Play Dead

by Peter Dickinson

The time is 1989, year of tremendous upheaval throughout the Communist world—and a time of uncanny calm for Poppy Tasker, a young “gran” looking after her grandson at a London play center. Divorced, dreaming of fantasy lovers, and feeling like an outsider, she wonders what—if anything—the future holds. Then, silhouetted under the trees of the playground a man appears...staring intensely at her own adored Toby.
Suddenly, Poppy’s life becomes perhaps a little too interesting: a corpse is found grotesquely garnished near the playground, strangers watch her apartment and make ominous phone calls, police inspectors question her, and the political turmoil of her time reaches into her life in the form of a very intriguing—and possibly dangerous—new man.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, British Literature

282 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 15, 1991

About the author

Peter Dickinson was an English author and poet widely respected for his children's fiction, detective novels, and imaginative speculative writing. Raised partly in southern Africa before continuing his education in England, he developed an early fascination with adventure stories and classic literature, influences that later shaped his narrative style. He attended Eton College and later studied at King's College, Cambridge, before beginning a long association with the magazine Punch, where he worked for many years as assistant editor, reviewer, and resident poet. Dickinson eventually left journalism to pursue writing full time, publishing works for both adult and younger audiences. His crime novels featuring detective James Pibble earned critical praise, while his fiction for children established him as one of Britain's most distinguished authors in the field. Over the course of his career he produced nearly fifty books that combined historical imagination, fantasy, and thoughtful reflections on human behavior. He achieved rare distinction by winning the Carnegie Medal twice, for Tulku and City of Gold, recognition that placed him among the most celebrated children's writers in Britain. Dickinson also received numerous other literary honors and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In addition to fiction, he wrote poetry and essays, and his work continued to influence generations of readers and writers in the field of children's literature.

Reviews

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The hardest thing for us to accept about the universe is its sheer bloody randomness. Our minds are programmed to look for reasons, for patterns, for purposes, for justice. They are simply not there."

I have reviewed here on Goodreads one novel by Peter Dickinson: One Foot in the Grave , which I found a bit of disappointment. About 40 years ago I read the outstanding A Pride of Heroes (U.S. title: The Old English Peep-Show), which I would rate with at least four stars. While Play Dead is for me a better book that One Foot it is quite far from an almost-masterpiece of mystery novel genre such as Peep-Show.

We meet Poppy Tasker, a youngish grandmother, as she looks after her two-year-old grandson Toby in a children's play centre. The memorable opening scene of children play proves beyond doubt that Mr. Dickinson knows children and their behavior. Toby fancies playing with Deborah Capstone, also about two years old, which poses a problem. Poppy's daughter-in-law is running for a seat in British Parliament as a Labour Party candidate, against Ms. Capstone, Deborah's mother, a Conservative Party candidate.

The criminal thread begins when a young man intently watching Toby is spotted just outside the play centre. The same man later follows Poppy as she walks home and she has to retort to clever tricks to lose him. Few weeks later a mutilated body of a man is found in the play centre and - when interrogated by the police - Poppy suggests this is the same man who watched the children and followed her.

Later in the novel we meet Ms. Capstone and Poppy gets involved with her husband, a Romanian man of Polish ethnicity. This is the fall of 1989: the Soviet rule over Eastern Europe is crumbling. The revolution in Poland has already been victorious, other Eastern Bloc countries have followed and now Ceausescu's regime in Romania is about to collapse. Politics plays quite a significant role in the plot, and not just the fight against Soviet domination. The account of a Labour Party election meeting is vivid and hilarious:

"[...] he said much the same as Janet [...] but making it all so grey and parochial that he might, Poppy thought, have been a woodlouse addressing a convention of woodlice and affiliated beetles and millipedes about the dilapidated state of bark they lived under."

But the best passage in the novel is the astute analysis of the nature of corruption and how it so naturally embeds in a society: why massive corruption works so well and becomes a convenient way of life for most people. Alas, despite Mr. Dickinson's accomplished prose, the novel is marred by too much preachiness, particularly towards its end. Instead of the author explaining the Big Picture behind the events and motivations of the characters, the readers should get that on their own.

On a positive note, the affairs of the heart of late middle-age people are very well portrayed and the author makes it clear that they are so much more interesting than those of the under-30 crowd. Interesting, well written, readable book, perhaps not as much as a mystery novel.

Three stars.

[William Leight · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Play Dead" is a Peter Dickinson mystery and therefore, it should go without saying, very good. Unlike those which are largely set in the past, this counts as a proper mystery, although it's notable that the big confrontation and emotional climax of the novel doesn't resolve the mystery: the discovery of the killer is important, but not central. Which makes a certain amount of sense, given that Poppy Tasker, our heroine, is, like all the protagonists of Dickinson's post-Pibble mysteries I can remember, not a detective by trade. She is, rather, a middle-aged woman who, at a loose end after a recent divorce, has taken on the job of watching her 2-year-old grandson for her daughter-in-law. It is this that gives her the spare time to investigate when a murder affects her directly, though she is also prompted by a general distrust of the police, who she fears will be unwilling to take into account what she regards as incontrovertible evidence and will instead go for the easy but wrong solution. It's also clear, though, that part of the reason Poppy starts investigating is that she needs something to do but has no real idea of where she wants her life to go, and the investigation, and what comes out of it, turns into a way for her to work through this question. As per usual in Dickinson mysteries, the pleasure lies as much or more in the character development as in the accumulation of clues. The descriptive writing is also excellent: even the scenes in which Dickinson describes Polly listening to music, something which I usually dislike, were well done.

Surprisingly, this is also a highly political book. Polly's daughter-in-law Janet is, it turns out, a possible Labor candidate in the forthcoming UK election; one of the other children in her grandson's playgroup is the daughter of the Conservative candidate. Almost the first thing we learn about Polly is that, although a lifelong Liberal voter, she could no longer support the party after their behavior at the last election. Since the book takes place in 1989, this was the 1987 election: I have to admit that the reference eludes me, but presumably it has something to do with enabling Thatcher to win, because Polly has no intention of joining the Conservatives. For Dickinson, the Conservatives mean class society, which is not just terrible in its associated inequality -- something he keeps front and center by showing us the times that Polly is treated differently than the nannies who care for most of the kids in the playgroup because her accent marks her as not working-class -- but also breeds crime and corruption. So Polly has become a member of the Labor party, but all is not well here either. One chapter of the book takes place at the meeting where the Labor candidate for Polly's constituency is chosen, depicting a contest between a defeated, embittered, and sectarian left, and a dynamic New Labor (technically perhaps not New Labor yet, since Blair was not yet the leader of the party), in the form of the unstoppable Janet. Polly votes for Janet, and not just because she is her daughter-in-law, but when a heckler at the meeting calls Janet "pink Thatcher", she recognizes that there is an underlying truth to the accusation (an impressively penetrating insight into the nature of New Labor for Dickinson to be making in 1991). So much for politics in the UK: hope comes, however, from the non-violent revolutions in the former Warsaw Pact countries. From a vantage point of 30 years later, alas, the inspiration has warn thin, with stirring popular protests replaced by politics just as (or more) sclerotic as anything the UK has to offer: better than the old days, to be sure, but not offering the same chance at renewal that it holds out in "Play Dead". On the other hand, the opportunity for renewal is not limited to politics: not only does Polly take inspiration from the Velvet Revolution, her success in finally throwing off the specter of her ex-husband, who couldn't stand the idea of Polly having a life independent of him, is directly analogized to it.

Of course, Dickinson is too good a writer to use a massive popular uprising purely as color: there are also direct impacts on Poppy's life which would be spoilers so I won't discuss them. There's also a fascinating scene at the end of the book -- fascinating not so much for its import on the plot, which is nil, as for what it says about the way that Dickinson writes mysteries -- in which the good cop, looking at a protest on Prague on TV, tells Poppy that, were he in Czechoslovakia, he would not be part of the crowd, but rather standing in a building to the side looking down. The police always "stand between the rulers and the ruled", in democratic Britain as much as in dictatorial Czechoslovakia, he says, thus beautifully summing up the fundamental distinction between writers like Dickinson and, say, Agatha Christie. I enjoy reading Christie mysteries, which are escapist fun, but she doesn't recognize this central fact, and so, in my opinion, can never be as interesting or compelling as Dickinson is. To be sure, sometimes you want escapism rather than interesting and compelling, but if you're in the mood for a mystery that will give you the latter, "Play Dead" is an excellent choice.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good read. I appreciate Dickinson's writing, and I liked his characterization of the main character and all the small children in her world as well as the adults. It was a good mystery with a philosophical/political edge to it that wasn't pushy or intrusive, but fit into the story.

[Priscilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is with the run of lousy books lately? This one had promise, and that the main character is called "Poppy" (my childhood nickname) was an extra bonus. But it just gets more ludicrous (but not in a fun way) the farther I get, more and more obvious that the (male) writer has no idea how to write a female character; the alluded-to-but-not-spoken-aloud-things-that-are-clearly-somehow-important crap is really old by about halfway through, and the horrible parenting skills of, like, everyone in the book are incredibly annoying. I care less and less with every chapter I struggle through and at this point (2/3-3/4 through) it doesn't even matter anymore who the killer is. I can't finish it. I'm spending most of my reading time NOT reading (playing solitaire on the iPod, for instance), because it's soooooo damn boring. Screw it. Life is too precious to waste on this book.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just discovered Peter Dickinson and have enjoyed the others, but this one was disappointing. It started out very good, but the last quarter of the book was utterly confusing - too many names of people that you had only peripherally met, political intrigue. I liked that she and the police official are starting a relationship by the end of the book, though.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intricate whodunnit

Clever, with vivid main character development and sense of place and time, but only possible to follow if you slow down and really concentrate.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great characters, complicated yet believable plot, and toddlers everywhere.