What do you think?
Rate this book
Hindsight: A Novel of Suspense
A seemingly innocuous inquiry leads a successful novelist to recall longsuppressed childhood memories of "Mad Molly" Benison and the tragedy, trauma, and violent death that happened forty years earlier
188 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
14 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Peter Dickinson
142 books156 followersPeter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL was a prolific English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories.
Peter Dickinson lived in Hampshire with his second wife, author Robin McKinley. He wrote more than fifty novels for adults and young readers. He won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Award twice, and his novel The Blue Hawk won The Guardian Award in 1975.
Peter Dickinson lived in Hampshire with his second wife, author Robin McKinley. He wrote more than fifty novels for adults and young readers. He won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Award twice, and his novel The Blue Hawk won The Guardian Award in 1975.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Read
January 30, 2019I love his children's literature so much, I decided to read one of his adult books (of which, I'm excited to report, there are many). This crime novel had a very different flavor, but I really enjoyed it as well. Very interesting structure.
December 26, 2019
Maybe turning 60 (which I do in a month) means I’ve just read too many mysteries to be overly awed by many of them.
In my golden youth (specifically, in this case, 7th through 12th grades) I read all 100ish of Agatha Christie’s works and loved them; would I feel the same about them if I encountered them for the first time now? I can’t help but think not.
The genre’s need for an isolated group of quirky characters full of secrets and repressed yearnings brought together for a unique murder whose solution is not immediately obvious and who all have something to contribute to its solution now all too often feels contrived and unlikely, though not without its surface appeal.
In addition, there are often so many things that must be overlooked, questions that must not be asked, and coincidences that must not be doubted that the observant and thoughtful and, yes, even supportive, reader’s patience can be pushed to its limits.
So about this book: all the above aside, it’s enjoyable and well written. Moody, with interesting settings (a remote school during WWII) and characters and plotting. It has many meta elements including the fictional author of the text that is allegedly the narrative of book contemplating on what in it is true and what is invented ( even he’s not always certain) and often ruminating on the meaning of truth itself.
In my golden youth (specifically, in this case, 7th through 12th grades) I read all 100ish of Agatha Christie’s works and loved them; would I feel the same about them if I encountered them for the first time now? I can’t help but think not.
The genre’s need for an isolated group of quirky characters full of secrets and repressed yearnings brought together for a unique murder whose solution is not immediately obvious and who all have something to contribute to its solution now all too often feels contrived and unlikely, though not without its surface appeal.
In addition, there are often so many things that must be overlooked, questions that must not be asked, and coincidences that must not be doubted that the observant and thoughtful and, yes, even supportive, reader’s patience can be pushed to its limits.
So about this book: all the above aside, it’s enjoyable and well written. Moody, with interesting settings (a remote school during WWII) and characters and plotting. It has many meta elements including the fictional author of the text that is allegedly the narrative of book contemplating on what in it is true and what is invented ( even he’s not always certain) and often ruminating on the meaning of truth itself.
July 27, 2013
Oddly, when I first read this--more or less the year it was first published--I thought it was OK, but not particularly gripping. On this reread I realized what a tour-de-force it actually is, a layered and nuanced tale more about the act of creating fiction than it is about the plot. The plot is (well, both plots are)nonetheless engrossing, deftly woven, well up to Dickinson's best. Wow!
October 28, 2024
Unusual meta fiction mystery, slow starter but really gelled for me in the second half
mystery author, approached by biographer of famous writer, explores his childhood war experience
multiple narrative threads, books within books
mystery author, approached by biographer of famous writer, explores his childhood war experience
multiple narrative threads, books within books
July 6, 2014
Sent running to my local public library in search of a Nancy Pearl “Under the Radar” recommendation, which wasn’t available, I instead grabbed “Hindsight,” my first venture into the writing of Peter Dickinson. “This is a murder story,” the author begins and then offers a lengthy explanation that it is and it isn’t because it is actually a true story, “true, at least, as I have been able to make it.” The narrator, Paul Rogers, had intended to write a “straightforward detective story” using his prep school days as a background. When he was 12 years old, St. Aidan’s was evacuated to the Devon countryside during World War II. One evening during that time he discovered the body of Mr. Christopher Withers, a timid teacher, ostensibly killed by a stag.
He found himself, forty years later, “ambushed by memories” and details that he had once been quite sure about as a young boy he now questioned. Struggling with his memory as he writes his novel, Paul is coincidentally contacted by Simon Dobbs, an author writing a biography on Isidore Steen, a “Great Writer,” who died in 1927. Dobbs is looking for information about Molly Benison, a legendary figure from the 1920’s literary and social scene in London, who had also taught at St. Aidan’s when Paul attended. Dobbs believes her to be Steen’s mystery love. Their correspondence, a series of letters and a few late night phone calls, challenge Paul’s memory, unlocking much of what he had blocked out for forty years, leading him to frightening revelations.
