The Widow of Bath (spoilerish)

 The Widow of Bath (1952) by Margot Bennett

Hugh Everton, who has served a short prison sentence for a dud check he never should have written, is adjusting to life after prison by working as a dreary food/hotel critic making his way along the coast. He's made his way to a particularly dreary little hotel with really bad food and extraordinarily bad waiters. But Everton's life is about to get more exciting. In the hotel bar, he meets Jan who he once thought he was in love with. Then his old flame Lucy comes in with her husband, the ex-Judge Gregory Bath. Bath is Jan's uncle. In their entourage is a man named Gerald Cady and another man named Atkinson, who Everton is sure he knows by an entirely different name. It's such a cozy little get-together. Lucy turns on the charm and invites Hugh back to the house for some drinks. As soon as he gets in the house, Hugh realizes there is an air of tension and everyone seems to be waiting for something to happen. 

They sit down for a nice little round of bridge, the judge invites him to the balcony to look at the sea--and to have an uncomfortable little chat. The judge heads to bed and Hugh returns to the bridge game where everyone keeps glancing at their watches. And then something does happen. They all hear a shot and Lucy decides she ought to go see what it's about. The judge's room is a mess and Bath lies shot in the middle of the room. Hugh gets curious about what happened, why Lucy insisted he be there, and what all those poor waiters at his hotel have to do with everything. He'll get knocked out a couple of times, someone else will die, and the police will be pretty exasperated by his meddling--but in the end, he'll figure out whodunnit. 

*******Spoilers abound ahead--though nothing explicit about who did it. Read at your own risk******

I seem to be an outlier amongst my Golden Age mystery friends here in the blogging world. Both Kate at Cross Examining Crime and Sergio at Tipping My Fedora have given this very positive reviews. Martin Edwards (of Do You Write Under Your Own Name) sings her and its praises in his introduction to the British Library Crime Classics edition which I read.

Margo Bennett was one of the finest British crime writers of the 1950s, and The Widow of Bath, first published in 1952 is one of her most impressive books. The mystery puzzle is intricate, the characterization strong, the setting evocative, and the prose elegant and witty.

I hate to disagree with such eminent reviewers and writers, but Bennett's book doesn't do a whole lot for me. I may agree that most of the characters are well-drawn--but none of them are engagingly well-drawn. The judge, though his time on stage is brief, is possibly the strongest character. We get a solid sense of his commitment to law and order...the foundation of why he had to die. Our "hero" (I use the term loosely) Hugh is well-drawn as a conflicted, bitter, goop. He just oozes along getting himself into all kinds of trouble--mostly because he has some sort of fatal attraction Lucy, but also because he just can't seem to stop meddling in police business. [You'd think with his background, he'd want to fly under the police radar--but, no.] Lucy is supposed to be some sort of femme fatale luring Hugh to his doom. She's definitely not a nice woman to know and Bennett makes that plain enough through her descriptions. What one wonders is with all the pointers about what a bad girl she is why on earth does it take Hugh so long to catch on? Hugh and Jan seem to go out of their way to be as unpleasant as possible to each other. Even after Hugh "sees the light" about Lucy and seems to think he's really in love with Jan. Then, at the end, the two kiss and suddenly declare themselves engaged. But there's  no sense at all that these two people are really getting along and will ride off into the romantic sunset together. In fact, as the book ends, the two aren't even in the scene together. The other guests on the night of Judge Bath's death are less distinct. Other than descriptions of what they look like, I have no real sense of Atkinson and Cady at all. I know that Cady is an unpleasant fellow, but if you asked me to describe him right now without referring to the book at all, I couldn't tell you a thing about him as a person. [And I just finished the book.] And don't get me started on Inspector Leigh. Yes, he's described perfectly for the type of policeman he is: "Inspector Leigh was a shadowy, yawning figure....a flabby, loose man, with a truculence that suggested he was not the perfect bureaucrat." And not the perfect detective either. He's hardly seen and when he is we don't see him doing a whole lot of detecting. He has two moments--in the beach dressing shed and in regards to the balcony--but that's it.

And elegant and witty prose? Um, no. Unless I'm totally missing something. Dorothy L. Sayers managed to be both elegant and witty when she had Lord Peter and Harriet interact during Have His Carcase. Harriet is still bruised and struggling with her feelings of debt and gratitude (and attraction to Peter, though she doesn't want to admit it). She lashes out at him--much as Hugh and Jan lash one another--but Sayers' prose is everything Bennett is reported as being, but isn't. Even at her most bitter, Harriet is far more elegant and witty than Hugh or Jan will ever be. They are dreary, bitter, and cruel. Beyond the interactions between the two, the prose style is just, quite honestly, confusing to me. For example, when Hugh isn't being outright unpleasant to Jan, he speaks in this supposedly lyrical, literary style--throwing in quotes here and there like a chef who has no clue how to cook, but knows one should toss in some herbs and spices (what kind doesn't really matter) to make things flavorful. There is no flow and the quotations and allusions a) make no sense to this reader and b) don't seem to have much to do with what he and Jan are talking about. The same thing happens when he speaks with Mrs. Leonard--except they both do it.

The plot is fine--nothing spectacular--and the motive makes perfect sense, given the character of the judge. Though how we were supposed to know that particular person would have that kind of motive before we're told at the end, I don't know (or I missed it as I worked my way through the supposedly elegant prose). I'm hoping that The Man Who Didn't Fly (which is waiting on the TBR pile) provides a more entertaining mystery. ★★ Though, as noted above, others have liked The Widow of Bath much more than me, so your mileage may vary.

First lines: "I've eaten this meal so often," the young man said to the waiter. "I know it's face, but I forget its name."

Last line: When he came to the road he turned inland, leaving Mrs. Leonard alone forever with the birds and the sea. 
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Deaths = 2 (one shot; one drowned)