Death in a Pheasant's Eye

 Death in a Pheasant's Eye (1971) by James Fraser (Alan White)

Detective Superintendent Bill Aveyard, one of the youngest of his rank, is faced with an interesting problem on Guy Fawkes Night. No one seems to be missing from the village, but there's a man's body sewn into the Guy's clothes and sitting atop the Guy Fawkes bonfire. If a pair of keen eyes in the crowd hadn't noticed it before the fire took hold, the body would have been unrecognizable....something someone was probably counting on. At first the villagers suggest that the body might be Brian Sharpe--a man who was supposed to be in London, but maybe he never made it there? When Brian shows up safe and sound, Aveyard and his team must try to figure out who would have killed a stranger and substituted them for the Guy. Things become more interesting when the medical examiner discovers cactus spines embedded in the victim's hands. How and where could that have happened?

Meanwhile, a young ne'er-do-well was caught in the act of stealing lead tiles from the vicarage. But before the police can come and question him, he disappears--without pants or shoes on a bitterly cold November night. There has also been a spate of thieving by a thief with a taste for Victoriana and the poaching of the squire's pheasants. Are these things connected? And if so, how? But when a young wife is killed by an arsenic injection...delivered through a hypodermic hidden in a chair, Aveyard begins to wonder if there is more than one culprit in the village. And...was that dose of arsenic really intended for Helen Robinson or for her husband Stanley? Because the chair in question seems to be more of a man's chair. 

So...I read this one back in 1991 (long before blogging) and wasn't terribly impressed. My logging of books at the time was limited to star ratings only (just two awarded) and I had no memory of the book at all. When I spied this Walker & Co edition at Half Price Books a few years ago, I decided to give it another try. Having done so, I think I know what put me off last time--Fraser's writing style. He jumps around in the story a lot and we get so many different viewpoints that it's difficult to get a rhythm going. And some of the brief scenes are so abrupt that they don't make a great deal of sense. He also, very annoyingly, veers back and forth between present and past tense for no apparent reason.

But I do have a greater appreciation for the characters. Superintendent Aveyard and his Sergeant Jim Bruton are a great team. I really wish that we had stuck with them more because those scenes are well done. Aveyard has a great deal of compassion for the suspects and perpetrators and, though an outsider to the village, seems to quickly get the measure of each person. It's easy to see why he has moved quickly up the ranks. The plot is interesting and the reveal on who the identity of the first victim is a nice twist, though I could have done with a few more clues. There are a couple but they're not big enough to give the reader everything they need to reach a full solution. Overall, a solid read which could have been better had the style been more fluid. ★★★

First line: Harry Greaves poured paraffin over the wood; when the can was nearly empty he jerked it upwards, trying to splash the effigy of Guy Fawkes at the top of the pyre.

Last line: When the arsenic took effect he jerked upright in the first spasm of pain: the chair in which he had been sitting toppled over, and his hands clutched a Chrysanthemum and the Cleistocactus Straussii as he fell across the staging of the greenhouse, then rolled to the floor.
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Deaths = 5 (two natural; one bonfire; two poisoned)