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Dandy Gilver #9
Dandy Gilver and The Reek of Red Herrings
A delightful Dandy Gilver mystery by Catriona McPherson, set in early 1930s Scotland. For fans of PG Wodehouse, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie.
On the rain-drenched, wave-lashed, wind-battered Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a seagull think twice and crumbly mansions cling to crumblier cliff tops while, out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver darlings. It's nowhere for a child of gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas.
But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish - with a strong whiff of murder most foul - that's exactly where Dandy Gilver finds herself. Enlisted to investigate, she and her trusty cohort Alec Osborne are soon swept up in the fisherfolk's wedding season as well as the mystery. Between age-old traditions and brand-new horrors, Dandy must think the unthinkable to solve her grisliest case yet.
On the rain-drenched, wave-lashed, wind-battered Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a seagull think twice and crumbly mansions cling to crumblier cliff tops while, out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver darlings. It's nowhere for a child of gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas.
But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish - with a strong whiff of murder most foul - that's exactly where Dandy Gilver finds herself. Enlisted to investigate, she and her trusty cohort Alec Osborne are soon swept up in the fisherfolk's wedding season as well as the mystery. Between age-old traditions and brand-new horrors, Dandy must think the unthinkable to solve her grisliest case yet.
ebook
First published July 17, 2014
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About the author
Catriona McPherson
52 books526 followersCatriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories about a toff; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about an oik; and contemporary psychothriller standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about a Scot-out-of-water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California.
She has won multiple Anthonys, Agathas, Leftys and Macavitys for her work and been shortlisted for an Edgar, three Mary Higgins Clark awards and a UK dagger
Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.
She has won multiple Anthonys, Agathas, Leftys and Macavitys for her work and been shortlisted for an Edgar, three Mary Higgins Clark awards and a UK dagger
Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
November 7, 2014
This is absolutely Catriona McPherson's best yet in the Dandy Gilver series! Prior to this, my favorite ones were a tie between "The Winter Ground" and "Unsuitable Day for a Murder", both of which involved interesting murders around interesting businesses. Both the lore and the character development kept me hooked.
I genuinely hated both of the books that concentrated on the supernatural, "Bury Her Deep" and "Deadly Measure of Brimstone", so was not looking forward to reading "The Reek of Red Herrings" after just finishing up with "...Brimstone" prior. Ms. McPherson writes wonderfully well in general, but simply doesn't handle ghost stories well at all. She should leave those out of future books imho, homages to Agatha Christie and the beliefs of that era be damned. What she does do very, very well is superstition, exploration of rituals, character development, and cold-blooded murder.
"The Reek of Red Herrings" involves several diverse plots, including lots of both red and silver herrings, that are all tied up nicely by the end. There's more of an emphasis on horror this time around, without venturing into too much descriptive gore, but just enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and keep you turning the pages.
The undercover work was a stroke of brilliance, and for once Dandy and Alec truly felt like equals and partners in an accomplished business venture.
Yes, definitely my favorite! I hope to read more like this in the future.
I genuinely hated both of the books that concentrated on the supernatural, "Bury Her Deep" and "Deadly Measure of Brimstone", so was not looking forward to reading "The Reek of Red Herrings" after just finishing up with "...Brimstone" prior. Ms. McPherson writes wonderfully well in general, but simply doesn't handle ghost stories well at all. She should leave those out of future books imho, homages to Agatha Christie and the beliefs of that era be damned. What she does do very, very well is superstition, exploration of rituals, character development, and cold-blooded murder.
"The Reek of Red Herrings" involves several diverse plots, including lots of both red and silver herrings, that are all tied up nicely by the end. There's more of an emphasis on horror this time around, without venturing into too much descriptive gore, but just enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and keep you turning the pages.
The undercover work was a stroke of brilliance, and for once Dandy and Alec truly felt like equals and partners in an accomplished business venture.
Yes, definitely my favorite! I hope to read more like this in the future.
July 25, 2017
Creepy. Also had trouble deciphering the Scottish terms.
June 2, 2015
There is a tendency to set murder mysteries and crime novels in urban jungles these days.
The Reek of Red Herrings by Catriona McPherson is a contemporary example of how authors can use the traditional "village" setting successfully to demonstrate their overall theme. A village location can be far more than just a pretty background for foul deeds and thrilling action.
Here the village represents not simply a closed community with its own set of beliefs and rules, a world in miniature, but mirrors the tightly packed herring barrels of the book title, where layer upon layer of creature must be exposed and investigated before our sleuths can get to the bottom of the mystery.
The dark, winding, narrow and inhospitable streets of Gamrie, a village snaking up a steep crag overlooking the sea, are as confusing as the villagers' family names and hereditary connections, causing sleuths Dandy and Alec to constantly lose their way in this investigation - intellectually, ethically and physically.
Even the architecture of Gamrie's houses is baffling to the extreme. Several families live in one multi-story house, but the division of the rooms and different levels makes no sense to outsiders. The village's precarious location on the crag overhanging the sea poses a constant threat to human and animal lives, just as uncovering the truth does, because revealing it will cause a scandal that will wreck the fishing community's livelihood.
A Barrel of fishy Goings-on
Set in 1930, this wonderfully atmospheric and dark murder mystery begins when amateur detectives Alec Osborne and Dandy Gilver are called in by the boss of a Banffshire fishing fleet to investigate on the quiet the macabre appearance of body parts in his herring barrels.
Married forty-something Dandy Gilver is glad to get out of a boring Christmas get-together with some of the dullest elements of her family; her handsome and much younger friend Alec Osborne is alone in the world, so always ready to plunge into sleuthing at a moment's notice. Before Dandy's husband Hugh can utter any kind of seasonal protest, the two detectives are off to the northeast coast of Scotland for a new adventure.
Pickled Philly-oolies
Their latest client cannot risk going to the police but must find out how, whether due to accident or foul play, human remains got among the herrings. So the respectable Mr. Birchfield summons the two amateur sleuths to his Aberdeen harbour office and asks them to investigate undercover in the village of Gamrie, the origin of these particular fishy barrels.
Posing as brother and sister, the two detectives plus Dandy's elderly Dalmatian Bunty promptly head to Gamrie, where they are forced to stay in a cheerless hotel called the Three Kings. It's run by mad-as-a-hatter landlady Miss Euphemia Clatchie, the first in a long line of eccentric local characters. Euphemia is also the first character who serves beautifully as a suspect in this barrelful of red herrings. The two detectives go undercover as a couple of philologists, or philly-oolies, as the fishing community calls them.
By asking pertinent questions among local households what ancient customs fishing folk are still practicing, the two sleuths try to discover, if a murder took place or whether Mr Pickle, the chopped-up man in Mr. Birchfield's herring barrels, was simply the victim of an accident at sea and got into the barrels by a series of unfortunate circumstances.
Although initially these old customs seem quaint and rather sweet, the more our sleuths delve into the traditions of Gamrie, the more they are appalled by the sinister implications of some of these customs. The brains of Gamrie's inhabitants, one feels after reading a few chapters, are just as pickled as herring and as inverted as the words philologists and philly-oolies!
Leading us by the Nose from one foul Stench to another Horror
If the thought of body parts among the herrings makes you shiver, wait until you read the bit where Dandy follows husband Hugh's advice and visits a Gamrie curio museum. Naturally, the contents of that place would have been a source of wonder and pleasure for emotionally stunted Hugh Gilver!
For everyone else, however, private museums devoted to the art of the taxidermist, are quite simply horrific. This reviewer once went to such a place in Arundel, Sussex, in the late 1970s and still has nightmares of squirrels posing in 18th century silk breeches several decades later.
Just as Agatha Christie often uses a cosy village location and manor house as background for her murder mysteries, McPherson introduces the "them and us" theme into her novel. Here a mansion-cum-museum at the edge of the village mirrors the closed village world of Gamrie.
Just like Gamrie, the museum is also a place where not everything is as it seems. The Searle brothers, who run the museum, are at first glance kind old gentlemen, but at second glance they are something else entirely. See how McPherson uses the different sections of the museum to build up her horror effect and how she changes the direction of her novel. It's a fabulous use of location by a writer.
With each new room of horrible exhibits we are given insight into the Searle Brothers' mindset and catch a glimpse of their ultimate goal. Leaving behind the genre of the cozy at the doorstep of the museum, McPherson takes the reader by their clammy hand and leads them ever so gently into a Gothic horror story!
It's another example of using mirror images in a novel to drive home one's overall theme, in this instance: living in a narrow and confined environment is apt to unhinge the mind.
The museum visit introduces us to a new mystery serving as the sub-plot; here we have smelly dead things not contained by a barrel but presented in glass cases. Both mysteries have the foul stench of fishy business about them and before Dandy and Alec can say "kippers", they are investigating the possibility of serial killings.
Salted Conundrum
The Reek of Red Herrings is McPherson's most ambitious novel to-date, starring hordes of colourful characters and presenting the reader with two murder plots simultaneously; as the title says, it reeks of red herrings and there are several barrels of them standing by in Gamrie.
Infused with McPherson's very own brand of black humour, the story plods along like a put-putting old trawler in heavy sea, hampered by rough weather and the two sleuths' inability to understand ancient Doric lingo.
This reviewer often found herself laughing out loud at Dandy's attempts to impress Alec with her "translations" into English, which then turn out to be totally wrong, to the great amusement of Gamrie's fishermen and women.
The sleuths' inability to understand Doric is yet another metaphor: Dandy's and Alec's modern minds also fail to understand what drives stuck-in-time local minds. This has serious consequences for their investigation.
Fishy Folklore
McPherson must have spent ages researching all the different customs, wedding lore and superstitions among early 20th century fishing communities, because she delights us with a veritable flood of them.
The abundance of same name individuals in the village, which are as bewildering to Dandy and Alec as they are to the reader, serves rather well to demonstrate how inbred the place really is and therefore, how unhinged Gamrie is as a community.
Gamrie's tradition of "handfasting" young couples seems nothing more than a hypocritical excuse for these "pious" villagers to sleep around before settling on the financially most advantageous partner. Greed and material advantage are the basis for marriage in Gamrie, not love or companionship. Cloaked in a mantel of folklore and brandishing before them their god-fearing Doric expressions, which are nothing more than a barrel of lies, these villagers are unwilling, not unable, to rise over senseless superstitions.
Having recovered her ethical stance during a year's absence, Dandy states quite clearly to one villager at the end of the novel: " we won't return". Our sleuths wash their hands of this fishy community and walk away for good.
A Mystery as changeable as the Weather
We are treated to the whole range of Scottish climate in this village, ranging from drizzle, fog and sheets of rain to raging blizzards, thunder and lightning and even mudslides and tsunami-like waves. Naturally, the weather serves to make the village location more atmospheric and "gothic" for us, but as with the streets and buildings of Gamrie, the weather serves as a triple-layered metaphor and is not just there for decoration.
Firstly, harsh climate demonstrates how precarious the existence of such a small community is and how dependent small communities like Gamrie are on each other.
Secondly, the weather undermines our sleuths' efforts to discover the truth about the chopped-up man in the barrels at every turn. Repelled physically by the rain and snow, the cold and the wind, our sleuths are also prevented intellectually from finding out the truth, because the locals' attitude towards them is as changeable as the weather. One minute Gamrie's residents are talkative and co-operative, the next moment residents button their lips and allow gale force wind to slam doors shut in our sleuths' faces.
Simply getting about from A to B to interview suspects is a struggle. And when our sleuths do manage to leave their hotel, a gale drives them like helpless autumn leaves to places they don't necessarily want to investigate. Just when Dandy and Alec think they're hot on the trail of unravelling the mystery of Mr. Pickle, they lose their footing on an icy patch or a cold breeze blows them off course and they drift off into a new direction on an icy float of more misconceptions and deceit.
Finally, Gamrie's temperamental climate prompts readers to suspect malevolent undercurrents are driving the lives of these fishermen and women, but when one is tossed and turned about in heavy seas, where does one turn for dry land - and a stable theory of who committed a crime? Banffshire's changeable weather mirrors the ever-changing theories our sleuths, and the reader, develop about the case.
Doggedly carrying on
Unusually for a McPherson novel, the last chapter sees us back in Gamrie, a year after the dramatic events. Bunty has died of old age and a new puppy is wrecking the car seats, as Alec brings the car to a screeching standstill in Gamrie harbour. There is no feeling of a job well done with the closure of this murder investigation and the nature of the crimes mean there cannot possibly be a happy ending for Gamrie either. However, the community carries on doggedly, using superstition and folklore to block out reality.
Dandy and Alec carry on doggedly with another case, blocking out how the stay in Gamrie has highlighted that their relationship is stuck in neutral after eight years as fellow sleuths. They may have gone to the village weddings as the mirror image of best man and maid of honour, but they are far, far from being the happy couple.
We are spared Dandy's pain over losing her beloved dog Bunty, but are left to wonder if horrible Hugh shot her behind the woodshed, as he keeps threatening at the start of the novel. The arrival of a new (male) puppy on the scene suggests that Dandy is moving on with life, but her ambivalence about the puppy mirrors her ambivalence about her marriage to Hugh.
The reader suspects this puppy may be one of Hugh's ill-conceived ideas, an animal foisted on Dandy against her will. The naughty behaviour in the car suggests this is a dog in no way adequate to follow in Bunty's well-behaved paw prints.
Bunty was, as Dandy tells us towards the end of the book, "quite the most comforting creature ever born". One feels therefore, Dandy will forever be deprived of Bunty's spotted kind of emotional support. It's a sad ending all round, and not just for dog-lovers.
A Whiff of new Horizons
The only true sliver of hope at the end of dark and macabre adventure is the fact that Alec and Dandy's relationship is blossoming into something resembling romance. Maybe Bunty had to die to make way in Dandy's heart for somebody else? Who knows, the next book may well see Hugh Gilver's long overdue demise! Perhaps he'll be washed away by Gilverton's infamous drains, drowning in a pool of mud as dull as the life he's led his wife.
This reviewer got a little carried away when she read about cosy get-togethers in Dandy's hotel room at the dismal Three Kings...Alec and Dandy sitting next to one another on her bed, two pairs of naked feet frolicking in hot water buckets...
Hold on to your cloche hats, ladies, don't get carried away, for this is as steamy as it gets. You won't be seeing Dandy rolling round in 50 shades of Scottish heather with toy boy Alec here!
But this was a clever way of using the Gamrie hotel room location as a metaphor for the sleuths' deepening relationship. In earlier books we saw Dandy and Alec standing about uncomfortably whenever Alec had to visit Dandy's bedroom to discuss their current case in private. The vastness of Dandy's Gamrie hotel room and the lack of furniture - there is not even a chair in her bedroom - mean that the two sleuths have to come closer physically (and therefore emotionally) and sit together on Dandy's bed or they can't have a private conversation. Brilliant stuff.
Fortunately, there are enthusiastic foxtrottings at Gamrie weddings that permit Alec to put his arms around Dandy in public. In his chaste capacity as her pretend brother. A boisterous dance through Gamrie's icy streets leads our sleuths all the way to a snug wedding bed, complete with curtains, a bottle of whiskey and a lump of cheese on the pillows to sustain an energetic couple throughout the "doings". Unfortunately, Dandy and Alec are in the company of the entire village population and not free to partake of such endearing village customs. Bother!
Still, this positive use of village infrastructure gives romantically inclined readers hope there will be 50 shades of "goings-on" in future McPherson novels.
Murder most foul
To sum up: in this novel the use of the village location is as multi-layered as a barrel full of herrings and as complex as North Sea marine life. It's not a picturesque pastoral village setting à la Jane Austen, but a hostile environment where mankind thrives at its peril. Narrow streets harbour narrow minds in Gamrie; this cut-off seaside community is awash with mental disorders, family feuds, greed and envy.
And if, like this reviewer, you disliked salted herrings before you read this book, you'll detest the things even more, when you're done with the novel. It's not so much a question of The Reek of (Red) Herrings that made this reader feel queasy reading Catriona McPherson's book, it's the foul stench of human behaviour. The novel deserves more than five stars if Goodreads' rating system would only allow it. It certainly merits one star for each herring barrel containing parts of Mr Pickle.
The Reek of Red Herrings by Catriona McPherson is a contemporary example of how authors can use the traditional "village" setting successfully to demonstrate their overall theme. A village location can be far more than just a pretty background for foul deeds and thrilling action.
Here the village represents not simply a closed community with its own set of beliefs and rules, a world in miniature, but mirrors the tightly packed herring barrels of the book title, where layer upon layer of creature must be exposed and investigated before our sleuths can get to the bottom of the mystery.
The dark, winding, narrow and inhospitable streets of Gamrie, a village snaking up a steep crag overlooking the sea, are as confusing as the villagers' family names and hereditary connections, causing sleuths Dandy and Alec to constantly lose their way in this investigation - intellectually, ethically and physically.
Even the architecture of Gamrie's houses is baffling to the extreme. Several families live in one multi-story house, but the division of the rooms and different levels makes no sense to outsiders. The village's precarious location on the crag overhanging the sea poses a constant threat to human and animal lives, just as uncovering the truth does, because revealing it will cause a scandal that will wreck the fishing community's livelihood.
A Barrel of fishy Goings-on
Set in 1930, this wonderfully atmospheric and dark murder mystery begins when amateur detectives Alec Osborne and Dandy Gilver are called in by the boss of a Banffshire fishing fleet to investigate on the quiet the macabre appearance of body parts in his herring barrels.
Married forty-something Dandy Gilver is glad to get out of a boring Christmas get-together with some of the dullest elements of her family; her handsome and much younger friend Alec Osborne is alone in the world, so always ready to plunge into sleuthing at a moment's notice. Before Dandy's husband Hugh can utter any kind of seasonal protest, the two detectives are off to the northeast coast of Scotland for a new adventure.
Pickled Philly-oolies
Their latest client cannot risk going to the police but must find out how, whether due to accident or foul play, human remains got among the herrings. So the respectable Mr. Birchfield summons the two amateur sleuths to his Aberdeen harbour office and asks them to investigate undercover in the village of Gamrie, the origin of these particular fishy barrels.
Posing as brother and sister, the two detectives plus Dandy's elderly Dalmatian Bunty promptly head to Gamrie, where they are forced to stay in a cheerless hotel called the Three Kings. It's run by mad-as-a-hatter landlady Miss Euphemia Clatchie, the first in a long line of eccentric local characters. Euphemia is also the first character who serves beautifully as a suspect in this barrelful of red herrings. The two detectives go undercover as a couple of philologists, or philly-oolies, as the fishing community calls them.
By asking pertinent questions among local households what ancient customs fishing folk are still practicing, the two sleuths try to discover, if a murder took place or whether Mr Pickle, the chopped-up man in Mr. Birchfield's herring barrels, was simply the victim of an accident at sea and got into the barrels by a series of unfortunate circumstances.
Although initially these old customs seem quaint and rather sweet, the more our sleuths delve into the traditions of Gamrie, the more they are appalled by the sinister implications of some of these customs. The brains of Gamrie's inhabitants, one feels after reading a few chapters, are just as pickled as herring and as inverted as the words philologists and philly-oolies!
Leading us by the Nose from one foul Stench to another Horror
If the thought of body parts among the herrings makes you shiver, wait until you read the bit where Dandy follows husband Hugh's advice and visits a Gamrie curio museum. Naturally, the contents of that place would have been a source of wonder and pleasure for emotionally stunted Hugh Gilver!
For everyone else, however, private museums devoted to the art of the taxidermist, are quite simply horrific. This reviewer once went to such a place in Arundel, Sussex, in the late 1970s and still has nightmares of squirrels posing in 18th century silk breeches several decades later.
Just as Agatha Christie often uses a cosy village location and manor house as background for her murder mysteries, McPherson introduces the "them and us" theme into her novel. Here a mansion-cum-museum at the edge of the village mirrors the closed village world of Gamrie.
Just like Gamrie, the museum is also a place where not everything is as it seems. The Searle brothers, who run the museum, are at first glance kind old gentlemen, but at second glance they are something else entirely. See how McPherson uses the different sections of the museum to build up her horror effect and how she changes the direction of her novel. It's a fabulous use of location by a writer.
With each new room of horrible exhibits we are given insight into the Searle Brothers' mindset and catch a glimpse of their ultimate goal. Leaving behind the genre of the cozy at the doorstep of the museum, McPherson takes the reader by their clammy hand and leads them ever so gently into a Gothic horror story!
It's another example of using mirror images in a novel to drive home one's overall theme, in this instance: living in a narrow and confined environment is apt to unhinge the mind.
The museum visit introduces us to a new mystery serving as the sub-plot; here we have smelly dead things not contained by a barrel but presented in glass cases. Both mysteries have the foul stench of fishy business about them and before Dandy and Alec can say "kippers", they are investigating the possibility of serial killings.
Salted Conundrum
The Reek of Red Herrings is McPherson's most ambitious novel to-date, starring hordes of colourful characters and presenting the reader with two murder plots simultaneously; as the title says, it reeks of red herrings and there are several barrels of them standing by in Gamrie.
Infused with McPherson's very own brand of black humour, the story plods along like a put-putting old trawler in heavy sea, hampered by rough weather and the two sleuths' inability to understand ancient Doric lingo.
This reviewer often found herself laughing out loud at Dandy's attempts to impress Alec with her "translations" into English, which then turn out to be totally wrong, to the great amusement of Gamrie's fishermen and women.
The sleuths' inability to understand Doric is yet another metaphor: Dandy's and Alec's modern minds also fail to understand what drives stuck-in-time local minds. This has serious consequences for their investigation.
Fishy Folklore
McPherson must have spent ages researching all the different customs, wedding lore and superstitions among early 20th century fishing communities, because she delights us with a veritable flood of them.
The abundance of same name individuals in the village, which are as bewildering to Dandy and Alec as they are to the reader, serves rather well to demonstrate how inbred the place really is and therefore, how unhinged Gamrie is as a community.
Gamrie's tradition of "handfasting" young couples seems nothing more than a hypocritical excuse for these "pious" villagers to sleep around before settling on the financially most advantageous partner. Greed and material advantage are the basis for marriage in Gamrie, not love or companionship. Cloaked in a mantel of folklore and brandishing before them their god-fearing Doric expressions, which are nothing more than a barrel of lies, these villagers are unwilling, not unable, to rise over senseless superstitions.
Having recovered her ethical stance during a year's absence, Dandy states quite clearly to one villager at the end of the novel: " we won't return". Our sleuths wash their hands of this fishy community and walk away for good.
A Mystery as changeable as the Weather
We are treated to the whole range of Scottish climate in this village, ranging from drizzle, fog and sheets of rain to raging blizzards, thunder and lightning and even mudslides and tsunami-like waves. Naturally, the weather serves to make the village location more atmospheric and "gothic" for us, but as with the streets and buildings of Gamrie, the weather serves as a triple-layered metaphor and is not just there for decoration.
Firstly, harsh climate demonstrates how precarious the existence of such a small community is and how dependent small communities like Gamrie are on each other.
Secondly, the weather undermines our sleuths' efforts to discover the truth about the chopped-up man in the barrels at every turn. Repelled physically by the rain and snow, the cold and the wind, our sleuths are also prevented intellectually from finding out the truth, because the locals' attitude towards them is as changeable as the weather. One minute Gamrie's residents are talkative and co-operative, the next moment residents button their lips and allow gale force wind to slam doors shut in our sleuths' faces.
Simply getting about from A to B to interview suspects is a struggle. And when our sleuths do manage to leave their hotel, a gale drives them like helpless autumn leaves to places they don't necessarily want to investigate. Just when Dandy and Alec think they're hot on the trail of unravelling the mystery of Mr. Pickle, they lose their footing on an icy patch or a cold breeze blows them off course and they drift off into a new direction on an icy float of more misconceptions and deceit.
Finally, Gamrie's temperamental climate prompts readers to suspect malevolent undercurrents are driving the lives of these fishermen and women, but when one is tossed and turned about in heavy seas, where does one turn for dry land - and a stable theory of who committed a crime? Banffshire's changeable weather mirrors the ever-changing theories our sleuths, and the reader, develop about the case.
Doggedly carrying on
Unusually for a McPherson novel, the last chapter sees us back in Gamrie, a year after the dramatic events. Bunty has died of old age and a new puppy is wrecking the car seats, as Alec brings the car to a screeching standstill in Gamrie harbour. There is no feeling of a job well done with the closure of this murder investigation and the nature of the crimes mean there cannot possibly be a happy ending for Gamrie either. However, the community carries on doggedly, using superstition and folklore to block out reality.
Dandy and Alec carry on doggedly with another case, blocking out how the stay in Gamrie has highlighted that their relationship is stuck in neutral after eight years as fellow sleuths. They may have gone to the village weddings as the mirror image of best man and maid of honour, but they are far, far from being the happy couple.
We are spared Dandy's pain over losing her beloved dog Bunty, but are left to wonder if horrible Hugh shot her behind the woodshed, as he keeps threatening at the start of the novel. The arrival of a new (male) puppy on the scene suggests that Dandy is moving on with life, but her ambivalence about the puppy mirrors her ambivalence about her marriage to Hugh.
The reader suspects this puppy may be one of Hugh's ill-conceived ideas, an animal foisted on Dandy against her will. The naughty behaviour in the car suggests this is a dog in no way adequate to follow in Bunty's well-behaved paw prints.
Bunty was, as Dandy tells us towards the end of the book, "quite the most comforting creature ever born". One feels therefore, Dandy will forever be deprived of Bunty's spotted kind of emotional support. It's a sad ending all round, and not just for dog-lovers.
A Whiff of new Horizons
The only true sliver of hope at the end of dark and macabre adventure is the fact that Alec and Dandy's relationship is blossoming into something resembling romance. Maybe Bunty had to die to make way in Dandy's heart for somebody else? Who knows, the next book may well see Hugh Gilver's long overdue demise! Perhaps he'll be washed away by Gilverton's infamous drains, drowning in a pool of mud as dull as the life he's led his wife.
This reviewer got a little carried away when she read about cosy get-togethers in Dandy's hotel room at the dismal Three Kings...Alec and Dandy sitting next to one another on her bed, two pairs of naked feet frolicking in hot water buckets...
Hold on to your cloche hats, ladies, don't get carried away, for this is as steamy as it gets. You won't be seeing Dandy rolling round in 50 shades of Scottish heather with toy boy Alec here!
But this was a clever way of using the Gamrie hotel room location as a metaphor for the sleuths' deepening relationship. In earlier books we saw Dandy and Alec standing about uncomfortably whenever Alec had to visit Dandy's bedroom to discuss their current case in private. The vastness of Dandy's Gamrie hotel room and the lack of furniture - there is not even a chair in her bedroom - mean that the two sleuths have to come closer physically (and therefore emotionally) and sit together on Dandy's bed or they can't have a private conversation. Brilliant stuff.
Fortunately, there are enthusiastic foxtrottings at Gamrie weddings that permit Alec to put his arms around Dandy in public. In his chaste capacity as her pretend brother. A boisterous dance through Gamrie's icy streets leads our sleuths all the way to a snug wedding bed, complete with curtains, a bottle of whiskey and a lump of cheese on the pillows to sustain an energetic couple throughout the "doings". Unfortunately, Dandy and Alec are in the company of the entire village population and not free to partake of such endearing village customs. Bother!
Still, this positive use of village infrastructure gives romantically inclined readers hope there will be 50 shades of "goings-on" in future McPherson novels.
Murder most foul
To sum up: in this novel the use of the village location is as multi-layered as a barrel full of herrings and as complex as North Sea marine life. It's not a picturesque pastoral village setting à la Jane Austen, but a hostile environment where mankind thrives at its peril. Narrow streets harbour narrow minds in Gamrie; this cut-off seaside community is awash with mental disorders, family feuds, greed and envy.
And if, like this reviewer, you disliked salted herrings before you read this book, you'll detest the things even more, when you're done with the novel. It's not so much a question of The Reek of (Red) Herrings that made this reader feel queasy reading Catriona McPherson's book, it's the foul stench of human behaviour. The novel deserves more than five stars if Goodreads' rating system would only allow it. It certainly merits one star for each herring barrel containing parts of Mr Pickle.
August 5, 2019
I really enjoyed this. The setting, the interaction between Dandy, Alec and the villagers, and the grisly-but-not-too-grisly murder.
The dialect was difficult at times, and I wish there had been a dictionary at the back instead of instructions for porridge, bit still very enjoyable.
The dialect was difficult at times, and I wish there had been a dictionary at the back instead of instructions for porridge, bit still very enjoyable.
August 25, 2015
Slightly creepier than most of the mysteries Dandy investigates. WARNING: this is the one where her elderly dog finally dies (off-page, thank heavens).
December 16, 2022
Light reading so I thought (in comparison to many non-European fiction titles I read avidly to learn more about the cultures and minds of people from worlds I know too little of) … but this was not light in content!
At the start I found her style quite confusing ( I’d even say irritating) and it really reminded me of Dickens. But as the story developed it became quite fascinating. I also discovered ( from one sentence referring to the ‘king’ ) that is was describing a time before 1950 - though I was not sure whether the North Scottish village would necessarily have changed that much over the last 80 years.
The story is pretty extraordinary and becomes progressively more goulish as it develops. I was completely caught up in it, once I had got to grips with the dialect / foreign language (!) of residents around Banff. The characters were also somewhat confusing - partly intentional as it was very common for many people to have the same name as each other, do people had to use visual or other defining characteristics to nickname everyone.
Clever title too as many red herrings throughout the book ( quite apart from the catches!) though they do all finally interlink.
I picked this book up in the library so had no idea that it is No 9 in a series. It was my first one and i read it all before looking up her background etc. Reading up about the character of Dandy I learn that she is a well-to-do detective which I hadn’t really absorbed / her husband yes certainly but she spoke pretty perjoritively about him so her own background wasn’t relevant most of the time . I presumed her children had grown up … I also wasn’t clear about her relationship with her detective partner but it didn’t matter really
Good story - I may read another when I need a break from the serious stuff
At the start I found her style quite confusing ( I’d even say irritating) and it really reminded me of Dickens. But as the story developed it became quite fascinating. I also discovered ( from one sentence referring to the ‘king’ ) that is was describing a time before 1950 - though I was not sure whether the North Scottish village would necessarily have changed that much over the last 80 years.
The story is pretty extraordinary and becomes progressively more goulish as it develops. I was completely caught up in it, once I had got to grips with the dialect / foreign language (!) of residents around Banff. The characters were also somewhat confusing - partly intentional as it was very common for many people to have the same name as each other, do people had to use visual or other defining characteristics to nickname everyone.
Clever title too as many red herrings throughout the book ( quite apart from the catches!) though they do all finally interlink.
I picked this book up in the library so had no idea that it is No 9 in a series. It was my first one and i read it all before looking up her background etc. Reading up about the character of Dandy I learn that she is a well-to-do detective which I hadn’t really absorbed / her husband yes certainly but she spoke pretty perjoritively about him so her own background wasn’t relevant most of the time . I presumed her children had grown up … I also wasn’t clear about her relationship with her detective partner but it didn’t matter really
Good story - I may read another when I need a break from the serious stuff
April 1, 2021
Three and a half stars, I'm knocking off half a star for all the Doric talk.
In what I feel is the grisliest investigation to date, Dandy Gilver and Alec Osborne travel at Christmas to a small fishing village in Banffshire called Gamrie. Engaged by Mr Birchfield, a herring distributor, to investigate why/how a dismembered body has been stored in barrels of herrings and to locate the two missing barrels before a customer makes a gruesome discovery. The stamping of the barrels in the harbour and the design of the barrels is sufficient to narrow down the precise batch of herrings. So off to Gamrie go our sleuths, to a small town of superstitions and customs far removed from 'modern day' Perthshire and Dandy's estate.
Dandy and Alec are plunged into what could be their oddest location to date. A parsimonious landlady, a bible-quoting vicar, a poetry-quoting doctor, a village in which all the fishing families appear to have intermarried and have a bewildering number of names, and a pair of brothers with a taxidermy museum at the top of the hill. Added to which, when they start asking questions about missing people, it turns out that there are a whole raft of peculiar strangers who have been seen once but never again.
I guessed one mystery quite early on (in fact I wish I had made a note in my Kindle when I had the thought), but the other mystery kept me guessing right to the end, in fact I suspected Dandy had got it wrong!
In what I feel is the grisliest investigation to date, Dandy Gilver and Alec Osborne travel at Christmas to a small fishing village in Banffshire called Gamrie. Engaged by Mr Birchfield, a herring distributor, to investigate why/how a dismembered body has been stored in barrels of herrings and to locate the two missing barrels before a customer makes a gruesome discovery. The stamping of the barrels in the harbour and the design of the barrels is sufficient to narrow down the precise batch of herrings. So off to Gamrie go our sleuths, to a small town of superstitions and customs far removed from 'modern day' Perthshire and Dandy's estate.
Dandy and Alec are plunged into what could be their oddest location to date. A parsimonious landlady, a bible-quoting vicar, a poetry-quoting doctor, a village in which all the fishing families appear to have intermarried and have a bewildering number of names, and a pair of brothers with a taxidermy museum at the top of the hill. Added to which, when they start asking questions about missing people, it turns out that there are a whole raft of peculiar strangers who have been seen once but never again.
I guessed one mystery quite early on (in fact I wish I had made a note in my Kindle when I had the thought), but the other mystery kept me guessing right to the end, in fact I suspected Dandy had got it wrong!
October 20, 2022
This is a fun series! In this tale Dandy and James travel to a remote Scottish herring fishing village, following a gruesome discovery of body parts in barrels of herring. They need to identify the dead person, as well as discover where the missing barrels may be, before scandal rocks the industry on which so many depend.
They pose as language experts, researching the old Doric tongue still spoken on the coast - to be honest, I got a bit fed up with that as did Dandy! But the author introduces the reader to a different way of life and old customs, as the village is preparing for a wedding for five couples (they have to be timed when the fishing fleet is in!).
Its a great read, and Dandy and Alec have a difficult time, staying in the very basic lodging house and struggling with the oncoming winter weather, as well as finding out who is telling the truth (if they can master enough of the dialect to even understand it!).
They pose as language experts, researching the old Doric tongue still spoken on the coast - to be honest, I got a bit fed up with that as did Dandy! But the author introduces the reader to a different way of life and old customs, as the village is preparing for a wedding for five couples (they have to be timed when the fishing fleet is in!).
Its a great read, and Dandy and Alec have a difficult time, staying in the very basic lodging house and struggling with the oncoming winter weather, as well as finding out who is telling the truth (if they can master enough of the dialect to even understand it!).
May 9, 2025
I found myself impatient to be done with this. Dandy Gilver and her partner Alec Osborne are English private detectives, investigating a case in Scotland. Several barrels of herring have been delivered to the wholesaler with body parts in them.. The company president is anxious for a resolution that won't damage the company's reputation. The detectives arrive in the fishing village under a cover story of being philologists, and are generally accepted by the villagers. One of my problems with the novel is the vernacular. Dandy and Alec have a terrible time understanding the Scottish dialect, while I had an additional problem with their own speech. My other problem is the continuous focus on the weather -- cold, rain, snow, and wind. For a detective, Dandy is also unusually aversev to the mention of bodies, etc. There is humor in the book, but it was not nearly enough to offset these problems.
October 6, 2024
I found McPherson’s writing difficult at first, enough so that I put the book aside until my next trip on an airplane. Then, I overcame the foreign words and recognized her mastery of the language. She did an even more impressive job creating characters and scenes while slipping in hints that were often just below the surface.
The identification and murder of the man in the barrels had sufficient hints (hidden in plain sight) that I solved the case before Dandy, but with a slightly different motive.
The disappearance of a half dozen strangers took a bit longer—super creepy.
I recommend THE REEK OF RED HERRINGS to readers who enjoy historical mysteries with humorous protagonists and complex stories.
The identification and murder of the man in the barrels had sufficient hints (hidden in plain sight) that I solved the case before Dandy, but with a slightly different motive.
The disappearance of a half dozen strangers took a bit longer—super creepy.
I recommend THE REEK OF RED HERRINGS to readers who enjoy historical mysteries with humorous protagonists and complex stories.
March 20, 2025
So good, and rather gruesome, but apparently not too gruesome since I'm a softy really. I figured out half the mystery halfway through and felt quite chuffed with myself, but didn't figure out the rest (though I sort of had a guess) until quite near the reveal. She plays very fair with her audience.
For future self: this is the one where they're in a fishing village devoted to herring, with the taxidermy museum above.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
For future self: this is the one where they're in a fishing village devoted to herring, with the taxidermy museum above.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
September 8, 2017
Will give this series a try, see if it is too much cozy. Right now rather bogged down in Scottish language of small fishing outports. I don't think my struggles with the book changed a lot during my reading, although there was a surprise ending. I don't know if this book is representative of the series, ie does it explore the various areas, dialects and customs of different areas of Scotland? The particular era? Were those upper class distinctions and blasé manner of "Dandy" and her co-sleuth Alec so representative of 1930 UK?
I don't know whether I would ever attempt another book in this series to see if they are all written in the same vein. I'm not sure that I would equate this one with Agatha Christie.
I don't know whether I would ever attempt another book in this series to see if they are all written in the same vein. I'm not sure that I would equate this one with Agatha Christie.
June 3, 2019
This author deserves an award for coming up with the most number of different ways to describe cold, windy, and wet. Scene-setting is superb. A literary mystery, more literary than mystery. The motive for the murder is barely comprehensible, and even one of the characters remarks that the means makes no sense. What bothered me later, as I thought about it, was that the sleuths played little to no role in solving the mystery. Most of the story would have unfolded without them. Still an entertaining read, especially if the reader is considering a vacation visit to coastal Scotland in the dead of winter.
August 10, 2020
So many layers to this - it's so clever. I loved the style and wit of these books from the first, but the story-telling has become more complex and assured as the series has progressed. There are lots of entertaining characters in this book, but my favourite is Miss Clatchie with her Wrath of God demeanour, cold hotel and meagre rations.