“But for boys of my age and class the war was a good time to be growing up; there were many restrictions, but these bore mainly on the adults, and that somehow created space for us which had not been there in peacetime.” Paul’s first glimpses of deer “to gaze at this Eden-world to which, amazingly, the war had floated us” represent important memories from this time as did his contact with Molly Benison, nicknamed “Mad Molly” by the students because she would do anything for fun. Paul, whom she called “Rogue,” was singled out to attend her Sunday afternoon teas. His memory of them “as if they were a continuum, a timeless and eventless golden scene belonging to that age in his life” were similar to his memory of the deer-stalks. While Molly tells Paul she knew his father when he was a soldier convalescing, forty years later Dobbs shares Molly’s correspondence with Paul’s father, 19 letters written between 1917 and 1932, which reveal Paul’s father was in love with Molly Benison.
Imbedded within the evolving puzzle are details of the English prep school: the caste system, all the structure, developing the future gentlemen and leaders of England, the academic rigor of the classics, extra tutoring sessions, and Paul’s insight into his teachers from his forty years hindsight perspective.
And the mystery…So many details foreshadowing, so many interconnected characters…Molly’s niece, Annette Penoyre, in love with Christopher Withers, Captain Smith and his furtive conversations with Annette Penoyre, Daisy O’Connell and her relationship to Mad Molly, the games with Molly and Daisy that were not what they seemed to be, the rut, the stag’s attack on Paul, and the disastrous culling of the deer.
Could Paul have imagined this chain of events? Or can all this be attributed to “coincidence; unconscious memory; or imaginative truthfulness?” When the increasingly ailing Simon Dobbs asks Paul to interview the elderly (Captain) Richard Smith, Smith reveals startling details, and Paul is finally able to put the final puzzle pieces together and ultimately, complete his novel. Tales of “humiliation of genius” and Isidore’s “heart of darkness” underscore just how “The Plan went wrong.”
A very creepy denouement, with perhaps too much new information pummeling the reader at the end, Dickenson’s approach to the mystery and tip of the hat to literary salons and English prep schools still charmed me.
He found himself, forty years later, “ambushed by memories” and details that he had once been quite sure about as a young boy he now questioned. Struggling with his memory as he writes his novel, Paul is coincidentally contacted by Simon Dobbs, an author writing a biography on Isidore Steen, a “Great Writer,” who died in 1927. Dobbs is looking for information about Molly Benison, a legendary figure from the 1920’s literary and social scene in London, who had also taught at St. Aidan’s when Paul attended. Dobbs believes her to be Steen’s mystery love. Their correspondence, a series of letters and a few late night phone calls, challenge Paul’s memory, unlocking much of what he had blocked out for forty years, leading him to frightening revelations.
“But for boys of my age and class the war was a good time to be growing up; there were many restrictions, but these bore mainly on the adults, and that somehow created space for us which had not been there in peacetime.” Paul’s first glimpses of deer “to gaze at this Eden-world to which, amazingly, the war had floated us” represent important memories from this time as did his contact with Molly Benison, nicknamed “Mad Molly” by the students because she would do anything for fun. Paul, whom she called “Rogue,” was singled out to attend her Sunday afternoon teas. His memory of them “as if they were a continuum, a timeless and eventless golden scene belonging to that age in his life” were similar to his memory of the deer-stalks. While Molly tells Paul she knew his father when he was a soldier convalescing, forty years later Dobbs shares Molly’s correspondence with Paul’s father, 19 letters written between 1917 and 1932, which reveal Paul’s father was in love with Molly Benison.
Imbedded within the evolving puzzle are details of the English prep school: the caste system, all the structure, developing the future gentlemen and leaders of England, the academic rigor of the classics, extra tutoring sessions, and Paul’s insight into his teachers from his forty years hindsight perspective.
And the mystery…So many details foreshadowing, so many interconnected characters…Molly’s niece, Annette Penoyre, in love with Christopher Withers, Captain Smith and his furtive conversations with Annette Penoyre, Daisy O’Connell and her relationship to Mad Molly, the games with Molly and Daisy that were not what they seemed to be, the rut, the stag’s attack on Paul, and the disastrous culling of the deer.
Could Paul have imagined this chain of events? Or can all this be attributed to “coincidence; unconscious memory; or imaginative truthfulness?” When the increasingly ailing Simon Dobbs asks Paul to interview the elderly (Captain) Richard Smith, Smith reveals startling details, and Paul is finally able to put the final puzzle pieces together and ultimately, complete his novel. Tales of “humiliation of genius” and Isidore’s “heart of darkness” underscore just how “The Plan went wrong.”
A very creepy denouement, with perhaps too much new information pummeling the reader at the end, Dickenson’s approach to the mystery and tip of the hat to literary salons and English prep schools still charmed me.
