Maureen Sarsfield (1899–1961)
Auteur de Murder at Shots Hall
A propos de l'auteur
Séries
Œuvres de Maureen Sarsfield
Gloriana 1 exemplaire
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Autres noms
- Heard, Maureen Kate (birth)
Pretyman, Maureen (married) - Date de naissance
- 1899
- Date de décès
- 1961-11-12
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- UK
- Lieu de naissance
- Hampshire, England, UK
- Lieu du décès
- Cork, Ireland
- Lieux de résidence
- Hastings, Sussex, England, UK
- Professions
- novelist
mystery novelist
children's book author - Courte biographie
- Maureen Sarsfield was the pen name of Maureen Kate Heard, later Maureen Pretyman, born in Hampshire, England in 1899 or 1900. In 1919, she married George Frederick Pretyman in London. She was the author of two humorous mysteries, Green December Fills the Graveyard (1945), set in a partially-bombed out country manor in the later years of World War II, later reprinted as Murder at Shots Hall; and A Dinner for None (1948), later reprinted as Murder at Beechlands. She also wrote a non-mystery novel, Gloriana (1946), and several children's books, including Queen Victoria Lost Her Crown (1946).
Membres
Critiques
This is a top-notch story that should appeal to most cozy mystery fans.
Anabel Adams is desperate. She is deep in debt and in danger of losing her beloved hotel, Beechlands. But help could be on the horizon in the form of two rival investors who are coming to spend the weekend and inspect the hotel. Eager to make a good—yet inaccurate—impression, Anabel organizes a party in honor of war hero & notorious womanizer, Lawty Lawrence. She invites elite members of the smart set that are sure to delight Lawty and to impress her potential investors.
Unfortunately, an ill-timed blizzard derails Anabel’s well-laid plans, and all of her carefully selected guests cancel at the last minute. Now Anabel must make do with her meager paying hotel guests and her dull neighbors to make the party a success. But how successful can a party for Lawty be when one of the guests is a woman he cruelly cast aside and another is a man whose wife Lawty ran off with a couple of years ago?
Before the party can even get underway, Lawty is found dead in the snow underneath his bedroom window. At first, it seems to be suicide; but, when stranded motorist Inspector Lane Parry of Scotland Yard appears on the scene, he recognizes an obvious case of murder when he sees it. With the hotel snowed in and the phone lines cut, it’s up to the reluctant Inspector Parry to hunt down clues and interrogate the nutty array of suspects to find the murderer.
An isolated English country manor house is just about the ideal backdrop for any cozy mystery story, and Murder at Beechlands does not disappoint. The inhabitants of Beechlands are an unpleasant, but kooky, bunch of characters; almost any one of them has the potential to be the killer. The action is virtually non-stop, and there are a lot of red herrings lurking in the plot. Is Beechlands really cursed and haunted? Why do three mysterious knocks always seem to portend disaster at Beechlands? Just what did Miss Killigrew see in Lawty’s bedroom? And why is Cintra’s mouth always open? Or does it all boil down to the fact that a notorious criminal is lurking amongst the hotel staff?
This amusing, high-speed romp will really keep readers guessing until the end.… (plus d'informations)
Anabel Adams is desperate. She is deep in debt and in danger of losing her beloved hotel, Beechlands. But help could be on the horizon in the form of two rival investors who are coming to spend the weekend and inspect the hotel. Eager to make a good—yet inaccurate—impression, Anabel organizes a party in honor of war hero & notorious womanizer, Lawty Lawrence. She invites elite members of the smart set that are sure to delight Lawty and to impress her potential investors.
Unfortunately, an ill-timed blizzard derails Anabel’s well-laid plans, and all of her carefully selected guests cancel at the last minute. Now Anabel must make do with her meager paying hotel guests and her dull neighbors to make the party a success. But how successful can a party for Lawty be when one of the guests is a woman he cruelly cast aside and another is a man whose wife Lawty ran off with a couple of years ago?
Before the party can even get underway, Lawty is found dead in the snow underneath his bedroom window. At first, it seems to be suicide; but, when stranded motorist Inspector Lane Parry of Scotland Yard appears on the scene, he recognizes an obvious case of murder when he sees it. With the hotel snowed in and the phone lines cut, it’s up to the reluctant Inspector Parry to hunt down clues and interrogate the nutty array of suspects to find the murderer.
An isolated English country manor house is just about the ideal backdrop for any cozy mystery story, and Murder at Beechlands does not disappoint. The inhabitants of Beechlands are an unpleasant, but kooky, bunch of characters; almost any one of them has the potential to be the killer. The action is virtually non-stop, and there are a lot of red herrings lurking in the plot. Is Beechlands really cursed and haunted? Why do three mysterious knocks always seem to portend disaster at Beechlands? Just what did Miss Killigrew see in Lawty’s bedroom? And why is Cintra’s mouth always open? Or does it all boil down to the fact that a notorious criminal is lurking amongst the hotel staff?
This amusing, high-speed romp will really keep readers guessing until the end.… (plus d'informations)
I lost interest 2/3 of the way into the book. Several of the characters as they were described were annoying. The writing began strong and interesting as the characters began to develop, however, the characters became predictive.
The setting was an old manor in a winter storm which I truly enjoy but gave up on page 120 or 190.
The setting was an old manor in a winter storm which I truly enjoy but gave up on page 120 or 190.
A good cozy mystery. I love these older mysteries. I'm glad that I found Rue Morgue Press. They put out a great little catalog of mystery titles. I really look forward to it. I bought this book because I wanted to support Rue Morgue in their quest to bring great mysteries back into print. It was worth every penny.
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 3
- Membres
- 110
- Popularité
- #176,729
- Évaluation
- 3.4
- Critiques
- 6
- ISBN
- 2
This book is not horrible, but it does suffer from a lot of problems that keep it from being a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.
The worst part of this book is definitely the unappealing and lecherous character of Detective Arnoldson; he is just a disgusting and completely unnecessary component of the book that detracts substantially from the ‘coziness’ of this cozy mystery.
The descriptions of Flikka Ashley are nauseating, too; she’s so exquisitely beautiful and inscrutable that all men fall instantly head over heels in love with her the second they behold her. Um, ok. (?) Flikka is also a serial bride, so she just has to end up romantically attached at the end; when the man she wants isn’t available, she just sort of settles for the nearest guy who is. That part was so ridiculous, I actually laughed derisively out loud.
The list goes on and on: the pregnant woman who incessantly drinks alcohol, the quasi-prostitute who is endlessly playing games, the jovial policeman who is constantly making jokes in a painfully irritating dialect, the murderer who is glaringly obvious even before the murders take place, the shocking secrets that aren’t really shocking at all, the rationale for the murders that is far from rational, etc. There are just a lot of things in this book that are downright annoying.
This is Maureen Sarsfield’s first attempt at mystery writing, and it certainly shows. However, her second (& final) mystery Murder at Beechlands is vastly superior. It’s unfortunate she didn’t keep up her mystery writing because there was clearly a lot of talent and potential there.… (plus d'informations)