My favourite part is where Alec, the co-detective, is forced to sleep in the attic because Miss Clatchie's room is downstairs "as though she expected Alec to wake in the night maddened with an ardour that could not be contained if he were on the same landing but which would ebb at the thought of a few steps." Great stuff!
My favourite part is where Alec, the co-detective, is forced to sleep in the attic because Miss Clatchie's room is downstairs "as though she expected Alec to wake in the night maddened with an ardour that could not be contained if he were on the same landing but which would ebb at the thought of a few steps." Great stuff!
June 16, 2018
Took a while to get into this (my first Dandy Gilver) as I tried to figure out relationships and wade through the heavy dialect of the NE coastal Scottish fishing village setting for this 9th adventure. The title was apt as there were red herrings all over. The grotesque side story about odd brothers and their even more odd taxidermy museum gave us an exciting bit of action during a major storm toward the end of the book. The last part of the book really picked up despite the heavy dose of dialect. Interesting stuff about customs, superstitions and folklore of these fisherfolk. Not bad.
June 28, 2018
Heroine a little matronly but with enough dash to make the story exciting rather than ponderous. Great historical detail and lavish setting credibility!
+28 "as though she expected Alec to wake in the night maddened with an ard our that could not be contained if he were on the same landing but which would ebb at the thought of some steps" 40 "I've knitted a jersey, waiting. Here, try it in!" 😂
- 125 286 blocking haziness
+28 "as though she expected Alec to wake in the night maddened with an ard our that could not be contained if he were on the same landing but which would ebb at the thought of some steps" 40 "I've knitted a jersey, waiting. Here, try it in!" 😂
- 125 286 blocking haziness
July 7, 2019
I actually am not going to finish this book. It’s all over the place and much is inferred, so it’s difficult to figure out what going on. Also, there is only some explanation of what the Scots dialect words are, so even more difficult to figure out what potential clues might be. Maybe I had a difficult time with this book because o picked up the series 9 books on, but I am usually pretty good at figuring it out.
May 16, 2023
read this for the language
The author must be a “Philly-hoolie” herself to find and incorporate all the amazing terms of this remote Scottish fishing village, from gutting quines to loons, to slichting an oaty! And the description of the taxidermy “museum” when Dandy and Alex first tour it is incomparable.
The mystery is suitably creepy and a bit heartless in its outcome but the words, Dear!
The author must be a “Philly-hoolie” herself to find and incorporate all the amazing terms of this remote Scottish fishing village, from gutting quines to loons, to slichting an oaty! And the description of the taxidermy “museum” when Dandy and Alex first tour it is incomparable.
The mystery is suitably creepy and a bit heartless in its outcome but the words, Dear!
February 3, 2017
This is the first book (#9 in the series) that I've read from this author and I loved it. I enjoyed the main character Dandy and the relationship to her younger sidekick Alec, and, of course, her very elderly Dalmatian Bunty. It is set in the early 1930's in a small village in Scotland. The plot was twisted, multifaceted, and engaging. I'm now going to start from #1.
June 25, 2018
Creepy, macabre and with trademark sense of place and time, this was a very entertaining installment in this series. Whenever I read one of these, I always want to rush out and read the next, but I force myself to a slower pace as I’m catching up with the publication and that’s always sad as it means longer waits between books. I love this series.
December 10, 2019
set in the Banffshire fishing community of Gamrie in the depths of winter, this is the usual entertainment with lots of philology thrown in – local customs and fishy mystery. The research is copious but lots of fun, and the end is really quite shocking, even if you half see it coming. I’ll be off to the next one soon.
September 28, 2024
Whew. This might be the most gruesome of the books. But also one of the funniest, at least at the beginning. I was laughing out loud so much as Alec and Dandy told Hugh about their case and then arrived and settled in to the fishing village. Those Searle brothers-I knew something was off with them. And I sort of wondered if they might not be taxidermyi ng something they shouldn’t…
February 9, 2019
I love Catriona McPherson and Dandy Gilver. Besides being engaging, with a lot of humor, they're very well researched. This one has a lot of Scots dialect, and, along with all the duplicate names and tee names, It was hard to follow at times. It was worth the effort, though, and I enjoyed it a lot.
February 11, 2020
Dandy misses the forest for the trees. Very predictable mystery. Dandy is slightly more oblivious in this book (the way her character was at the beginning of the series) and is less hard than she's been in the last few books. The setting was well done.
December 13, 2020
I had such a difficult time with the Scottish dialect. Never did figure out the names or the customs. The explanations weren't clear to me. The plot was all over the place. I'm really not sure why I finished this book.
February 14, 2022
I like this series but found this very slow in the middle. There seemed to be just too much detail about the wedding week and I skip read a good 50 pages at this point. Ive already bought the next in series so will persevere hoping for a more enjoyable next episode.
March 20, 2024
Atmospheric. The Doric takes some getting use to, but it makes for a rewarding reading experience. And the museum on the cliffs is straight out of a 1930's horror movies! PS; where did this new cover (Dandy and Alec standing at a fence and looking out over the sea) come from? It's excellent!
November 9, 2024
This is quite the cultural education about fisher folk in the far reaches of Scotland. It was fascinating, if a little long winded, and I liked Dandy very much. As a mystery it’s complicated, to say the least.
February 19, 2025
The story was interesting enough, but I struggled reading this because of the dialect used in this book, not just from the townsfolk of Gamrie but from the book as a whole. Granted, this is probably because I'm American. I did, however, really enjoy the ending.
December 4, 2025
Witty characters and interesting philology make this book fun to read. But I don't enjoy mystery books that involve an endless round of interviewing the same people over and over again to collect enough tidbits to put a puzzle together.
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