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Valse Macabre
Elisha Macomber, laconic Penberthy Inland detective, was as curious as the rest of the islanders about the goings-on at Holly Hill. Hugo Forde has his whole troupe of dancers there rehearsing, accompanied by an enormous mechanical organ recently imported from Vienna, and temporarily placed in the middle of a meadow. It was expected that show people should be different, and this intriguing group was no exception, but it was a little too much for a dear-minded New Englander like Elisha to accept as suicide a death that looked suspiciously like murder.
No. murder was with them a fact that later was displayed for all to see when that bizarre organ started to play and music swelled thunderously from its gilded pipes. Mechanical maidens whirled in an endless dance, and there, on the round spinning disk where a dancing nymph usually stood, was the body of a girl. propped up grotesquely and moving with the rhythm of the music.
Fear and hate gripped the community, but Elisha moved quietly to plumb the depth of a gripping mystery and outwit the contorted mind of a murderer.
No. murder was with them a fact that later was displayed for all to see when that bizarre organ started to play and music swelled thunderously from its gilded pipes. Mechanical maidens whirled in an endless dance, and there, on the round spinning disk where a dancing nymph usually stood, was the body of a girl. propped up grotesquely and moving with the rhythm of the music.
Fear and hate gripped the community, but Elisha moved quietly to plumb the depth of a gripping mystery and outwit the contorted mind of a murderer.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1955
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 8, 2021
Wealthy John Myrick is not pleased when his wife arranges for a 40th reunion of her sorority sisters. He had dated all those women before he married Helena, and feels that the past is best forgotten. When one of them sneaks into his study and kills him in a way that looks like suicide, it's too late for him to say "I told you so!" Fortunately, the reunion takes place on Penberthy Island, where the chairman of the board of selectmen is Elisha Macomber, who sees through the phony suicide and the subsequent phone accident that eliminates Helena from the scene. I found it a bit hard to keep the various women straight and--fair is fair--picked the wrong culprit.
October 9, 2023
Major characters:
John "Jocko" and Helena (Roberts) Myrick
Nella, their grandaughter
Peter Clothier, Nella's' fiancé
Lee Halstead, John's friend
Henry Clark, young groundskeeper and handyman
The sorority sisters:
Miss Frances Furlong
Ruth (Gale) Grant (married to Fitzhugh Grant)
Lucy Kenyon (married to Jerome "Jerry" Kenyon)
Claire (Fielding) Cutler, a widow
Elinor (Carrington) Mace, a widow
Locale: Penberthy Island, Massachusetts
Synopsis: Helena Myrick has invited five of her sorority sisters to her home on Penberthy Island following their 40th class renion. Her husband John "Jocko" Myrick had, 40 years ago, dated all of them at one time or another. Also living with them is their granddaughter, Nella, whose parents are dead. Nella is engaged to local Peter Clothier.
The scene shifts to John's study as an unnamed woman enters and pulls a gun on John, stating she had been waiting forty years for this moment, wants to kill him and Helena, and take Nella for herself; for reasons not quite clear. She shoots him dead, placing the gun in his hand to make it appear a suicide.
Elisha Macomber comes on the scene, and immediately suspects foul play. While he and young Henry Clark are getting the background on the five sorority sister guests, the scene changes to Helena's bathroom, where John's killer confronts her, first attempts poisoning (with DDT!) and ultimately drowns her in the bathtub. Now the motive is becoming clear, and the Myrick estate is now inherited by Nella. Or is it? The plot thickens when Nella's only link to her parents - a framed photograph - disappears. Then Peter Clothier is attacked as well.
Review: This book was quite startling, as on two occasions, we have a play-by-play description of two murders, without revealing the killer's identity - other than that of a woman, and inferred by her conversation that she is known to the victims, and one of the sorority sisters.
All five of the women are quite catty and vindictive, and had any of them been the killer, that would have been all right. It did get confusing keeping them straight as various movements and motives were explored.
Elisha did his best, as usual, but the real star of the narrative turned out to be young handyman Henry Clark, who becomes Elisha's enthusiastic operative.
The use of a "DDT bomb" had me cringing, especially when the thing was used indoors for insect control!
Please also note one instance of the n-word, in a colloquial expression about a woodpile.
John "Jocko" and Helena (Roberts) Myrick
Nella, their grandaughter
Peter Clothier, Nella's' fiancé
Lee Halstead, John's friend
Henry Clark, young groundskeeper and handyman
The sorority sisters:
Miss Frances Furlong
Ruth (Gale) Grant (married to Fitzhugh Grant)
Lucy Kenyon (married to Jerome "Jerry" Kenyon)
Claire (Fielding) Cutler, a widow
Elinor (Carrington) Mace, a widow
Locale: Penberthy Island, Massachusetts
Synopsis: Helena Myrick has invited five of her sorority sisters to her home on Penberthy Island following their 40th class renion. Her husband John "Jocko" Myrick had, 40 years ago, dated all of them at one time or another. Also living with them is their granddaughter, Nella, whose parents are dead. Nella is engaged to local Peter Clothier.
The scene shifts to John's study as an unnamed woman enters and pulls a gun on John, stating she had been waiting forty years for this moment, wants to kill him and Helena, and take Nella for herself; for reasons not quite clear. She shoots him dead, placing the gun in his hand to make it appear a suicide.
Elisha Macomber comes on the scene, and immediately suspects foul play. While he and young Henry Clark are getting the background on the five sorority sister guests, the scene changes to Helena's bathroom, where John's killer confronts her, first attempts poisoning (with DDT!) and ultimately drowns her in the bathtub. Now the motive is becoming clear, and the Myrick estate is now inherited by Nella. Or is it? The plot thickens when Nella's only link to her parents - a framed photograph - disappears. Then Peter Clothier is attacked as well.
Review: This book was quite startling, as on two occasions, we have a play-by-play description of two murders, without revealing the killer's identity - other than that of a woman, and inferred by her conversation that she is known to the victims, and one of the sorority sisters.
All five of the women are quite catty and vindictive, and had any of them been the killer, that would have been all right. It did get confusing keeping them straight as various movements and motives were explored.
Elisha did his best, as usual, but the real star of the narrative turned out to be young handyman Henry Clark, who becomes Elisha's enthusiastic operative.
The use of a "DDT bomb" had me cringing, especially when the thing was used indoors for insect control!
Please also note one instance of the n-word, in a colloquial expression about a woodpile.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews