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Hunt The Tortoise
A temperamental tortoise. An ingenious trap to catch a killer. Lovely Celia Kent, a journalist from London, had so looked forward to a quiet vacation at Madame Oliver's gracious hotel on the French Riviera. It was disappointing to arrive and find Madame no longer in charge and the hotel itself inhabited by a group of very strange guests. Most disturbing of all was a stockbroker named Barre, whose strange entourage included a very temperamental tortoise. The sudden disappearance of this odd pet on a deserted quay provided the perfect setting for sinister things to come - including violent and cold-blooded murder.
- GenresMystery
Audio CD
First published January 1, 1950
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
92 books28 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 7, 2021
What's wrong with everybody? What's in the air? Canadian divers and treasure ships, ungrateful sons and anxious parents, voices that talk in the night about mortal terror, Frenchwomen who think that England and France should be one nation, lucky tortoises, husbands who are afraid of their wives talking to me in case they say what they shouldn't...Is that what one expects to find when one comes on a holiday? (Celia Kent; p. 66)
It's been nine years since Celia Kent has been to the Hotel Bienvenu in La Marette on the French coast. The last time she was there, she wasn't alone and had been the closest she had ever come to complete happiness. But then the war came and took that happiness--and the man she loved--away from her. She has returned in order to lay the ghost to rest. But it's difficult to find the peacefulness needed to lay ghosts when the atmosphere seems so uneasy. She expected changes after the war but she didn't expect the tense atmosphere that seems to affect everyone from the elder Oliviers who own the hotel to their son and wife who now manage the hotel to mixed bag of guests staying at the hotel.
Celia wonders just what has destroyed the pleasant atmosphere of the hotel--it seems little changed from what she remembered (despite needing sections rebuilt after war damage). Is it the fact that Jacques Olivier seems to have more on his mind than his beautiful wife and running the hotel business? Or that his parents are displeased with the way he and his wife "manage" the hotel that represents their life's work and savings? Maybe it's the Armenian black marketeer who seems afraid of more than the French authorities. Is the stockbroker who has installed himself, wife, six children, and his lucky tortoise really what he seems to be? Or is his family vacation a cover for something more sinister? What about the "Swiss" guests who seem to live through each night in mortal terror? Or the diver who's in search of sunken treasure? And then there's that nice young Englishman who claims he was on a walking tour--but who goes on a walking tour toting twelve volumes of Proust?
Celia is caught up in the middle of a whirlwind of lost jewels, smuggled "goods," missing guests, and, finally, murder. After an altercation with Jacques Olivier, Pierre Jamais (the diver) is found stabbed with a harpoon. At first, it seems that Jacques is the most likely suspect. But then everyone begins talking about a man called Patrice who was seen in the area of the quay shortly before the murder. But Celia doesn't know what to think. She aligns herself with Michael Butler (the nice young Englishman) even though she senses that he hasn't been completely honest with her on certain points. But they don't really work together in traditional detective duo fashion. Michael pursues his own line and Celia finds herself coming across bits and pieces of clues almost accidentally. It isn't until she shares her information with him in the final chapters that he sees who really was behind the killing--not only of Jamais, but additional murders which follow.
Ironically, Celia and Michael don't get to present the local police with a solution. The inspector and his men have been quietly working off-stage and have had their sights on the culprit all along. I think perhaps this is my main quibble with the book--if the officials are going to solve the case, then I would expect to see more of them in the story. But we don't. We have two encounters with the police. They question everyone about the events of the evening of the murder--but we only see the interview with Celia. And then later the inspector (or whatever he is--he gets no name, just a description: "the sallow-faced man in the crumpled suit") overhears a conversation between Celia and Michael and asks a few more questions. That's it.
Despite this quibble, I did enjoy this one more than other stand-alone novels that I've read by Ferrars. I've tended to like her series with Andrew Basnett, retired professor of botany, much better than her stand-alones. Hunt the Tortoise has a number of excellent points to recommend it. First off, the atmosphere--the hotel and the surrounding area make a great setting and Ferrars manages to emphasize the uneasy atmosphere by balancing it against the beautiful coastal setting. The mystery is well-plotted and gives the reader some surprises--even in the choice of victim/s.
Another thing I appreciated was the way that post-war life is portrayed. The effects of the war touch nearly everything in the story and they have more presence than has been evident in many of the mysteries I've read from the same time period--but it's all done without seeming to be overdone. Through conversation we are reminded of rationing in England and how the prices of everything in France has gone up. Descriptions of the destruction Germans (and, sadly, Allies) left behind them as the war ended are woven naturally into the narrative. The once fashionable Hotel Mistral is described as now shuttered with cracked walls, and peeling paint. "War had closed the Hotel Mistral and, without scarring it with bombs or gunfire, had left it a ruin."
