Penhallow: An original and suspenseful whodunnit mystery

by Georgette Heyer

If you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!'The greatest writer who ever lived' Antonia Fraser'[My] generation's Julia Quinn' Adjoa Andoh, star of Bridgerton'One of my perennial comfort authors. Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' Joanne Harris_____________Sparkling characterisation and inventive plot from one of the best known and beloved detective novelists of all time.The death of Adam Penhallow on the eve of his birthday seems, at first, to be by natural causes. He was elderly after all. But Penhallow wasn't well liked. He had ruled over his estate with an iron will and a sharp tongue. He had played one relative off against another. He was so bad tempered and mean that both his servants and his family hated him.It soon transpires that far from being a peaceful death, Penhallow was, in fact, murdered. Poisoned. With his family gathered to celebrate his birthday, and servants that both feared and despised him, there are more than a dozen prime suspects. But which one of them turned hatred into murder?_____________Readers love Penhallow . . .***** 'Full of fascinating characters and plenty of vivid description - this one surprised me and actually made me cry!'***** 'Penhallow is one of my favourite Georgette Heyer novels.'***** 'A real tour-de-force.'***** 'Pure genius!'***** 'Second read, another 5 stars. An original and highly suspenseful mystery, nothing like anything else I have ever read.'

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime, Romance, Historical, British Literature

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Georgette Heyer was a prolific historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth.

In 1925 she married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer. Rougier later became a barrister and he often provided basic plot outlines for her thrillers. Beginning in 1932, Heyer released one romance novel and one thriller each year.

Heyer was an intensely private person who remained a best selling author all her life without the aid of publicity. She made no appearances, never gave an interview and only answered fan letters herself if they made an interesting historical point. She wrote one novel using the pseudonym Stella Martin.

Her Georgian and Regencies romances were inspired by Jane Austen. While some critics thought her novels were too detailed, others considered the level of detail to be Heyer's greatest asset.

Heyer remains a popular and much-loved author, known for essentially establishing the historical romance genre and its subgenre Regency romance.

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a good book, but it's fascinating in its terribleness. As a straight novel, it's not awful, but as a mystery it fails on every level, to the point where it becomes almost a manual on how mysteries should not be written. I read in another review that Heyer wrote this book as a "contract breaker" with her publisher, and it certainly makes sense - when you start reading the book as it was written (as a giant literary middle finger to Heyer's publishers) it becomes almost fun to see how she goes to great lengths to write this boring, drawn-out, not-mysterious mystery.

It's your basic murder-mystery setup: elderly patriarch (Penhallow) rules his family with an iron fist and is hated by all, and every member of his family has secrets and reasons for wanting him dead. When he dies (of course), suspicion lands on every character.

In another writer's hands (or rather, a writer who gave two shits whether people liked the book) this story would have gone differently. The patriarch would have been found dead near the beginning of the story, and as his death was investigated, the family member's various secrets would continue to come to light in one twist after another, with the police officer finally discovering the one crucial clue that pointed to the murderer. But because Heyer, like the majestic honey badger, simply does not give a fuck, the story goes backwards. Penhallow doesn't die until page 292, and Heyer spends the pre-murder pages telling us exactly what each character's Deep Dark Secret or Murderous Motive is. It still has the chance to be a fascinating character study, since the murder of Penhallow forces the various family members to confront each other and try to divert suspicion from themselves while they try to figure out who killed Penhallow...except the reader knows who did it. Heyer shows us the scene where the murderer poisons Penhallow, and then goes on with her story. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

The whole story was like watching a glorious, perfectly choreographed trainwreck, but no trainwreck is interesting after 457 pages. But then again, Heyer had a point to make.

Two stars for the story itself, five stars for sheer balls-out, unrepentant spitting on mystery conventions, and altogether much more entertaining than Heyer ever intended it to be.

[Carol, She's so Novel ꧁꧂ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was undecided about my rating for Penhallow, but finally decided to rate based on the fact this is an excellent, but flawed book.

Now, this isn't what I felt the first couple of times I read it! This is a hard world to visit, full of unlikeable characters. Only Aunt Clara & Clifford are at all sympathetic. The aging & bedridden Penhallow rules his family with a rod of iron. Only his daughter Char is free & that is because a legacy as made her financially independent. Most of Penhallow's sons are violent & to these 21st century eyes it is baffling that in this corner of Heyerland that violence & the fathering of illegitimate children is less to be despised than homosexuality.

I was surprised on this reading to find it clear that both Aubrey & Char are gay! No wonder my parents didn't mind me reading adult books when I was a nipper! They could probably hear the whooshing sounds of things going right over my head!

The Big Twist has a lot of impact & makes a great read, but I don't buy it. Likewise I'm not altogether satisfied with the ambitious servant Loveday's character development.

I wouldn't read this one of you are looking for the usual Heyer comfort read. I certainly wouldn't make it my first Heyer mystery. It has a lot more in common with Barren Corn or Helen. (two of Heyer's gloomy 'contemporary' novels)

& just to blast a popular Heyer myth - I had a good talk with GH's biographer Jennifer Kloester at the Heyer conference in Sydney last year. She is adamant that contrary to what many of the Heyer family & friends have said, GH didn't write this novel as a contract breaker - she was actually very proud of it.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penhallow is a novel you would not expect Georgette Heyer to have written. It is significantly darker and less witty than her other novels, both her historical ones and her mysteries, and these differences and the novel's tone caused her to part company with both her UK and US publishers, as well as polarizing the opinions of her readers then and since.

Penhallow is not a standard murder mystery. What we have instead is the story of a damaged, dysfunctional family who suffer under the tyrannical decrees of their father Adam Penhallow. He controls the finances, he thrusts one of his illegitimate sons under their roof and laughs at the resultant upsets, he is ruining his constitution by excessive drinking and his estate by excessive spending and he verbally abuses everybody. Evenings are spent in his over-heated bed chamber, which is stuffed to overflowing with any piece of furniture which has caught his eye, like a grotesque Aladdin's cave, and family arguments are a source of great delight - he always comes out the winner. His latest plan to control his dependants is to drag two of his sons back home. Aubrey and Clay certainly have no wish to return but lack the financial independence to resist.

In such a claustrophic atmosphere outsiders find it hard to cope - Vivian, the wife of one of his sons, desperately longs for a home of her own, and Faith, Adam's second wife seems to be on the verge of a mental breakdown. Even Clay, Penhallow's youngest son is derided by his father for taking after his mother, Faith, and taunted for his "artistic temperament". He seems a Penhallow by name only. The build-up continues as Heyer sets the stage for what finally happens to drive a member of the family to murder. When the police come to investigate the poisioning of Adam Penhallow, they find no shortage of suspects.

Ultimately this is not a novel where the focus is placed on solving the crime, in fact we are actually informed who the murderer is. After the murder, the novel focuses on the impact of the crime upon the Penhallows, and how they cope with the loss of the lynchpin of their family. He may have been cruel and largely unloved, but Adam Penhallow's death does not fulfill all the hopes of his killer, and not everyone in the family will have a happy ending. There is a beautifully written storyline featuring Penhallow's oldest son Raymond, which will stay with you beyond the close of the book.

Penhallow is one of my favourite Georgette Heyer novels. It features vibrant characters, even if they are also eccentric and in most cases not particularly likeable. The storyline is quite original, sad and gloomy. Home is not a sanctuary in this novel, and Heyer examines the hidden tyrannies and opression that even strong-willed people (as most of the Penhallow family are) can suffer. The weaker members of the family are almost consumed by the stronger. And not even the police can solve all the secrets of the Penhallow family. I recommend this book for anyone willing to try the darkest of Georgette Heyer's novels.

[BrokenTune · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘You’re right, sir. A very unsatisfactory case,’ the Inspector said.

I don't mind a bleak story. I even prefer a bleak story to a cheesy happy one, but I do mind mind boredom and exaggerated drama.

So, when Penhallow's first 300 pages (of a 458 page book) could have been adequately achieved in 80 and the build-up of the family drama dragged on and on, it really annoyed me. And it isn't as if there was much character development to substitute for the lack of plot - endless bickering and people being vile to each other is not a development.

In fact, to borrow a term from the book, I "cordially detested" that it took 300 pages of repetitive, over-written drama to get to the point where the interesting part of the story started.

On top of that, old Penhallow's speeches were almost the same every time, using the same or very similar interjections or reaffirming questions, "by God", "my girl/boy", "damme", etc.

The over-use of the same phrases and patterns gets old quickly. What's more, it makes it very hard to believe that none of the family rolled their eyes at him and told him to stuff it. To me the whole setup just wasn't credible ... until the end. The ending was quite realistic.

I rather liked the ending for being so bleak but realistic in the way that secrets and intentions may have consequences that no one could have foreseen.
Actually, I thought the events following Penhallow's demise were the best part of the book.

As for Heyer, this is my second of her books and I don't think Heyer is for me. I have one more of hers (Footsteps in the Dark), but will probably put that one off for quite a while, if I ever get around to it.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoooo, BOY! What was that?!

I have never read one of Heyer's mysteries, I figure I'll get to them eventually, and have been working my way through her historical romances. So . . . look at this book! The title, the cover . . . I thought I was in for another book about a clever "old maid" and the sarcastic lord she falls in love with!

Um, nope.

Instead I find myself treated (yes, TREATED) to the most amazing gothic family drama! It was like Dark Shadows, but instead of a vampire there's just a horrible old man everyone wants dead. And halfway through, he is dead, and you know precisely who did it and how. But that's not the end. What will become of this huge, weird, damaged family? Absolutely riveting!

Interesting note: one of the women was quite openly gay, dressing like a man and living with a frilly, silly "companion." One of the men was also most likely gay, which he flaunted in front of the more manly men by wearing lavender and doing embroidery, which they forgave because he was so good on a hunt! I found this fascinating!

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

To arrive at the fatal poisoning of Cornish tyrant Adam Penhallow, you need to read over 275 of 457 pages of this novel. At the same time, you also find out who the murderer actually is. But for this intricately characterized Heyer mystery, Penhallow isn't so much a "whodunnit" as a "whydunnit".

Readers of this book seem to be split in their opinion of it. Many think it is pointless and lacking in classic murder mystery appeal. Others, like myself, find it a unique and interesting twist on the genre. Because of these divergent opinions, I wouldn't choose Penhallow for a new reader to Heyer's mystery stories, but save for later after you get a feel for her style.

Penhallow's strength and appeal lies in the sharply drawn character studies, although it's hard to deny that the characters under study are a dark and disagreeable bunch; a really disfunctional family, filled with iron-fisted tyrants, avaricious siblings, a pair of moody, brutish twins, a weak-willed lady of the house, and an ambitious lady's maid. There's no softness or kindness in the Penhallow household, and after only a few chapters, you wonder how Adam Penhallow (or any of the bunch), escaped murder as long as they did.

But Heyer does more then just pen a whodunnit with well developed characters. She also imbues the story with a cautionary tale of what happens when a person perpretrates a moral wrong for what seems to be right reasons. Nothing good can come from such a deed, and justice isn't always served.

I would have loved to a given Penhallow 5 stars, but I have to say that I wasn't fully satisfied with Heyer's ending chapters. They seemed a little rushed and unfinished to me, and had an anticlimatic end. Otherwise, a very riveting story, and one of Heyer's finer mysteries --at least in my opinion.

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think "Penhallow" may be the most tragic mystery I've ever read. And the irony is that the murder victim is one of the least appealing, least sympathetic victims I've ever seen. Heyer spends a long, long time building him up as the object of our dislike (he doesn't even die until something like two-thirds of the way through), but just when we're tempted to feel that he deserved what he got, everything in the little world that he dominated starts falling apart. The book is really quite profound and thought-provoking, though never in a preachy way; it's a safe bet that afterward, you'll never be able to think, "I'd like to kill so-and-so," even in the lightest way, without feeling conscience-stricken! A real tour-de-force.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read. It's not you're average run of the mill murder mystery. The murder doesn't occur until nearly three quarters of the way into the story. We know who the killer is and even then it's ending is unexpected.
I think that's why I liked it so much.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different offering from Georgette Heyer. She wrote it as a "contract breaker" and it evidently achieved its purpose. While it contains a romance, it is not a romance novel and anyone picking up this novel on the basis that Heyer is known as a romance novelist would be in for an unpleasant surprise. Heyer also wrote mysteries, but this is not one of them, even though it is about a murder. The murder does not occur until about 2/3 of the way through the novel and the who, why, and how are known from the time the murder occurs. Notwithstanding this, the novel is suspenseful. The reader spends the first 2/3 of the novel wondering which of the large cast of characters will actually commit the murder and the last third of the novel wondering whether the murderer will be detected. The novel's real strength lies in the character studies and its treatment of the psychological effect of an evil deed committed for a good reason. Not a novel to enjoy, as such, but an interesting read nevertheless.

ETA: I am currently reading Jennifer Kloester's recently published Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller and it turns out that my understanding that Penhallow was written as a contract breaker was incorrect. As it turned out, it was a contract breaker, because Hoddder & Stoughton refused to publish it, but Heyer was immensely proud of the book and at the time she wrote Penhallow considered it to be her best work.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy the Bastard was cleaning boots…. Got your attention? It got mine! This opening phrase must have been very daring to publish in the 1940s, I would think.

Penhallow is the master/patriarch of Trevellin, an estate in Cornwall. He is an invalid but still rules the roost with an iron rod, bullying and intimidating his family, drinking to excess, squandering money, and generally making everyone’s lives miserable. There are many members of the household who would like to see him dead but perhaps few capable of doing the deed.

Never have I read a book with so many stereotypes in it. Members of the family include a brusque trouser-wearing lesbian who has a fluffy pink partner at home in London, an effeminate homosexual with an acidic tongue, a dour heir to the estate, a son in love with a maidservant, a second wife close to having a nervous breakdown, her son who has wasted his time at university, a widowed aunt who cares little for her appearance, and sundry others, all of whom have more interest in horses and hunting than they do in people. Few are likeable characters.

Essentially this book is a character study, observing the behaviour of siblings and other family forced to depend on their father’s estate for their livelihood, dominated by and mainly scared of their father, aware of his many illegitimate offspring, including Jimmy the Bastard whom they all hate, and all at each other’s throats most of the time. The dialogue is nothing short of brilliant. Despite two thirds of the book doing little but leading up to the murder, I couldn’t put it down.

All good murder mysteries end with the culprit being caught as no one can be seen to get away with murder……..or can they?

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst Georgette Heyer book I have ever read. If this was my first Heyer, I'd never give her another try. And that is really saying something. Penhallow is the story of a tyrant who enjoys dragging his enormous brood of kids home and setting them up against one another. Almost all of them have a reason to kill him. And then one day he is found poisoned!
Intersting plot, deathly boring book. I liked two of the characters. Two. Out of 12+ "main" characters. Most of them are insipid, immoral, obnoxious, vulgar...shall I go on? The mystery is nonexistant. Penhallow doesn't actually get murdered until almost page 300! (of a 400 and some page book!) There is so much setting up, so much "getting to know the characters" that the rest of it feels rushed. I despised Penhallow. I despised most of his kids. I despised the book! There is little of the witty dialouge I have come to expect from Heyer. Almost nothing of the comically ridiculous.
Really, not worth reading. At all. Talk about a waste of my Christmas!
Not, not, not worth the bother of reading.

[Jane Jago · Rating 4 out of 5]

A period piece. This is enchanting. A murder victim who nobody likes. Lots of clues and red herrings.

It's a grand romp.

[QNPoohBear · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a story about the Penhallow family of Trevellin in Cornwall. Adam Penhallow rules his family with an iron fist from his bed, where he guzzles whiskey, swears and speaks openly about his many exploits with women. He even employs one of his illegitimate sons, Jimmy, as a servant in the household, causing tension among his legitimate offspring. Eldest son Ray loves the estate more than anything else and wishes his father would stop spending money he can ill afford to spend. Ray is a close one and keeps most of his thoughts to himself, until his father pushes him too far. Second son Ingram wishes he were heir and puts up with his father's tirades. Twins Bart and Con used to be close until Bart started fooling around with their stepmother's ladies' maid with honorable intentions. What Penhallow has honorable intentions toward a woman like that? Eugene, the writer and sickly one, live in his father's home with his wife who can't wait to get out. Charmian, Aubrey and Clay have managed to escape but now their father wants Aubrey and Clay to return home and stop wasting his money. Faith, the young wife of the patriarch wants to escape her husband and the hell he's made for her. One day soon Adam will die and they'll all be free- or so they hope.

I hate to give Georgette Heyer one star but I really really disliked this book. While the second half was better than the first, the characters were all too awful to make the story enjoyable. They're all selfish, horrible people. Adam is the worst. No doubt he forced himself on numerous village women, made himself charming enough to seduce women of better "breeding." He cares about himself, making others miserable, horses, himself, his past exploits, embarrassing his family and making everyone miserable. He is a thoroughly nasty man and I wished someone would slap him with a sexual harassment lawsuit, but obviously such things didn't exist in the time and place the story takes place. Needless to say, I loathed him.

None of the children are much better. All they do is squabble, toss out really nasty comments to and about each other and anyone else in their orbit. They're selfish like their father. Some of them also inherited his tactics where women are concerned. The only one I liked was Char. I felt bad for her because she seems to be a lesbian/transgender by today's standards, in love with her roommate and desperately trying to be another son to her father. All he does is curse her. Fortunately, she is not financially dependant on him like her brothers. This leaves her free to speak sensibly and be the voice of reason.

I kind of felt bad for Faith, Adam's long-suffering wife. She isn't intelligent enough to make him a good wife and he never loved her in the first place. He's completely awful to her. She is whiny, selfish and silly but she's not very bright and had a very different idea about marriage than Adam did.

The plot has a couple of twists along the way I didn't see coming. I was surprised at the identity of the murderer. The ending was a little too simple, neat and tidy for me. I was expecting something a little different.

I need to go read one of her Regency romances now to lighten up my thoughts a bit. Read this if you are a die-hard Heyer purist or want to punish yourself by reading about a bunch of awful people.

[Elizabeth Hunter · Rating 1 out of 5]

'A very unsatisfactory case,' the Inspector said.

That's the last line of this book and I couldn't agree more. There is not a single likeable character in this story--each and every one has been twisted and blighted by the patriarch of the Penhallow family. When he is finally killed more than 2/3 of the way through, it is a relief, and since we know exactly who did it, there is no suspense except whether or not the murderer will be exposed.

But that's not the worst of it--the worst is the endless descriptions of every single piece of furniture in each room of Trevellin, the home and prison of the Penhallows. Several times she describes the position of each member of the family in a room--both relative and absolute--in a way one might expect to be relevant. But no, she's just spinning out a tedious yarn, banal in its sadness. Even the witty character is never more than mean.

I think this one is enough to break my Heyer habit for a bit. Time to catch up on other reading.

[Cece · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although Heyer is famous for her Regency romances, those were her bread and butter writing, not the books that she longed to write. What she really wanted to work on was a sweeping, detailed historic "quintogy" of the House of Lancaster. Sadly, only one, "My Lord John" was published. The character list goes on for pages.
Her mysteries, while few in number, are much less formulaic than the romances. Penhallow is reminiscent of Hardy or Bronte in its ever-expanded atmosphere of despair and its lack of the neat and tidy solution.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, now I get the Heyer love. Picked this up because several of my GR and BL friends swear by Heyer. It was enjoyable. More of a domestic drama than a flat out mystery. It's like a forerunner of Ruth Rendell when she is/was writing as Barbara Vine.

Heyer looks at a family that is under the thumb of the worst Dickens character ever (think an evil Martin Chuzzlewit). Then the horse manure hits the fan. It's actually quite a good book with nice little touches.

[Dillwynia Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Penhallow is definitely not your standard murder mystery. For a start, the reader knows straight out who the murderer is, and their motives. I really liked this concept, and in the hands of a great literary giant, this could have been an interesting analysis into the effects a murder has on those immediately affected. Unfortunately, Heyer is not a literary giant, and sadly, the book falls short.

This is such a shame, and if only Heyer had devoted more pages to the fall out after the murder, rather than the too many pages devoted to the bullying of Penhallow himself, I think this could have worked, and been carried off by Heyer. But she doesn’t; instead, the bullying of Adam Penhallow goes on and on, and for some of the characters it doesn’t change, so that I became a little bored with the narrative.

Each of the Penhallow children and spouses are forced to be trapped into submission by Adam Penhallow. He either holds purse strings, or can manipulate the person to be at his bidding. The house is not a harmonious one, and the characters devote a lot of time bickering at each other. The phrase: "Oh, do shut up” is a little over worked. So- one character considers: what would happen if Penhallow died? Wouldn’t everyone then be able to lead the life they desire? It is put to the test, with varied results.

We all presume that a look or a perceived behaviour can have more meaning that it actually does. This is certainly the case for one character- and with disastrous results. I found the police here a bit of non-entities, and two characters reactions to the second death (the aunt and uncle) would have been interesting to explore, but Heyer ends suddenly; or maybe she felt she had said all she wanted to say. Fir me, I wanted more here, and less of the prolonged nastiness.

The descriptions of the rooms and clothing can be a little much at times. I'm sure I didn't need to know the make and quality of every stick of furniture in Penhallow's bedroom. I loved the gay & lesbian characters in the novel. They slipped through the censors so easily, but with contemporary eyes they are quite blatant. So- read the book: it is light, with an interesting twist to the murder mystery tale, and wonder what would have happened if it was written by someone like Woolf, Graham Greene, or Chesterton as a moral tale.

[Margaret Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

According to Jane Aiken Hodge's biography of Georgette Heyer, she wrote Penhallow as a contract-breaker for a publisher with which she no longer wished to publish but that had an option for her next mystery. It shows. It's not a mystery so much as a tragedy, and populated with distinctly unpleasant characters. That being said, bad Heyer (or more properly Heyer being bad on purpose) is still better than a lot of writers' best. But still: two stars, as I can't say I liked it exactly, but like a trainwreck, I couldn't look away.

[Christiane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have enjoyed almost all of Heyer’s mysteries but this one was just a trial to get through. Imagine being trapped at a family reunion where everyone is horrible; there are no likeable characters in this story. Even if you had not read the back cover, it's perfectly obvious that the tyrannical father is going to be murdered, but over halfway through the book he still hasn't been killed; then when he is, there is literally no mystery about who did it. This book left me depressed, like I had just spent way too much time with very miserable people.

[Marwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a typical mystery novel. However it has a lot of emotions in it. The ending was sad and I felt bad for Raymond, who was afraid of losing everything he worked hard for; the name, the farm. He would rather die than facing such humiliation .
It doesn't have the thrill and the twists you seek in the mystery genre, but it has a good story.

[Abigail Bok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Penhallow is a bit of an odd duck in the Georgette Heyer canon—not historical fiction, not a “serious” novel (like the worst of her oeuvre), not really a murder mystery—more of a genre novel with some violence but no detecting. It is set in Cornwall in a vague present day (“present” referring to 1942, when it was published, though there is no mention of World War II, so maybe it should be described as between-the-wars).

Nearly all the action takes place, claustrophobically, in a mansion dominated by the Penhallow family patriarch. The family is numerous (perhaps unnecessarily so), though as is typical of Heyer the individual members are well differentiated. Penhallow the man is getting older, but his years and infirmities do not keep him from trying to control every aspect of the lives of everyone else in the house—in fact, his weakening body urges him to ever more vicious and ruthless manipulation. Heyer’s gift for dialogue is on full display as he unerringly probes and exploits the secrets and weaknesses of his family and servants; I really believed in his gratuitous cruelties and mischief.

The other members of the family are helpless in his grip, in ways and for reasons that don’t exist in contemporary society but were real enough then. The Penhallows are lords of the manor in an era when that role was just ceasing to be meaningful—if the story had been written even five years later, it wouldn’t have been plausible. So the patriarch’s poisonous games succeed in poisoning the relationships of everyone in the house and neighborhood, and nobody can really escape. This leads to inevitable disaster (which I won’t tell you about because that would spoil your journey through this well-crafted plot).

Heyer is always on shakier ground when she writes in (what was for her) the present day, and here I felt she sometimes relied excessively on painfully long descriptions of rooms as a stand-in for the personality of their occupants. People can on occasion be deftly described by describing one or two of their possessions, but endless catalogs of their belongings amount to hitting the reader over the head with the obvious. Heyer also overexplains some of the characters long after we have grasped their essence. The portrayal of most of the women was a little tiresome to me (nerves and airs and hysteria), but that’s typical of the era. The servants, by contrast, were delicious—rude, uppity, arrogant, impossible to live with or without.

The ending, while realistic enough under the circumstances, was a bit abrupt and unsatisfying—too untidy for me, I suppose. I would have appreciated having the characters at least know the truth. In short, while many of Heyer’s great gifts were on display here, I did not entirely enjoy their packaging.

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read several reviews prior to reading this book, so I knew it wasn't a typical mystery; nor was it typical of Georgette Heyer.

The Penhallows are a very dysfunctional family, which is always fun to read about. The patriarch, Adam Penhallow, is a mean-spirited, cantankerous, selfish, improvident old man who delights to keep his many children under his thumb. It's no wonder he is murdered.

As I said above, this is not a typical murder mystery. It's more psychological study, but it's a lot of fun for most of the book.

I was fine with the long buildup to the murder. I was even fine with Ms. Heyer showing us outright who the murderer was. The one thing I cannot forgive is that she had Raymond, my favorite of all the siblings, both legitimate and illegitimate, commit suicide. That just ruined the book for me. Still, it gets 4 stars because it's very well written and has such great characters.

[R.J. Rodda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth reading. A description of a horrible family with a despotic father. He’s murdered by one of the family - there is no mystery to this - and his death makes things worse for some and better for others.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, a VERY different Georgette Heyer book. I felt like I was reading a play. It all takes place mostly inside, and a few moments outside of a home owned by a tyrant , Adam PenHallow; who owns a stud farm. The house is inhabited by the many and varied members of his family. Reading the book is "hearing" them tear at each other. At the center, like a great spider, is Adam Penhallow unmercifully, ruthlessly, flaying each family member; with words. The whole book is dialogue , cutting, parrying, one-upping and terrorizing one another. Then not surprisingly, his second wife murders Penhallow, by poisoning him. The doctor , upon arriving to sign the death certificate, refuses (the young "modern" doctor, as opposed to the old Dr. , Who is Penhallow's "friend") recognizing the signs of poisoning. An autopsy and subsequent inquest throw the already completely dysfunctional family into even greater depths of emotional angst and stress...it really is a wonder any of them survive !

..and one wonders when is murder (if ever) justified? Can murder be viewed as a justifiable way out of an untenable situation?( More than one family member certainly had cause to murder Penhallow.) Certainly the law doesn't consider this, but the book presents this possibility of thought....... the reader, who has more incite into the situation than any one of the characters, has sympathy for more than one of the embattled family members . However, each one has glaring faults, causing the reader to not like any of them .....so there is also that "they get what they deserve" mixed with sympathy! I guess i would say it is a psychological foray into the treacherous emotional and economical landscape of very selfish and unhappy family. It really isn't a mystery....I'm not sure what the genre would be??? Dark;. dark and no redemption... Sad, unnerving and without hope...

[Louise Culmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is, rather oddly, classified with Heyer's mysteries, though it is not one. The murder occurs late in the book, and we know who has done it and why. The only real mystery is why the ghastly victim has not been murdered years earlier. Most of the book is about horrible, tyrannical Adam penhallow tormenting his sons and enjoying making them hate him. The sons mostly hate each other as well. Adam also likes to torment his rather feeble second wife Faith. Faith hates and fears her husband, and her stepsons all despise her. Faith is constantly compared unfAvourably to Adam's first wife, the feisty Rachel. Faith's maid Loveday has ideas above her station, and Adam's son Bart is in love with her, and plans to marry her. This naturally makes everyone even more furious than they are already. Bart nearly kills one of his brothers for saying unkind things about Loveday. The other servants are shocked that one of their number is getting Above herself. The house is a seething hotbed of anger, jealously, and suspicion. Adam gets more and more villainous. About halfway through the book a startling revelation is made by Adam to one of his sons, a revelation that is frankly unbelievable. Adam's motive for having done what he did is never adequately explained, and that his first wife should have colluded with him is even more unbelievable. the revelation inevitably causes even more rage and hatred. The whole thing is like Cold Comfort farm, but alas with no Flora Poste to sort things out. Georgette Heyer never wrote another book like this and thank goodness for that. One is quite enough.

[Melanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very odd sort of mystery and almost written backwards.

It starts off with meeting the entire family, airing everyone's dirty laundry, and establishing that nearly everyone has a motive to commit the murder. The murder itself doesn't happen until about 2/3 of the way through the book - and when it does, it's no mystery at all - we're told exactly who, why and how.

The rest of the novel just deals with the aftermath, and the little bit of suspense comes from wondering if the murderer gets away with it and if other characters get to keep their secrets.

If I'd expected a traditional murder mystery, I would have been really disappointed. This is more like a standard novel that just happens to contain a murder than something that conforms to genre expectations. And it doesn't have the witty dialog that Heyer is known for -- an unusual novel any way you look at it!

All the characters were very interesting and vivid - but I can't say I truly LIKED any of them, so if you're one of those people who have to like their characters, you'll probably have a difficult time of it.

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a winner! But don't read this expecting a murder mystery, never mind what the Goodreads shelves say. This is snoop into the dysfunctional lives of one of the most unpleasant families I've yet seen in print. Having just finished The Unknown Ajax I can certainly see parallels but the nastiness contained in this set of people is a whole other step above.

Never was I so thankful to be born into a family that wasn't full of crazy people!

3 1/2 stars

[Karlyne Landrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most unusual of Ms. Heyer's books, but probably my favorite. It's a murder "mystery" that isn't a mystery; we follow the murderer from her justification of the murder through the murder itself to the disintegration of the household she thought she was saving from an overbearing vicious brute. Do we ever know where our actions will lead, regardless of our intentions? Does good ever come from evil?

[Asghar Abbas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wordlings, such glorious words.

Utterly proves the adage you can't make an incredibly talented person write a badly written book. As in, she can't write a bad book even if she wanted to. And Heyer wanted to; to get out of an unsatisfactory contract with her publishers. And this book was the result of that. What a result.

Game of Thrones withdrawal trivia : I am willing to bet all my castles I built in the air that Martin based old Lord Frey on Penhallow, heh.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoy Heyer's Regency romances very much. She's an adept writer, and the Regencies are witty, entertaining, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. So I thought I'd try this for some COVID-19 relief.

But I only made it 20% of the way through before bagging it. There was a tediously long list of people who had reason to kill the victim, who still wasn't dead by this point. And none of them were likable. The entire family needed a visit by a pissed-off Jack Reacher, as far as I was concerned.