The Accomplice

by Elizabeth Ironside

Jean Loftus has lived at Asshe House for more than 40 years. Its tidy contours, the soft colors of the garden, speak to an orderly, gracious life, a supremely English life. But when workmen unearth a skeleton from that garden, the skeletons from Jean's past begin rising, similarly, to the surface. And the life they speak to - a childhood in Revolutionary Russia, chaotic years as a refugee between the two world wars - was neither orderly nor English. Zita Daunsey, Jean's neighbor in this cozy Sussex town, would like to help Jean protect her secrets. But this task is made more difficult with the sudden arrival of a mysterious, aggressively inquisitive Russian student.

Whose body has been moldering in the garden? What aging sins is Jean so anxious to conceal? And in trying to help the past stay buried, at what point does Zita become an accomplice to it?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, British Literature

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Elizabeth Ironside is the pseudonym of Lady Catherine Manning, wife of the British Ambassador to the U.S. Her first novel won Britain’s John Creasey Award for Best First Mystery of 1985, and Death in the Garden was nominated for Britain’s CWA Gold Dagger for Best Mystery of 1995.

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this book seemed to drag, but I continued because my curiosity was peaked. I liked the idea of the story, but it lacked cohesiveness, in my opinion. The characters seemed to lack the level of depth that I like. I didn't not like it, it just could have been written much better.

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I preferred Death in the Garden, but this one is similarly moving between the present and past and features an old English house and garden.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean Loftus, an aging woman who can no longer climb stairs or care for her home of 40 years, vacates that part of her life, giving Asshe House over to her stepson and his second wife.

That decision sets into motion a series of actions that make an exciting, tense drama, the likes I have not read in quite a while. For when her stepson's wife goes about "upgrading the house," she discovers there's a body in the garden.

For Jean Loftus, born Yevgenia Konstantinovna Chornoroukaya, has a past that is catching up with her, one that she buried mentally until old age and situations drive those memories of death and loss to the forefront. And the arrival of a young Russian woman — a conniving one — is just a part.

Zita Daunsey is Jean's neighbor and her lawyer. And when the body is discovered in Jean's garden, she begins her own investigation into who it was and how it got where it is. Both woman discover some sad truths along the way.

I wasn't sure I liked this story at the beginning. I didn't like most of the characters in the story. But unlike my inclination to throw the book at the wall (a feeling I wanted to perpetrate against a couple of those characters), I kept reading. Because there are layers of love and deception that twist like a weed into the minds and souls of some of the characters and into the readers as well. And for Zita, trying to do right, to find the real truth, what she discovers awakens her to how she is tied up with emotion and guilt.

Elizabeth Ironside has created a world in which her characters and the reader are equally uncomfortable, uneasy and suspicious. I think that is what made this such compelling reading.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Jean Loftus has lived at Asshe House for more than 40 years. Its tidy contours, the soft colors of the garden, speak to an orderly, gracious life, a supremely English life. But when workmen unearth a skeleton from the garden, the skeletons from Jean's past begin rising, similarly, to the surface. And the life they speak to -- a childhood in Revolutionary Russia, chaotic years as a refugee between the two world wars -- was neither orderly no English.

"Zita Daunsey, Jean's neighbor in this cozy Sussex town, would like to help Jean protect her secrets. But this task is made more difficult with the sudden arrival of a mysterious, aggressively inquisitive Russian student. Whose body has been moldering in the garden? What aging sins is Jean so anxious to conceal? And in trying to help the past stay buried, at what point does Zita become an accomplice to it?"
~~back cover

An interesting book, for its glimpses of the terror of being a refugee in war torn Europe. But very introspective, very convoluted, and therefore difficult to get immersed in.

[Michelle Hartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alert: this book contains very sad scenes of violence from WWII. That aside it was a startling book with constantly changing scenes and plot twists so well planned that caught you flatfooted (pun-intended). And the ending! Humm, not easy to relate, but the book does not have a nice finish all tied up with ribbon. Yet, it is satisfying and right in a strange way. It is not the cliffhanger type, I so despise, or accidentally all finished in two pages. A very different book with a great deal of character.
Well written and fast moving. I think you'll enjoy it.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual murder mystery that tells a story of WW II the memories of one Russian woman who escaped to England from a refugee camp in East Germany and abandoned her identity and former life in Latvia. Terrible clashes betwen Russia and Nazi Germany in Latvia displaced too many to count, often to mass graves in wooded areas. The murder mystery is a parallel story that helps reveal repressed memories.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel contains very disturbing events during WW2 and was very difficult to read.
As this book had a character tree to refer to (because of all the Russian names) it also should have had a map to see where all these towns in Eastern Europe were. It was very hard to follow.
Jean finds she is a very rich woman when she arrives in England, (after escaping eastern Europe) with artwork worth millions....and she keeps this all a secret?
The ending was not a surprise.

[Helen Hanschell Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read quickly and you are not sure who the accomplice is, there is an ambivalence that haunts this novel. It is interesting historically and for its Russian connections but also about how we fabricate stories around what we hear and quite possibly none are the whole truth although we quite frequently convince ourselves that we do have the whole story and the truth of it.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second Elizabeth Ironside book. Her mysteries are deeper, denser than most. The characters and their stories are multi-layered and blend well together into an unusual and interesting tale. I found this book to be less about the mystery and much more about the complex characters and their interaction with each other.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second Elizabeth Ironside book. Her mysteries are deeper, denser than most. The characters and their stories are multi-layered and blend well together into an unusual and interesting tale. I found this book to be less about the mystery and much more about the complex characters and their interaction with each other.

[Raypor · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual historic mystery set in present day England but with ties to the times of the Russian revolution and immigration to England from that time.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts slow but later becomes hard to put down. It is not really a mystery but rather a historical novel. The scenes from Latvia and Russia before and during WW2 are wrenching and very well written.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unsatisfying ending. Too loose.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ironside is an effective writer, and never writes down to her reader. She takes care in creating interesting characters with heart and complex settings with vivid descriptions. The English do know their language. I liked the main character Zita who has a CP son, is a lawyer, who loves shoes and has a crazy Nobel prize winning, physicist Russian mother. I liked Zita so much and her interactions with a curmudgeon cop Stevens on a child’s skeleton found in one of her client and friend’s property was outstanding, difficult and caring. There is a lot of background on
Jjean Loftus the client, who was an aristocratic Russian in Latvia before and during WWII, which I didn’t really care about. There was Xenia a Russian student who is manipulative and may have murdered Jean in the long run. But all in and all Zita’s story won out making it a good read. She does an interesting literary conceit of having sections by character all in 3rd person, except for Jean. It was annoying at first to switch away from a character you liked, but I think it worked.

[Matthew Gatheringwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another multi-faceted mystery from Elizabeth Ironside. I looked for it eagerly after finishing Death in a Garden. It did not disappoint me. I enjoyed watching the mystery unfold from several perspectives: moving back and forth between characters, generations, times, and locations allows the reader to slowly make sense of seemingly inexplicable violence.

Ironside writes with subtlety. One murder, for example, can at first be only inferred from a brief off-hand revelation. It made me do a kind of literary double-take and imagine for myself what must have been a grisly scene more truly frightening than if the author spoon-fed it to me detail by detail. The Accomplice ends with enough ambiguity to make wondering about the characters' future interesting.

[Renee Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

.. I actually prefer this one to DEATH IN THE GARDEN. DITG got unwieldy and tiresome; this one, OTOH, I could not put down. True, I tend to skim a bit in Ironside's works, which I normally would not do. (Her descriptions can get loooong); but I found Zita absorbing, even her "European" (as another reviewer wrote) love for shoes. I also found Xenia totally repugnant, yet still had to read about her doings and motivations. Actually, the most repellent character to me would end up being a tie between Stevens and Valentina! (Gack! "Suede" skin on his bald head? I am revolted yet fascinated by that. His obsessions are dangerous, and he is just boorish.)(Valentina is so self-concerned it is almost incredible, and yet, don't we all know people like that?)

[H L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Ironside's quick and intricate plots, and her writing is pretty skilled. In both this and "Death in the Garden," she weaves the past and present together in interesting ways. The mystery here was not so mysterious; I knew who'd killed Jean/Yevgenia as it was happening, but I can't believe Ironside didn't think readers could put this together. I wish the ending had been more definitive about Zita and Ivo getting together, as that would've made me happy, but otherwise, loose ends were tied up.

[Susan Oleksiw · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a quiet English country visit, an elderly woman has lived peacefully for her entire adult life, putting behind her her childhood in Russia during the Revolution and between the wars. A visiting Russian student begins probing into Jean's early life and workemn discover a body in the garden.

The story unfolds with interesting forays into the past, but the murder is identified as such quite late in the book. The author's emphasis is on the uncovering the past and the many ways people close to us can deceive us.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms Ironsides delves into Russian history with this story, combining the fall of the Tzars to communism in the outer reaches of Russian territory. The story bridges one woman's past with her present while simultaneously bridging Russia with western Europe.

It all starts really with a dead body in the past and the present, or many dead bodies depending on how you look at it. One is innocently dead, but none of the others can rest so peacefully.

[Vivian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a lot of twists and turns. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The author was very skilled in weaving the story along, telling it through three different characters eyes all the while whisking from present to past but always moving towards the crescendo. Although I expected part of the ending, the way it came about was a surprise. So much for all neatly wrapped up in the end. This books begs for a follow up.

[Michelle now at StoryGraph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, so much in fact, that I actually took a pencil to it and underlined parts of the text that struck me as being profound. I don't know that I've ever done this to a book before, but I'll keep in on my bookshelf, instead of trading it in, and refer back to some of those passages occasionally - as the mood strikes or I feel the need to re-read those lines that seemed to land so close to home.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't the best written book of my summer reading, but pleasant and a page turner. She does hammer away at the meaning of accomplice in different situations in case you didn't get it the first time. I enjoyed the mix of the Russian revolution, WWII terrors, and then contemporary England as the story unfolds. A sort of mystery told from the perspective of the main characters.

[Lisa Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Accomplice is a highly intelligent and stylishly crafted mystery,literate,with not just the veneer of literacy and with the resonance of not very distant history. Think Dr. Zhivago with a who-dun-it attached. This is the third of Ms. Ironsides's mysteries that I have read, and I am never disappointed.

[Ann G. Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved "Death in the Garden" by this author and I loved this book even more (although several people I know who read both liked "Death in the Garden" more). Either way, Ironside is a wonderful writer and these are both very good mysteries.

[Jan W. Mc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your typical mystery. Deep, well-plotted, historically moving, very thoughtfully done. Disturbing in that it caused me to question my own identity. Don't worry -- I know who I am, but you'll have to read the book to know what I mean!

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman looks back on her life as a Russian-born aristocrat who flees the country with her family and settles into a middle class life in England. A very well-written suspenseful novel which spans 80 years of history.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel about three Russian women who are creating their lives is a good idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired. It took me forever to get through it because I just couldn 19t get into it.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

methodical reading, well contructed plot, and I finished it, but it wasn't a "grabber".

[Cece · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find Elizabeth Ironside to be a very erratic writer. Liked her first, loved the second, this one dragged like heay mud-I could not persevere past page 30. Dull dull.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this book - author does a good job of making the reader feel just like the main character at the end, which had been foreshadowed earlier.