The Eve of the Wedding

 The Eve of the Wedding (1980) by Lionel Black (Dudley Barker)

Kate and Henry Theobold have just met the Shoeburys--Americans Dick and Felicity-Ann. Dick Shoebury's and Henry's clubs are corresponding clubs, so Dick has temporary membership while in London for his daughter's wedding. The two men hit it off immediately and invites Dick and his wife for dinner. The Shoeburys reciprocate by inviting the Theobolds to a good old-fashioned German Polterabend--a noisy prenuptial party on the evening before the wedding which includes a mock abduction of the bride and a scavenger hunt by the groom to find his intended. Dick thought this would be a great idea--better than separate a separate bachelor and hen party. Is either family German. Not that anybody mentions. Are any of the family members particularly excited about the idea. Not that you'd notice. Is there any reason on earth why a couple of newly-met "friends" would want to crash such a pre-wedding party? Not that I can think of on the face of it.

But...Kate is a newspaper reporter. And when Dick mentions that the German marriage custom has loose ties to the idea of poltergeists...and that the groom's family home has its very own poltergeist, Kate is intrigued. And determined to get a story out of it if she can. Little does she realize that she's going to have an even bigger story by the end of the party. As the back cover says, "By the time this party's over, it has ended in tragedy: a bride in hysteria, a groom with murder in his heart, and a corpse in the study." Philip Leatheridge is the groom...and his brother Gregory is the corpse.

The Leatheridge family home is full of oddities--from the patriarch, Grandfather James, and Auntie Sybil & Uncle Rupert, who all seem to have stepped out of late-Victorian times, to Gregory, the grandson who has somehow seized control of the family business, and his down-trodden wife Cynthia to Julia, the great-granddaughter who is just the right age to encourage poltergeists to the faithful servants Mr. & Mrs. Budd. Mr. Budd looks like he might have been a burglar in another life...and probably was. And, of course, there's the poltergeist--who has shoved Dick Shoebury in the back when no one else was around and broken mirrors and tossed a bit of furniture about. When Gregory is found stabbed in the study, Auntie Sybil insists that the poltergeist has taken up dagger-throwing as its newest trick. But Kate and Henry--and their old friend Inspector Comfort--don't believe it for a minute. There are plenty of very real motives to be had without adding a supernatural element. It's obvious that Cynthia hated her husband--had she finally decided to get rid of him for good? And what juicy secret did Gregory know about his grandfather that would cause the old man to sign over the business? And then there's the hysterical bride--made so by the actions of Gregory. Was his brother furious enough over it to kill him? 

 Once again, Kate goes snooping all over the house and nearly finds herself added to the victim list. She definitely falls into the "where angels fear to tread" category and you'd think by now she'd realize that she shouldn't go off by herself. Of course, being one half of the amateur detective duo, we all know that she won't really be dropped out the window in an "accidental" fall, but still. The murder plot is a fairly good one, though I must say it has a bit of a creep factor that isn't chalked up to a supernatural entity. There's a couple of Leatheridge family members who seem to have a few screws loose. A solid, middle-of-the-road mystery. ★★★

First line: Kate left them in the living-room, where Henry was busily stirring dry martini for their guests, and went through to the kitchen to get the soup bowls of cold consomme out of the fridge.

Last lines: The pair of them were quite calm again now. Civilized.
*******************

Deaths =  2 (one auto accident; one stabbed)