The last thing I'd like to emphasize is the way Ferrars handles the relationship between Celia and Michael. In so many mysteries (and fiction in general), a couple meet up, get involved in and/or solve a mystery, and are falling into one another's arms with wedding bells in the near future by the last page. Ferrars ends this one far more realistically. There's a sense that these two might get together, but there's nothing definite about it. He's headed off to wrap up some loose ends on his official business and says "I--I might come back--in certain circumstances." But Celia says nothing. Then when he says it again a bit later, she nods and he just walks off. And Celia turns "back to the bay and [stands] there, trying to sort out a confusion of feelings." It's obvious that these two have a ways to go if anything romantic is going to happen. It's a very refreshing denouement for the relationship side of the story.
Overall, a very good read and a recommended start for someone looking to read a Ferrars stand-alone novel.
First posted on my blog
It's been nine years since Celia Kent has been to the Hotel Bienvenu in La Marette on the French coast. The last time she was there, she wasn't alone and had been the closest she had ever come to complete happiness. But then the war came and took that happiness--and the man she loved--away from her. She has returned in order to lay the ghost to rest. But it's difficult to find the peacefulness needed to lay ghosts when the atmosphere seems so uneasy. She expected changes after the war but she didn't expect the tense atmosphere that seems to affect everyone from the elder Oliviers who own the hotel to their son and wife who now manage the hotel to mixed bag of guests staying at the hotel.
Celia wonders just what has destroyed the pleasant atmosphere of the hotel--it seems little changed from what she remembered (despite needing sections rebuilt after war damage). Is it the fact that Jacques Olivier seems to have more on his mind than his beautiful wife and running the hotel business? Or that his parents are displeased with the way he and his wife "manage" the hotel that represents their life's work and savings? Maybe it's the Armenian black marketeer who seems afraid of more than the French authorities. Is the stockbroker who has installed himself, wife, six children, and his lucky tortoise really what he seems to be? Or is his family vacation a cover for something more sinister? What about the "Swiss" guests who seem to live through each night in mortal terror? Or the diver who's in search of sunken treasure? And then there's that nice young Englishman who claims he was on a walking tour--but who goes on a walking tour toting twelve volumes of Proust?
Celia is caught up in the middle of a whirlwind of lost jewels, smuggled "goods," missing guests, and, finally, murder. After an altercation with Jacques Olivier, Pierre Jamais (the diver) is found stabbed with a harpoon. At first, it seems that Jacques is the most likely suspect. But then everyone begins talking about a man called Patrice who was seen in the area of the quay shortly before the murder. But Celia doesn't know what to think. She aligns herself with Michael Butler (the nice young Englishman) even though she senses that he hasn't been completely honest with her on certain points. But they don't really work together in traditional detective duo fashion. Michael pursues his own line and Celia finds herself coming across bits and pieces of clues almost accidentally. It isn't until she shares her information with him in the final chapters that he sees who really was behind the killing--not only of Jamais, but additional murders which follow.
Ironically, Celia and Michael don't get to present the local police with a solution. The inspector and his men have been quietly working off-stage and have had their sights on the culprit all along. I think perhaps this is my main quibble with the book--if the officials are going to solve the case, then I would expect to see more of them in the story. But we don't. We have two encounters with the police. They question everyone about the events of the evening of the murder--but we only see the interview with Celia. And then later the inspector (or whatever he is--he gets no name, just a description: "the sallow-faced man in the crumpled suit") overhears a conversation between Celia and Michael and asks a few more questions. That's it.
Despite this quibble, I did enjoy this one more than other stand-alone novels that I've read by Ferrars. I've tended to like her series with Andrew Basnett, retired professor of botany, much better than her stand-alones. Hunt the Tortoise has a number of excellent points to recommend it. First off, the atmosphere--the hotel and the surrounding area make a great setting and Ferrars manages to emphasize the uneasy atmosphere by balancing it against the beautiful coastal setting. The mystery is well-plotted and gives the reader some surprises--even in the choice of victim/s.
Another thing I appreciated was the way that post-war life is portrayed. The effects of the war touch nearly everything in the story and they have more presence than has been evident in many of the mysteries I've read from the same time period--but it's all done without seeming to be overdone. Through conversation we are reminded of rationing in England and how the prices of everything in France has gone up. Descriptions of the destruction Germans (and, sadly, Allies) left behind them as the war ended are woven naturally into the narrative. The once fashionable Hotel Mistral is described as now shuttered with cracked walls, and peeling paint. "War had closed the Hotel Mistral and, without scarring it with bombs or gunfire, had left it a ruin."
The last thing I'd like to emphasize is the way Ferrars handles the relationship between Celia and Michael. In so many mysteries (and fiction in general), a couple meet up, get involved in and/or solve a mystery, and are falling into one another's arms with wedding bells in the near future by the last page. Ferrars ends this one far more realistically. There's a sense that these two might get together, but there's nothing definite about it. He's headed off to wrap up some loose ends on his official business and says "I--I might come back--in certain circumstances." But Celia says nothing. Then when he says it again a bit later, she nods and he just walks off. And Celia turns "back to the bay and [stands] there, trying to sort out a confusion of feelings." It's obvious that these two have a ways to go if anything romantic is going to happen. It's a very refreshing denouement for the relationship side of the story.
Overall, a very good read and a recommended start for someone looking to read a Ferrars stand-alone novel.
First posted on my blog
July 6, 2023
Hunt the Tortoise is set in the early years after World War II, and takes place in the sunny French Riviera at the village of La Marette. Celia Kent stayed at the charming Hotel Bienvenu nearly ten years ago, and has a private reason for her return visit.
But things have changed in La Marette. It is not only the physical and financial damage done by the war, but there is a palpable strain among the members of the family that manages the hotel. There is also an assortment of guests that ranges from the curious (a backpacker with a small library of Proust), the humorous (a gregarious black marketeer) and the odd (a stockbroker with a pet tortoise named Zizi). The tension at the hotel grows and eventually boils over into murder.
The most appealing thing in this story was the setting. E.X. Ferrars does a wonderful job of setting the scene at La Marette. It isn't enough, as some authors do, to give a basic description of an exotic locale; the best give you a small sense of being there and I got that from this book. The characters are also intriguing and varied, and Ferrars takes time to put some life in them. I give high marks to Ferrars for the way she deftly revealed information about the personal journey of the lead character, Celia Kent. Instead of unloading a barrel full of information in the first chapter, we get to know Celia and then find out a bit more about her as the story progresses. That is not a big deal in the overall plot, but I found it interesting and different.
The mystery is a good one as well, with more than one shock in the last few chapters. I was puzzled by one thing at the end, and I suspect it stems from my rather lackluster knowledge of history (I am thinking that those reading it at the time it was written wouldn't have been puzzled). I won't go into it here for fear of spoiling the plot twists.
A very engrossing tale because of its atmosphere and characters. I will definitely track down another mystery by this author.
But things have changed in La Marette. It is not only the physical and financial damage done by the war, but there is a palpable strain among the members of the family that manages the hotel. There is also an assortment of guests that ranges from the curious (a backpacker with a small library of Proust), the humorous (a gregarious black marketeer) and the odd (a stockbroker with a pet tortoise named Zizi). The tension at the hotel grows and eventually boils over into murder.
The most appealing thing in this story was the setting. E.X. Ferrars does a wonderful job of setting the scene at La Marette. It isn't enough, as some authors do, to give a basic description of an exotic locale; the best give you a small sense of being there and I got that from this book. The characters are also intriguing and varied, and Ferrars takes time to put some life in them. I give high marks to Ferrars for the way she deftly revealed information about the personal journey of the lead character, Celia Kent. Instead of unloading a barrel full of information in the first chapter, we get to know Celia and then find out a bit more about her as the story progresses. That is not a big deal in the overall plot, but I found it interesting and different.
The mystery is a good one as well, with more than one shock in the last few chapters. I was puzzled by one thing at the end, and I suspect it stems from my rather lackluster knowledge of history (I am thinking that those reading it at the time it was written wouldn't have been puzzled). I won't go into it here for fear of spoiling the plot twists.
A very engrossing tale because of its atmosphere and characters. I will definitely track down another mystery by this author.
November 3, 2025
Didn't guess who the murderer was. Found it fairly interesting in its depiction of travelling to and holidaying in France post-war and in its 1950s period detail.
Feel that Bev's reviews below though thorough and well written should have been less specific about the storyline particularly that between the two main characters.
Feel that Bev's reviews below though thorough and well written should have been less specific about the storyline particularly that between the two main characters.
December 9, 2012
Before the war, Celia Kent visited La Marette with the man she wanted to marry. But he was killed in Italy, and Celia hopes the return visit will let her get on with her life. But the beloved people and surroundings are subtly different. When one of the hotel guests is murdered, Celia comes to a new realization about Michael Butler, a guest who seems to be as suspicious of her as she is of him.
April 13, 2019
Celia is on vacation. She was there at La Marette nine years ago but this time is different--something suspicious is happening but she's not sure what it is. People of different nationalities are staying there also and she begins to suspect them when a murder occurs.
I like mysteries to be suspenseful; to make me not want to put the book down.
I haven't read one like that in a while and this one isn't like that either.
I like mysteries to be suspenseful; to make me not want to put the book down.
I haven't read one like that in a while and this one isn't like that either.
April 25, 2011
a fast-moving workmanlike mystery / suspense story
July 31, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews