A Brush with Death

Irish Gardening Mystery #3

by Sheila Pim

You can fool Art experts but not An Irish gardener with An eye for details. Hester Fenneily's brother Fergus, An Artist with great skill And few Sales, Appears to be The victim of a poisoner. But who would do it & how is the posioned being Administered.

Genres: Mystery, Ireland, Crime, Irish Literature

155 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Sheila Pim wrote her first detective novel, Common or Garden Crime, to satisfy her father's thirst for detective stories, the publication of which had been curtailed thanks to the paper shortages which affected neutral Ireland during the "Emergency"--or World War II, as it was called in most other parts of the globe.

* Full biography here.

Reviews

[GeraniumCat · Rating 5 out of 5]

In brief: Sheila Pim's mystery stories are slight in many ways, full of cosy domesticity and middle-class values. But they are also gently acerbic at times, intelligently written and usually pose interesting moral questions. I enjoy them very much and she is deserving of a much greater audience.

[Fran Irwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming look into Irish village life in the '50s. There is no murder. No mayhem. No sex-on-the-beach (actually, there's no beach), just a couple of artists looking for recognition, and a pretty, young girl looking for a raison d'etre.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comedy of manners set in an upper middle class Dublin suburb, this 1950 crime classic is highly enjoyable.
Fashionable Dublin likes to seem knowlegable about art, but when disreputable artist Fergus Gandon seeks refuge with his respectable sister Hester claiming someone is trying to poison him, the trouble is only beginning. Her art-mad daughter Barbara is dazzled by her bohemian uncle and his artistic millieu, Fergus continues to get sick under her roof and now Hester fears her family's name will be dragged through the mud...

Sparkling, witty, thoroughly enjoyable - if only Sheila Pim's books were still in print!

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A muych better book than I thought it would be. Given the year in which it was written (1950), it had some amazing information on organic gardening. Sheila Pym wrote her mysteries for her father during and just after the war because of the shortage of paper made books hard to come by.

[Jane Irish Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slow-paced "murder" mystery in which the victim does not die. Set in Ireland in the late 1940s, the story takes the reader into the world of art and artists. Artist Felix Gandon has had several attacks of illness, which his doctor finally diagnoses as being caused by doses of arsenic. On the doctor's advice he goes to stay with his sister and her family in Dublin, but several days later another attack of illness lands him in the hospital, and the police begin investigating, looking for a motive that will lead them to the culprit.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars: The Pim Irish mysteries are not a series and each is unrelated to the other. This one is mildly satisfying, not so much for the mystery surrounding the poisoning, but for the observations about the state of Irish society around the time. It concerns an artist so there is an abundance of art-oriented information, a lot of which is interesting. Only gripe is there seemed to be a few too many members of the Guards involved to keep them all straight in my mind.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great vintage mystery by Sheila Pim! Published in 1950 in the UK and finally brought to the US by Rue Morgue Press in 2002. All of her novels have a gardening background as she was a great gardener. There are 4 Irish mysteries by Ms. Pim. This is the second I've read and I have the others on my shelf waiting to be read!

I love her characters, some quite quirky, and her wit. She has a way of making you feel like she's letting you in on a great secret as she writes. It's like she's there telling you the story over a cup of tea.

"Now an idea which may be in the reader's mind already had occurred some minutes earlier to Detective Officer Lemon. It felt as if his vest tickled him, and as soon as he could catch the eye of the chairman he came out with:
'Suppose the chap sucked his brush?'"

I had been shouting up until this 'It's in the paint!, It's in the paint!' Ah, but who put it there?

Lots of great info on poisons and vintage artists paint was very interesting too. She did her research!

"Orpiment and realgar are now out of date, being deadly poisonous and found to deteriorate with age. It would not be very easy to obtain them in their old and genuine form. Some English manufacturers retain the old names but produce the same shade out of different chemical constituents. 'King's yellow' in watercolors is made from cadmium and Chinese white. But there are still firms who preserve old recipes and specialize in supplying colors in their original form to painters with antiquarian taste. It may not be possible to obtain everything of which the Old Masters availed themselves. Painters working in the dawn of chemistry inclined to muck and mysteries of their own; their choice ingredients were dragon's blood and powdered Egyptian mummy. Bisulphide and trisulphide of arsenic, however, are not beyond the resources of the twentieth century.'

Hester's arrogant brother, Fergus' comment upon seeing her after many years apart sparked a thought by Hester that I decided I would hold onto for myself, here in middle age!

"You have got fat!"
'It was not fair. Hester had put on flesh as many matrons do, and her at one time seductive curves now required, as the fashion papers say, to be controlled, but fat she was not; her step was brisk and her energy unimpaired. Some people were quite surprised to learn that she had a grown-up daughter. She considered Fergus was in no case to twit her with the ravages of time.'

And for the garden aficionados there are many references to different flowers, trees and even vintage apple varieties. In fact a historical reference to Dahlia's proves a forgery!

You won't be disappointed with a Sheila Pim mystery!

[Sandy Weir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1950, this Irish garden/crime novel is a treasure that blissfully survives after 60 years! Reader gets a sense of life in Ireland and many garden suggestions.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheila Pim is such a pleasure to read because she hones in on the essential characteristics of people which bring them depth and life.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hooray for Rue Morgue Press. This is another of theirs. Very satisfying.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...