid’s illegitimate baby was fathered by her husband. As the baby has been kept from public view, there are also rumors that the baby was fathered by a negro. When this young mother is strangled, her ex-boyfriend is arrested but most in the village don’t think he did it. Mrs. Bradley and Noel band together to try and figure out both who the father is and who murdered the young woman. Meanwhile another woman goes missing and upon Mrs. Bradley’s advice they find her body in the grave of the first murder victim which then gives them another murder to solve and a missing body to find.

The story takes many twists and turns with plenty of red herrings being thrown about. Mrs. Bradley is a larger than life character who uses psychology to solve her cases. There is no examination of a murder scene or intensive study of the victim, instead we are treated to assorted conjectures and witness statements that are pieced together and used to discover who the murderer is.½