January 22, 2016
Hang on guys. Before you call the ending 'unsatisfactory' and 'overcomplex': don't you think the author repeatedly provokes you, through the narrator's comments on memory and its suppression, to look for another solution to the events the narrator relates? All those memories that end up 'clicking together' SO marvellously well, as the narrator exclaims— yet one, huge, sinister memory gets no explanation; is recounted without comment; points to a different murderer and a far nastier crime. Dickinson is a very clever guy. Why should he not expect the same of us as readers? He's using first person narration for a reason: it means there's no guaranteed omniscient voice, from 'outside' the book itself, who tells you who really did what.
July 23, 2016
Peter Dickinson seems to be under-appreciated, and I can't quite figure out why. Maybe that's not the case in the UK. It's easy to get his children's and YA books in the libraries around here, but his adult novels are hard to come by. Yet each one is unique, surprising, and compelling. Friends, please read Peter Dickinson. Sadly, he died in December 2015, so we can't look forward to more new books, but he was prolific and if you can get your hands on his work, there's enough to keep going for quite a while.
June 7, 2016
A book within a book. Well Rouge Rogers is writing a book about his prep school days, and a book about writing the other book. They coexist in the same text just different chapters. One is in the past going forward and one is in the present going back. They converge at the end with 3 startling revelations that 'Rogers' feels the readers should have guessed from near the start. I only got 1 of them.
While this book was more of a novella, it took me forever as I only read a chapter a day and I had to restart some a few times to get what I read the night before. I did like it.
While this book was more of a novella, it took me forever as I only read a chapter a day and I had to restart some a few times to get what I read the night before. I did like it.
May 12, 2013
I always enjoy Dickinson's writing. It was a fascinating juxtaposition of the story teller struggling with his novel while rehashing memories of his boyhood days at school. Only as an adult can he look at those events with mature eyes and realize that it was more that death. It was murder.
May 19, 2019
Haven't read this in too long a time. Memory says gold stars, though.
August 4, 2023
This is very good, but not quite at the level of Dickinson's best flashback mysteries. There's a lot of tricky movement between times and narrators, which doesn't always come off: we get the writer in the present day (i.e. the '70s), his letters with the historian who sparks his memories of school in 1940, the narrative he writes from the point of view of his 1940 self, and extensive flashbacks within that narrative to WWI. This narrative starts out as both his attempt to do research in his memories and to write a mystery novel, that being the narrator's career: his subsequent claim that the memories are true and the murder mystery not invented is thus perhaps a little questionable. Mostly, though, the issue is that what drives the mystery isn't as interesting as it usually is. The peccadilloes of some invented fin-de-siecle intellectuals aren't exactly boring, but they lack the punch, and require more explanation, than the class issues that are Dickinson's more usual fare. Arguably, "Hindsight" shows Dickinson coming about as close as he ever does to the golden age mystery formula, given the indisputably upper-crust English setting of a public school and the small circle of upper-class characters whose interactions drive the mystery. But of course, the one thing that "Hindsight" lacks is the great detective who can winkle out the truth, and without that, a golden age-style mystery is likely to be left in a fog of, at best, well-informed speculation. Given the setup of this book, this is probably deliberate on Dickinson's part, but key to the pleasure of the this type of mystery is the clear resolution of the central puzzle, as we don't have much reason to care about the characters most closely involved in the mystery beyond the intellectual pleasure of figuring out who is guilty. Which is not to say that there are no pleasures here, largely in the creation of the boarding school: while "Hindsight" may be a slight letdown as a mystery, it is undoubtedly one of the best English public schoolboy stories I've ever read. And "not quite Dickinson's best" is still an excellent recommendation.
May 19, 2023
Probably a 4.5, but I am a fan of Peter Dickinson's novels with James Pibble investigating, so I am willing to grant the extra half-star. In a recent review, I've written that I am not a fan of double narratives, and in way this novel is constructed that way — as the protagonist is reconstructing events of his past. I felt that this re-construction works and that using a young protagonist for much of the novel also works. It's a very good contribution to literature of the effects of war on young minds and lives.
April 22, 2022
A very difficult book for me to understand, lots of names and stories within stories, and questions about truth and memory. I was glad I finished it because it did come together in the end but I would not recommend it to someone.
October 3, 2025
An intriguing and intelligent book that I had very little desire to read, mostly because of the large cast of characters, the constant English slang, and the obscure references to English public-school life.
June 19, 2022
How odd and wonderful. Like the Go-Between crossed with a detective story.
April 28, 2010
Another book that I expected more complexity from than I got -- or rather, the complexity was on the narrative/storytelling level, rather than in the details of the plot. It was very interesting, and it might be even more so on rereading, or it might fall apart now that I know the answer to the mystery; I suppose I'll find out in 5 or 10 years.
January 8, 2015
I liked this enough on first reading to keep it on a crowded shelf for ten years until now, when I am about to embark on a second reading. I don't usually bother to re read mysteries, but this one has something extra that makes it worthwhile.
February 2, 2016
Interesting multiple perspective on a murder. A mystery writer mines his memories when he is approached by a biographer with revelatory effect.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews