After the Armistice Ball

Dandy Gilver #1

by Catriona McPherson

Dandy Gilver, her husband back from the War, her children off at school and her uniform growing musty in the attic, is bored to a whimper in the spring of 1923 and a little light snooping seems like harmless fun. And what could be better than to seek out the Duffy diamonds, stolen from the Esselmont's country house, Croys, after the Armistice Ball? Before long, though, the puzzle of what really happened to the Duffy diamonds has been swept aside by the sudden, unexpected death of lovely young Cara Duffy in a lonely seaside cottage in Galloway. Society and the law seem ready to call it an accident but Dandy, along with Cara Duffy's fiancé Alec, is sure that there is more going on than meets the eye. What is being hidden by members of the Duffy family: the watchful Lena, the cold and distant Clemence and old Gregory Duffy with his air of quiet sadness, not to mention Cara herself whose secret always seems just tantalizingly out of view? Dandy must learn to trust her instincts and swallow most of her scruples if he is to uncover the truth and earn the right to call herself a sleuth.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Historical Mystery, Crime, Cozy Mystery

303 pages, Hardcover

First published August 10, 2005

About the author

Catriona 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.

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two murders need two motives, I wrote, then I put my elbows on the desk and lowered my head, but stopped in time. It was not even ten o'clock in the morning, and I could not possibly put my head in my hands already. Sherlock, I am sure, never put his head in his hands before luncheon. That should be my rule from now on. No head-holding before luncheon, no putting of one's head on the table and rolling it from side to side before tea, and no audible groaning before dinner.

I am very disappointed. I don't know about you, but I expect mysteries to be fun. An entertaining, fun read. This is NOT an entertaining, fun read. "You'll love this book!" my friend told me. "It's like a murder mystery Downton Abbey!"

PLOT:
Dandy (Dandelion) Gilver is a bored rich lady in 1923. No job (obviously) a husband who is distant and uninterested (they sleep in separate bedrooms) and two sons who are away at boarding school ten months out of the year. She needs a little excitement. When her best friend Daisy calls her about the Duffy Diamonds being stolen - and Daisy and her husband Silas being expected to fork over the cash for them - Dandy is on the case!

Why? Is she smart? No. Is she clever? No. Does she think like a detective? No. Daisy specifically hires Dandy because Dandy is considered "stupid" and it is hoped that her bumbling around and faux pas will uncover the truth.

Then we have Alec - Dandy's partner in the mystery. He is the fiancé of Cara Duffy. Due to REASONS, he and Dandy team up together to solve a theft-blackmail-murder.

WEAKNESSES:

Alec: Despite the fact that he's JUST AS DUMB as Dandy, except in a different way, he never fails to condescend to her and talk down to her. I think this is mainly because he is a man and she is a woman and it's 1923. He misses key mystery points just like she does, and he can't piece things together any better than she can.

"Stop interrupting," said Alec.

Fuck you, Alec.

"Concentrate, Dandy, please," he said.

Fuck you, Alec.

Number of times I told Alec to go fuck himself after he disrespected Dandy: 8. I found him to be vastly annoying.

Dandy: There's no skirting around the fact that she's dumb. She has her brilliant moments, but for the most part you just want to scream out the obvious to her. And her obsession with being "polite" and "hushing things up so there's no gossip" was annoying as heck.

And yet, even then, even as late as that, I found myself frowning and felt my face twist into an embarrassed grimace at the thought of Daisy breaking the bounds of convention at my behest, walking away from her hostess's house without her hat or her gloves and not taking her leave. Had Daisy come to the telephone, I wonder still if I should have been able to issue the command, or whether I should have said that of course she might go and say goodbye to ______, even finish her tea. Luckily, I was not put to the test.

So, let me get this straight: Your best friend is having tea with a MURDERER and is in mortal danger. And yet, you can't quite bring yourself to tell her to 'get out of the house.' Because leaving in a rush might seem rude. o.O Are you afraid of damaging the sensitive murderer's sense of propriety!?!?!?! Jeez Louise!

It's stuff like this that has me shaking my head and unable to get fully behind Dandy. She's also a bit shallow and appearance-focused. And she's NOT the least bit enlightened regarding "the lower class."

Dandy and Alec, sitting in a tree... :

I think it would have been at that moment, if I were the type to fall in love, that I should have fallen in love with Alec Osborne. It would have been the first and last time in my life (and of course I should not have admitted it to myself) but, despite the presence two feet away of the girl he was to marry, as he teased me so very gently and said my name, that's when it would have happened.

This approximately 120 seconds after she's met him, and after he's said 47 words to her. I counted.

Okay, it was REALLY making me angry that Dandy was crushing on Alec for the whole book. And lying to her husband, going out with Alec alone, sneaking around with him, having him in her bedroom (!!!) more than once...

Of course, none of this was for sex! They were trying to solve a mystery. Okay. But McPherson makes it obvious that Dandy has a 'thing' for Alec. Despite being married, despite him being (I don't know how much) younger than her, despite him being engaged to a young woman, despite her having two children with her husband. I was just faintly ill through the whole book by this kind of almost-cheating-but-not-really vibe from these two. This was a little too close to infidelity for my comfort.

Before I reached Alec's door he emerged dressed for dinner but, seeing me, he backed into his room again and drew me after him.

And what about this?

"Dandy?" Alec whispered, coming right inside and waiting a bit for his eyes to adjust before he moved again. Still groggy and rattled as one is after waking from a dream, I was unable to speak and only blinked and gulped as Alec came to sit on the edge of my bed. He started with a reassurance.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said. "And don't be alarmed: it's not a social call."

Her husband's sleeping in the next room, bub! Grrrrrrrrrrr. This is rather baffling when interspersed with moments of almost motherly affection towards Alec:

He laughed again, but this time absolutely mirthlessly, and went on in a loud, blustering voice with a small tremble at the back of it that made me want to take him on my lap like one of my sons.

AND, not to mention, she just laps him up - despite him oftentimes being a condescending little shit to her - just because he's leaps and bounds ahead of how all other men (1920s men) treat her. I understand that he is an improvement on the norm, but I couldn't help yelling at her to grow a spine every time she simpered under his praise after he just shamed her for being "silly" or "flighty" or some other insult. Fuck him! *flips Alec the bird*

The Mystery: The mystery is a convoluted mess. Oftentimes, Alec and Dandy were jumping to conclusions that THEY seemed to think were "obvious," but in reality made no sense. o.O

The evasive language of both the characters and the author: I know this had a lot to do with the time period, but no one can just say stuff outright. It's completely forbidden to talk about abortion, suicide, childbirth, pregnancy, blackmail etc. etc. even if these things are going on right under your nose. So all the characters talk AROUND these messes and just try to communicate to our heroes what is going on. Often unsuccessfully.

This wouldn't be so much of an issue if McPherson was able to make Dandy articulate the truth in her head. But instead, Dandy is such a proper lady that she can't even bring herself to think words like "suicide" or "abortion," so instead we readers are tortured with her skirting around issues, and never saying stuff outright - even in her own brain, which the readers are privy to.

This is beyond frustrating. I often had to read pages two or three times in order to understand what in the world the characters were talking about. SO ANNOYING!!!! It's vague. The whole book is vague. The ending is especially vague - there is a good, high percentage of readers, who at the end of this book, STILL DON'T KNOW who fathered Cara's baby. McPherson NEVER tells us. She just expects us to be able to infer the "obvious" answer. What fucking bullshit!!!!

I mean, I figured it out it was Silas who fathered Cara's baby, but I read the book twice in order to sort this out and sort out frankly a lot of other stuff that McPherson is coy about. READING A BOOK SHOULDN'T BE THIS MUCH HARD WORK. And I'm not a lazy reader - I happily gobble up Austen and Tolstoy. McPherson is being deliberately evasive. It's not appreciated.

Bullshit: There's a lot of bullshit in this novel. Bullshit about women, bullshit about men (the book denigrates men almost as gleefully as it denigrates women), bullshit about people's bodies (fat comments, and one crazy paragraph about stretch marks that was not only insulting towards women but INCORRECT)...
...


STRENGTHS:
The writing: The writing is weak in regards to it's evasiveness and how confusing it is. But is is strong in the sense that it is powerful and evocative. It's occasionally even funny. I like McPherson's concepts and phrasing.

How am I to explain then the conviction I held from the earliest stage of the Esslemont affair that somewhere here was such hatred, malign and unstoppable, that it must lead, as flood-water up and melt-water down, to violent death?

Or

Who can say how far back it had its beginning, at what moment the first turning was taken away from light and cheerful ordinariness towards the festering dark where thoughts of killing can gather?

For funny, we have:

This telephone in my room was a new departure and was thought to be by Hugh and by Pallister our butler to be taking modern manners to the furthest point of decency. I should never admit to either of them how it made me jump each time it erupted beside me, like a sleeping baby whose nappy pin had given way and pierced it, just as inconsolable, just as demanding of being picked up and made a fuss of with one's whole attention for some length of time not of one's own choosing.

Her vocabulary is also stunning. I adore a book that makes me reach for a dictionary. And I learned a slew of new words.

The Time Period: It's a wonderful, descriptive, accurate and realistic depiction of the 1920s. You're completely immersed. McPherson does an amazing job.
...

Tl;dr - Oftentimes I write three star reviews that are full of praise and very complimentary. This is not one of those. This book deserves three stars because McPherson is a genius at writing the 1920s, and she has some great chunks in there (mainly thoughts and concepts). But the book is very difficult to read, evasive and coy where it should be upfront and honest, the two main characters are rather dense and also are condescending assholes, and the borderline almost-cheating vibe really pissed me off. I'd avoid this unless you worship the 1920s and wordy, vague mysteries. NOT a "fun romp," despite what anyone tells you. o.O

[Christyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about After the Armistice Ball. There were things I liked and things I didn't. The mystery involving the diamonds and the subsequent murder was interesting. I figured out the bare bones answers (who took the diamonds, who murdered whom - though this one gave me moments of doubt as the story unfolded) to the mysteries fairly early on but filling in the rest of it was quite a ride. I also figured out some other things (like the parentage) before the revelations at the end. However it was the filling out the rest of the questions that intrigued me, especially with how many twists and turns this book threw at me - there were certainly times my head was spinning.

Dandy, in the beginning came off as a bored housewife playing a game in the beginning but more of her character was revealed throughout the story (good and bad). Despite some of the things she say's/does she's not as stupid or flighty as she may come off to some people. She's smart, observant, stubborn, straight-talking and charming in her own way. She's a woman who knows her flaws and is rather upfront about them, she has no illusions as to her strengths/weaknesses. Overall I liked her - even if her attitude to her husband was a bit odd to me (though perhaps perfectly normal for the time period). Alec Osborne also made a strong impression on me. I liked him (even when I was a bit suspicious of him in the beginning). I hope to see more of him in the future though that may not come to pass.

The writing was descriptive, vivid and enjoyable - though there were times my head spun from all the twists and turns. There is no doubt that the unfolding of the mystery as Dandy (and Alec) worked though it was the main focus of the book, and it was very well done. The characters were interesting and both complex and simple.

I mostly liked this first installment in the Dandy Gilver series and look forward to seeing more of her in the future. 3.5 stars.

[Megan]

Mrs. Dandy Gilver, a sweet young society wife known mostly for her dense cluelessness, is enlisted by her friend Daisy to ask dense, clueless questions of an acquaintance who claims that her legendary diamonds were stolen during a visit to Daisy's house. Daisy hopes that Dandy, while acting under the believable cover of an unsuspecting ditzy gossiper, can uncover truths and facts to what really happened to the infamous Duffy diamonds. Very quickly, Dandy--not as daft as she is oft dismissed to be--discovers that the mystery at hand is much deeper than it first appears, and it's tightly woven with threads of family secrets that best not be tugged.

I'm so picky with amateur sleuths, but Dandy won me over quickly, with her frank assessments and her level-headed self-knowledge. She knows she's not the sharpest tool in the shed, and she knows she's not exactly a maternal mother. She owns her faults and flaws, and most intriguingly for me, she's very reflective and thoughtful about the process of investigating a crime. I thought there were believable reasons for this group of characters to not involve police and other officials, and I thought that Dandy's relentless self-examination about what and how she was doing, and why, made this a strong cozy mystery.

The prose delighted me. I actually found the first chapter or so a bit of a struggle, with almost impenetrable slang and references to unknown (to me) persons/places/things, but I sat up at this description of a society couple, a melancholy, gruff man and his brittle, snobby wife: "It could be no more than an unsatisfactory marriage, for I am sure that a man of his stamp must be unhappy with such a wife even if her faults are as vague as his virtues."

I think I was completely sold, though, by Dandy's pondering of women and marriage: "I was beginning to put her down as one of those ladies who, even when past the age to flirt, cannot rid themselves of the idea that the husband is the head of the household and the valve--do I mean valve?--through which all must flow. I am the other kind; I know very well that husbands have all the money and all the say, really, but somehow I never remember to behave as if it were so. (The very strange thing is that if one lives one's life with this point of view, as though husbands barely exist, they do seem to fade.)"

I tend to compare just about anything funny and clever (especially if it's set in the 1920s, like this book) to Wodehouse, but I think that comparison is actually quite apt. I imagine Wodehouse would have been quite delighted by a detente between characters being described as "frosty--no overnight thaw--but at the sorbet rather than the iceberg end of the scale." And who wouldn't be charmed by, on the subject of good dog grooming, the declaration that "it is simply a waste of God's considerable efforts to let a Dalmatian get dirty"? Additionally, Dandy's a member of the fluffy-headed upperclass that Wodehouse loved to skewer, and she's just about as scheming as the terrifying women Wodehouse wrote about, only a lot more sweethearted and willing to do her own dirty work, mostly.

The crime at the center of this novel--the diamond theft and a subsequent murder--was dark, and the solution to it wasn't exactly difficult to figure out, but I thought McPherson did a good job with justifying how long it took to unravel (some elements don't come together until the final sentences of the book--it's not actually a cliffhanger, as some reviews attest) and with the process that it took for Dandy to figure it all out.

[Sally906 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite my initial interest in the title, and the best of intentions, the book just didn't work for me. I found I just couldn't relate to Dandy as a character and as she is the main character and tells the story this was a bit of a problem.

The journey of solving of the mystery takes way too long as Dandy and parnter-in-investigation, Alex, keep going over the same clues over and over again and still not getting the right results - whereas I was screaming the answer at them and wanting to bang their heads together!! Then finally we get to the end and for me it was the last straw! Dandy works out an important piece of information, but doesn't reveal it to the reader. What the? Anyhow she talks to Alex about what she has reasoned - without telling the reader - that's alright I have paid good money for this and really don't think I need to know - NOT! So in the end I was at a loss to determine what it was - sorry can't tell you what the information was not about as it is a spoiler.

So anyhooo - won't be reading anymore of the series.

[Andrea]

Miss Marple, a sweet fluffy old lady, was always entirely ready to believe the very worst of people because she had seen so much of village life. Dandy Gilver, apparently out of an inherent goodness, has a reputation for honesty and innocence - and thus is considered by her society friend to be just the person to investigate a diamond theft.

The period voice of this story feels reasonably accurate. Unfortunately, Dandy just didn't work for me. Unlike Miss Marple, she isn't a person of keen insight, and over and over again sailed past rather obvious possibilities without a blink, only to laboriously work her way back to them much later. This made for a very long read.

Not a bad book, but a not-for-me book.

[Icewineanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

After 20 pages I wondered if I would continue with this book but plowed on...... by page 50 I was hooked! What took me so long to start this series?? Ordered the second book The Burry Man's Day from the library right after finishing this one.
Recommended for fans of Downton Abbey.
4.5 ⭐️ rounded to 5 ⭐️

[Cathy Cole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've heard some good things about Catriona McPherson's Dandy Gilver series over the years, and since I love Scotland and that period of time, I thought it was time to give the first book in the series a try. I've read many books about World War I and the years leading up to the conflict as well as its aftermath. The prologue of After the Armistice Ball immediately wove its spell and took me right to that time when the fighting was finished, and people were taking their first tentative steps in a brand-new world. I also fell in love with Dandy Gilver and her slightly arch, slightly sarcastic, sense of humor. Her husband is a paragon of predictability, and I had fun watching Dandy as she plotted how to take her little investigative tours with spouse Hugh being none the wiser.

The mystery of the diamonds and the murder is a true puzzler, and Dandy definitely needs the help of Alec Osborne, fiance of Cara Duffy. There are real diamonds, there are fake diamonds, there are false trails, and people aren't always whom they seem to be. I joined Dandy in confusion on more than one occasion. However, one thing about this book drove me up the wall and across the ceiling: how Dandy and Alec came to solve the crime. How? By endless talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And when these two weren't rehashing everything for the millionth time, Dandy was think, think, think, think, thinking about it. This book told me that I need a bit more action in my mysteries, and it reminded me of something else.

As a rule, I don't read Golden Age mysteries because I don't enjoy them-- especially if the crime solver is a female. Most females of the era don't have unlimited travel privileges. They have a few opportunities to see, observe, and question, and then they must retire to their parlors to ponder everything over endless cups of tea. After the Armistice Ball is written in the style of one of these classic Golden Age mysteries. If you read them and enjoy them, you're going to love Dandy Gilver. Unfortunately, although I enjoy Dandy Gilver, Golden Age mysteries just are not my cup of Darjeeling.

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book one in the Dandy Gilver, society sleuth, mystery series set in Scotland. It is 1922 and members of the upper class are getting back to normal from the events of World War I and are holding what had been an annual ball before the war. Dandy is asked by a friend to help work out what happened regarding diamonds that supposedly went missing while the owner was staying at the friend's house during the ball. That request leads Dandy and new found friend Alex through a series of events over several months to discover what happened. It involves them in black mail and murder.

The story conveys a certain amount of upper class behaviors which make Dandy sound almost glib and shallow, but that could really be how they behaved. Her references to her husband are near condescending and he appears trivialized. The solving of the mystery takes way too long as Dandy and Alex keep going over the same clues and information repeatedly going from one possibility to another. Even in the end, they don't quite get it right. The end also left me a bit miffed as Dandy works out an important piece of information, but doesn't reveal it to the reader. She tells Alex to think about it and he reaches the same conclusion, but I was at a loss to determine what it was.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems to me that a hallmark of 20th and 21st century literature is that not much gets explained. That is, the sort of talking to the reader to explain things (except as genuine interior monologue) such as is seen in SF, is generally absent. I'm not sure if I'm explaining what I mean very well, but this book had the same sort of feel, especially near the beginning.

It also has what I think you might call a bumbling hero. Dandy (short for Dandelion) has hardly any clue what she is doing, and she wanders around awkwardly asking questions. She eventually gets to the bottom of things, but not without a lot of help and having things explained to her. This is not the sort of book where the detecting character solves the problem through sheer brilliance.

I liked this book; I have a soft spot for clueless bumbling central characters, apparently. Not everyone does, though. I felt that this captured the life of the period pretty well. There were very few slips into modern diction, which is always nice. And I smiled when one of the rural Scottish characters said "redd up" — the region where I live was heavily settled by people of Scottish ancestry, and this is something that is classic Pittsburghese. (Though apparently "red up" is also Pennsylvania Dutch English. Curious.)

[Antigone Chambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was one of the best crime novels I have read that has been written in the last 20 years. I find it extremely satisfying that not only is Dandy a good detective, but that she thinks as someone living through the post-war period would have been likely to. Ms McPherson has drawn excellent 3D characters and although I knew nothing about Scotland (either in the 1920s or even much now) before reading this series I felt that I had gained an insight into that society at that time. One other thing that is great is the nature of the relationship between Dandy and Alec.

If you enjoyed Dorothy L. Sayers then I like to think you would enjoy these - they are not the same, as that would be too boring, but they are intelligently written, the outcomes are feasible and it is hard waiting for the next one in the series.

Many thanks.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting! I don't think I've ever seen a detective that is deliberately "the opposite of Sherlock Holmes."

It's common enough for the detective to say things don't make sense or that everything's in a muddle but it's rare for the author to actually write it that way. Dandy, our heroine, frequently botches simple tasks, says the wrong thing, is led astray, confuses the facts of the case, and even, for a good portion at the start of the book, actually has no idea what the facts of the case are. As readers, we are right in the muck with her, literally working through issues piece by piece.

Whether this is confusing or engaging will vary by reader; personally, I was willing to go along for the ride. It was a long time coming, but I was satisfied by the ending. I saw the last two twists coming, but there were four or five besides to keep things interesting.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! It was one of those "judge the book by its cover" picks from the library - they had a table out of mysteries and this one caught my eye because I love the 1920's.

Dandy is a Scottish society wife. Now that World War I has ended, she's packed her uniform away and gone back to the usual routine as a wife and mother. Eager for an adventure, she agrees to look in to the alleged theft of from diamonds from her friend's annual Armistice anniversary ball. Soon she has more adventure than she bargained for when a young friend is murdered.

I can't wait to read the next in the series!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at the library, decided to give it a try, and was smitten! It's charming and witty, and lightly suspenseful. If you're looking for light mystery reading, give it a try!

[QNPoohBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dandy Gliver is bored now the war (WWI) is over, her husband safe and sound, and the children off at school. When she's invited to her friend Daisy's party, she hesitates. Like everyone else in post-war British Society, they're experiencing money troubles and it would be frightfully embarrassing if anyone knew. Daisy begs Dandy's support at the ball for her husband has invited some insurance company contacts she needs help dealing with them. Also invited to the ball are the Duffys: Cold and proud Lena, her silent husband Gregory and their daughters Clemence and Cara. It seems Daisy had an ulterior motive for inviting Dandy to the ball. Daisy wants Dandy to ferret out information from Lena Duffy on why she is blackmailing Daisy's husband, threatening insurance fraud over the affair of her missing diamonds. When Daisy offers Dandy a sum to solve the mystery, Dandy readily agrees. The younger Duffy girl, Cara, engaged to be married, is the most promising conversationalist. She has something to tell Dandy and Dandy promises to meet Cara at a later date to discuss it. By the time Dandy arrives at the Duffy's seaside cottage, the house has been burned to the ground with Cara in it. Daisy and Cara's fiance Alec sense a mystery and Daisy bumbles and stumbles around the truth until she is forced to admit it. Then she must do something to unravel the mystery of Cara's death and the missing diamonds.

This book started off super slow. It seemed very superficial about a bunch of rich people with rich people problems. That sort of thing is less charming in the 20th century than the 19th, especially after such a devastating war. Dandy seems very glib and foolish. The characters all seemed superficial valuing honor and family name above all else. Then when Cara goes missing, the fun begins. There are so many clues for Dandy and Alec to follow and so many seeming dead ends that I just could NOT put the book down. It's not a typical cozy mystery with a guess the murderer plot. It's more of a crime novel - figure out what actually happened and why. I did guess at some of the secrets but most were shocking. There are some brutal descriptions of a murder victim, madness, family pride and greed that make this novel not so cozy. The reader is left to figure out some things on their own and I would have liked them actually written out. I think I figured out one secret but some loose ends are left hanging.

The characters in this novel are typical of the upper crust of British society at the time. They're shallow, manipulative, silly, sly, and full of secrets that could ruin reputations. Dandy is called foolish several times and she really is. She has many cringe-worthy awkward moments, but what she does have is heart. Alec is the only other character that appealed to me. He's charming, kind and caring, though we don't really know all that much about him. I liked Cara instantly. She's sweet and kind compared to the rest of her family, and I was utterly depressed when I read about her death. Dandy's husband Hugh is a complete idiot or chooses not to see things he doesn't want to see. He's a boring husband and I wished Daisy wasn't married to such a boring man. It was tough to read scenes with them together. It's obvious this was not a love match. Daisy's children appear late in the story and they're typical school boys. I was hoping for more substance from them but they flit around annoying their mother and the reader. I think Daisy is the most foolish character in the entire book. She annoyed me a lot for all the reasons listed above about British society at that time.

The mystery is worth reading for the plot. I didn't care for the characters to want to read more about Dandy.

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first in the Dandy Gilver mystery series set just after the first world war. Dandy, like many women, is finding life a bit dull after doing service work during the war. Taking an entire morning to deal with correspondence just seems like a huge waste of time. So, when her friend Daisy Esslemont invites her to her country estate to lend a hand with a little contretemps over some missing diamonds, she's eager for the chance. Not especially accomplished as an amateur sleuth--but eager.

It seems that the fabulous Duffy diamonds went missing after the last Armistice Ball held at the Esslemont estate. Now, did Lena Duffy scream down the house when a burglar rustled around with her jewelry case and woke her up that night. No, of course not. She just got up, calmly looked out into the hallway (whence the burglar supposed went), saw nothing, assured herself that there was still jewelry in the case, and went back to bed. Why all the fuss now? Well...the Duffy's youngest daughter is set to be wed and we want the diamonds to be all shiny for the ceremony, so they were taken to a jewelers to be cleaned and polished. And the jeweler pronounced them to be fake. So, now Lena Duffy (who loves these jewels like their her only beloved child) is making a ruckus and demanding that the Duffys make restitution...for a robbery they didn't even know had happened.

Of course, the story has more holes in it than a chunk of swiss cheese, but Lena says some ominous things that makes it seem like she's got something else to hold over the head of Silas Duffy (blackmail?) and Dandy starts asking questions with the aim of finding out what is really behind all Lena's huffing and puffing. But her investigation is derailed when tragedy strikes the Duffy household and an even more sinister mystery appears.

This is a decent debut novel in the Dandy Gilver series. Dandy is a somewhat haphazard amateur sleuth and gets a hefty dose of assistance from Alec, the fiancé in the impending wedding. But it is a fun read with interesting characters and one hopes that Dandy will grow into her detective shoes (after all, there are fourteen or so more books in the series...). A good choice for those who enjoy the Golden Age era and who are looking for a quick read.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very obviously a first novel, it needed some severe editing. Chatter chatter chatter. I got the feeling the author was trying to make some obscure point about loveless marriages in the upper classes, but surely if one is married for appearances' and economics' sake, particularly, one's husband won't allow one to trot about the country with a handsome single young man for most of the book?

This is no substitute for Phryne Fisher in her better moments.Set in the twenties, but some of the details are so wrong--for example, the "huge hat" Dandelion (geh) wears to the funeral. Not in the twenties dear. The cloche was all the rage, and all hats were worn close to the head. She's the mother of young boys, she couldn't be cronely enough to hang onto her old prewar hats.And that name. Dandelion--well I suppose it gives the excuse for the masculine prepschool-type nicknames "Dandy" and "Dan", but--geh, as I said before. Telling it in the first person didn't help, either.

I also think the authoress forgot that in the twenties photography was not far out of its infancy; the business with the "glow" wouldn't work so well in black and white plate photography.

As writing goes, there's far too much hash and rehash of clues, real and false, in the middle of the book. Round and round it goes, until the reader feels dizzy and sick. By the end of the novel I was ready to throw it across the room with impatience. And yes, I figured out who the Mystery Man was. Click here if you couldn't--and I can't say I blame you if you couldn't. Alec's older brother. The ending was a crashing disappointment.

Will I read another? I don't know. I have to say she's rather put me off her stuff. Maybe for another sleepless night...but right now I just want to give the author, in Nella Last's words, "A smack and a dose of syrup of figs, like a disordered child."

[Ammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the spring of 1922, Dandy Gilver, her husband back from the front and her children away at school, is bored. She agrees to track down the Duffy diamonds stolen from her friend Daisy Esslemonts’ country house after the Armistice Ball. The mystery evolves into murder.

I should have enjoyed this book, since it contained many elements I like, but I did not. Dandy is condescending when it comes to servants and the lower class, and Alec Osbourne was an ass. The plot was convoluted with theories thrown out right and left. Half the time her light bulb moments came to her as a result of dreams or being in a particular situation which triggered a potential hypothesis. The ending was a particular disappointment after struggling to finish this boring book. SPOILER ALERT -- It’s assumed that Silas was the father and it was actually Clemence who killed Cara. If Cara had a son, wouldn’t he displace Alec as the heir?
2016(62)

[Kathleen Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s hard to believe the prologue and the book are written by the same person. The prologue is beautifully written and set the scene for what I hoped would be a delicious murder cozy. But no. The first chapter immediately switches to the first person, and I HATE DANDY SO MUCH. I couldn’t get past one chapter. She dislikes her friends, looking for any excuse not to visit them, and has no affection either for her husband or for her children. Her friend calls her to solve a mystery because she’s dumb, not because she’s smart, and “no one will suspect a thing.” She hates her house, hates her life, and is too proud to change anything about it. Why do I want to spend any time with her? I don’t.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This apparently is a first novel and proof you shouldn't judge a book by its gorgeous cover--I expected a different personality for the heroine and even more of the faithful dog.

It took forever to get through this book: the plot and language are ponderous--the book just drags on and then suddenly rushes to a conclusion intent on throwing several twists at us. Not many sympathetic characters in the book except for the murder victim's fiance. The heroine apparently is in a loveless or stale marriage, her husband comes off as a buffoon.

All in all, dreary and dull. I won't be picking up any more in this series no matter how cool the cover.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable mystery set between the world wars. Dandy Gilver is a likeable character with her own flaws and ego. Although I found it slightly hard to get into, within a chapter or two I was whizzing through, and barely put it down again until The End. I liked McPherson's writing and the settings are nicely detailed without bogging the narrative down. Looking forward to more of these!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kept forgetting that this book wasn't written in the 1920s. Brilliant evocation of the post-World War I period in England. The characterizations are more absorbing than the mystery plot itself, but the conclusion is surprisingly moving.

[Gretchen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this book at all, to be honest. The beginning was boring and hard to get into, the middle was convoluted and choppy, and the ending was sloppy and confusing. I won't be reading the rest of the series.

[Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during Golden Summer (May-September 2013)

Dandy Gilver has never thought that she might be a detective. Yet that's exactly what her friend Daisy is begging of her. Their mutual "friend" Lena Duffy claims that her very expensive diamonds were stolen at Daisy's estate after Daisy's grand Armistice Ball. It has taken awhile for the "crime" to come to light because they were replaced with paste and it wasn't until a jeweller pointed this out to Lena's daughter Cara a few months later that the "crime" was discovered. Now Lena, whose husband is shockingly in trade, and insurance at that, is demanding that they pay for the diamonds, despite the fact that it can't be proven if the theft occurred when Lena says it did, and the more obvious fact that the insurance had lapsed on the jewels.

Daisy has invited the Duffy's back to her house and has begged Dandy to come along too. Daisy admires that Dandy is able to bluntly cut to the gist of a matter without overly offending anyone by just being herself. Daisy wants Dandy to wrinkle Lena out, find out what is really going on and why Lena is trying to extort them! After the house party, Dandy is still hot on the trail of the truth when she is invited to a small cabin by the sea that Lena and her two daughters have taken. Dandy is able to enlist the help of Cara's fiance after he receives an abrupt letter from Cara ending their engagement with the wedding only a few days away. When they arrive in the small hamlet, the delightful cottage has burned to the ground with Cara inside. They must all stay for the inquest, and in that time Dandy has time to mull things over. There is no way the death and the diamonds are not connected. Dandy's first full fledged case will take her where she never thought she'd go, and will risk more then just her own life.

When I was at my local bookstore one day I picked up a book by Catriona McPherson. The book was titled, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. The title and the lovely cover designed by Jessica Hische made it a no-brainer buy. Of course, as is often my luck, whenever I find a great book at a store it invariably ends up being not the first or even the second in a series... in this case it is the fifth. I cannot read a book out of order, but, you know what, I think that this series my be an exception to my hard and fast rule. After the Armistice Ball has some issues right from the first chapter, mainly, you feel as if you've been dumped unceremoniously into the middle of a story with people who you should remember at an event you know you've been invited to, but you have no idea who they are or where it is. This lack of introductions and place meant that I could have easily picked up any book in the series and still had the feeling that I was missing something. The first book should neatly establish place and characters, with subsequent volumes doing only a short recap. A good editor could have quickly fixed this by just having Catriona write a nice intro paragraph or two setting up where the action of the book takes place, it's Scotland by the way, so as you won't be confused for a quarter of the book, and have Dandy fleshed out a little more then her friends just dropping veiled hints as to her personality. Something can't be "so Dandy" unless we know what she is so like! Luckily the readers ignorance wanes as the book progresses.

Dandy Gilver has got to be one of the most unique creations in twenties historical fiction today, that is once we get to know her properly. She doesn't fit into any well defined sleuth category and this makes her a breath of fresh air. She is not male. She is not a young single woman who has been disowned or at the very least frowned upon by her family as being "eccentric" and "beyond the pale." She isn't widowed and therefore at leisure to travel hither and yon without the gimlet eye of society fast upon her. Instead she is married, one could argue for, not happily, but at least contentedly, with a slightly oblivious spouse. She has no intentions of leaving her husband either, he just bumbles around talking about drainage ditches while she does as she pleases. She has children! Not fully grown, so that they put Dandy into the spinster category, she is still young enough to be of child bearing years, hear that? Young! Also handily the children are usually off at boarding school, which is a blessing, because children can get underfoot when one is sleuthing. So that means Dandy can move about society without impunity and she can closet herself away and solve crimes with male friends without eyebrows (or at least too many eyebrows) being raised. A respectable crime solver, how about that?

Yet Dandy is by no means perfect. While it takes awhile to get the gist as to why she would be the perfect crime solver, it basically comes down to the fact that she is overly blunt and has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth by saying something that no one else would dare say. "Discussing loud and plain what everyone else is thinking about but dare not mention." But this habit of hers makes her come across as a little callow, though she is far from it, and therefore leads people to confide in her, the ideal trait for someone who wants to root around in your life to have. She may be a little dense, a little artless, sometimes easily confused or led astray, with it being hard for her to know where her facts end and her fancies begin. Yet all this together does make a good-ish detective. Like most of the best detectives, she tends to take awhile to get to the point and gets the wrong end of the stick, but this is what makes a book have a compelling narrative. You don't want it over and done with five pages in. Though there is one random trait of Dandy's that I just can't wrap my head around. She really puts down men. Now I'm not saying she's a man-hater (which her overly protective maid obviously is), but she does tend to put down the opposite sex quite a lot, and while Dandy might be befuddled by clues most of the time, this odd character trait has me a little befuddled.

As for the plot itself... once I came to gripes with what was going on, ie, Scotland, Dandy, the rest of the characters all fell into place. While the diamond theft and the murder are relatively simple plot devices, Catriona does a good job of layering the mysteries and doling out the clues so that the book clips along. Yet there was the nagging feeling I had, quite early on, about a third of the way through the book, that I was on the right track, unlike Dandy. It turned out that I was indeed right, but the little wrinkle thrown in helped to make the ending still satisfying. Though with all the tiring to and fro across the countryside, I really do realize that the lure of the Golden Age of Detection was the actually leg work, but this was a bit much, it was the small details that made this book have memorable moments, excluding the vagueness of the ending. The most striking of these moments is the photographs of the dead Cara. They way they are discussed and how they play into the plot make a book that would have just been average reach new heights.

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson is the first book of the Dandy Gilver mystery series set in 1920s Scotland. Dandelion “Dandy” and her husband Hugh Gilver reside at Gilverton, Hugh’s family estate in Perthshire. It’s 1923, the Great War is over and Dandy is bored. Her friend Daisy Esselmont needs help with an awkward situation: it seems the famous Duffy Diamonds went missing while the obnoxious dowager Lena Duffy was a guest at Daisy and Silas’ country house, Croys. Dandy agrees to investigate.

Lena Duffy is a disagreeable woman. Her oldest daughter Clemence is aloof. But youngest daughter Cara is delightful, and she has a wonderful man for her fiancé. It’s a shocking loss when Cara suddenly dies, shortly before her wedding to Alec. The circumstances of Cara’s death seem suspicious to Dandy and Alec, so they go to the seaside town where the “accident” occurred, and begin interviewing everyone.

Dandy is no investigator! She frequently does not understand the implications of what she’s told, and even worse, she “fills in” details and makes *huge* (incorrect) assumptions. When she relates to Alec what she has heard, he manages to separate fact from supposition, and plan their next strategy.

The mystery is so-so, Dandy is the least likely person to succeed as an investigator, but the writing style is the true appeal of the book. Most of the book is comprised of Dandy’s rambles, delightfully on and on about anything that pops into her head. When the telephone rings:

“The telephone in my room was a new departure and was thought by Hugh and by Pallister our butler to be taking modern manners to the furthest point of decency. I should never admit to either of them how it made me jump each time it erupted beside me, like a sleeping baby whose nappy pin had given way and pierced it, just as inconsolable, just as demanding of being picked up and made a fuss of with one's whole attention for some length of time not of one's own choosing.”

Dandy’s thoughts reveal the social customs and mores of 1920s Scotland. Apparently Dandy is English, not a native Scot – she comments on Scottish customs from an outsider perspective:

“Now 'away' in English, as we all know, suggests a trip far from home but for Scots, who can talk of going away to the shops or even away to their beds, it is always worth some careful checking.”

“I unclasped my bag and handed her the envelope. I hoped she would show the proper Scottish reserve around money and not open it until I was gone - I had no idea if the sum I had enclosed was outrageously small, outrageously large or just right. She laid it aside without so much as squeezing it for a clue. 'Well then,' she said. 'There was no need for that, tell her when your see her, Miss Madam. No need at all. I'm affronted.' I took this as it was meant, as a thank you, and went on.”

How Dandy feels about Gilverton:

“My sitting room is delightful, and the breakfast room, facing east to the morning sun, has walls of yellow stripe and cheerful pictures of flowers, so it is not until one emerges from this jaunty corner of the house that one begins to feel the true spirit of Gilverton. Mahogany the colour of dried liver encrusts the passageway and hall; the cornicing so very elaborate, the picture rail so sturdy, the dado intended apparently to withstand axe blows and the skirting board so lavish, almost knee-high I should say, that there is barely room for wallpaper, and what wallpaper there is is hidden behind print after sketch after oil of the outside of the house. Views from every hill, taken every ten years since the place was built it seems, go pointlessly by as one passes, and from above them glower down the mournful heads of stags and the snarling masks of foxes.”

What Dandy has to say about the flowers at her friend Daisy’s estate:

“Most places in this part of the world are at their best in the spring, before the midges awake and begin their savagery, but at Croys the soft uncurling leaf and the peeping primrose are drowned out by a display of vulgarity unequalled in Christendom. Daisy's gardener, you see, the redoubtable McSween, has made it his life's work to perpetrate upon the bank opposite the front of the house, in splendid view of all of the best rooms, a three-ring circus of rhododendrons and azaleas in every shade, but with a particular nod towards coral and magenta. They jostle like can-can dancers in the breeze off the moor and can make people laugh out loud.”

Dandy is ‘terrorized’ by her ladies’ maid Grant, who unlike Dandy is attuned to the latest fashion:

“And tomato red lipstick to finish. Grant had to get quite fierce with me over this shade of lipstick, but she was right. Blue-ish red makes one's teeth look yellow, she explained, whereas a yellow-ish red turns them white. For the same reason, diamonds near the face are best surrounded by pearls, very few ladies of diamond-wearing age having the teeth to stand up to them otherwise. Grant and I think it a pity that more ladies do not grin at themselves in the glass before they go downstairs with pink lips and diamond clips, but I had never once smiled at my own reflection until the first time she told me to and I do not suppose it occurs to many others.”

“They all wore such similar art silk dresses that it might have been a uniform, and one had to assume these dresses were the very latest fashion since they were so ugly - with the cut and colour of old bandages - that they could not possibly have been selected on any aesthetic grounds. Grant would know. Indeed, if this was to be the next fashion, she would no doubt soon be campaigning for me to buy some old bandages of my own.”

“I was late already, but since Grant was in far too foul a temper to be let loose on my hair, I saved myself a good twenty minutes by pulling on a silk turban instead. Thank heavens for turbans in the evening. I hoped they would stay in fashion for ever, or at least until I was old enough to go on wearing them whether they were in or out.”

Dandy’s aware of her shortcomings as a detective:

“These were the thoughts which occupied me as we drove up to the town of Gatehouse and unremarkably, typically I should almost say, they turned out to be quite wrong.”

“I hoped this plan was a wily testament to my growing skills as a detective, but I feared it was another rag-bag of unnecessary lies and pointless indiscretions.”

“I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a clear boundary between what I actually knew and what I surmised. Worse, conclusions based on my surmising threatened constantly to mix themselves in with known details and when that happened I should be lost.”

If you find Dandy’s rambling monologue style entertaining, as I do, by all means read the series. I will.

[Libby Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosford Park and Downton Abbey meet Dandy Gilver! I thoroughly enjoyed After the Armistice Ball. The pacing is a little slower and there is much discussion over and over about the clues, but i think that is a touch of authenticity for the time period and the characters. The ending was left ambiguous but there were enough clues to lead you to the most likely conclusion.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dandy Gilver is one of those amateur sleuths that is enough to drive a reader crazy. Hired by a friend to solve a jewel theft on the sole recommendation that she is a clueless chatterbox who once solved a crime - or maybe not, the details are never shared - “...piping away like a choir boy and everyone else simply squirming with shame, wondering how you dared.” She isn’t dumb and yet she comes across as stunningly unqualified for the task assigned her. In fact, Dandy herself still has no idea what she said on that past occasion to convince her friend that she is the right woman for the job. Coupled with McPherson's oddly labored prose style, in turns both confusing and coddling, this book borders on exasperating.

McPherson's biggest failing is her plotting. On the one hand, After the Armistice Ball is a straightforward cozy mystery following a typical formula. On the other hand, it is a seminar in frustration as Dandy and her grieving comrade, Alec Osborne, attempt to solve the death/disappearance/death of his fiancé, Cara Duffy. Almost immediately Dandy and Alec are convinced that some evil has befallen Cara. They are equally certain they know who is responsible. But instead of that knowledge moving the story forward, the reader is subjected to months (in story time) and seemingly endless pages of the two arguing over the why. To be fair, clues are doled out bit by bit, but more than once I found myself thinking, ‘just get on with it already.’ The novel is somewhat saved by two details in the final chapter that at least tie up the the plot's loose threads, but by that time I barely cared.

And yet, for all that, I like Dandy. She is thoroughly incompetent without being unlikable. Stylistically, I am reminded of a less competent version of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher. I feel like if McPherson had given Dandy just a bit more perspicacity she wouldn’t have felt the need to spoon feed so much information over such a long stretch of novel real estate - in other words, give the reader more credit. This novel could easily have been 50-75 pages shorter without losing a thing, nullifying Dandy’s constant rehashing of events/clues. 3 1/2 stars for the characters, 2 stars for the plot.

[Spuddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical mystery, first in a series featuring one Dandelion "Dandy" Gilver, set in post WWI 1920's England. Dandy, essentially a bored housewife...er, Lady, I guess...takes to sleuthing more as an amusement than anything. She's looking into the disappearance of some famous diamonds that were reported to have been stolen at the Duffy family's Armistice Ball. But it's not long before death enters the picture--Cara Duffy, the young woman who was last known to have possession of the diamonds, ends up dead, the victim of a cottage fire. Was it really an accident, or was the fire set deliberately?

This is one of those books that sounds better in theory than in practice. I didn't much like Dandy, but that doesn't always prevent me from enjoying a series. Although she is supposed to be much more 'forward thinking' than the average 1920's woman, I still found her whole attitude just 'too, too precious.'

I did give the second book in the series a try, just to make sure, and ended up DNF'ing it.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this book put me off this series because McPherson's MO is a tremendous amount of discursive conversation and not much else. While this was the introductory work, I liked the "Bloodstains" book best (my first read in the Dandy Gilver bunch) because I also got a bit of insight into the Upstairs/Downstairs life of a British townhouse in the 1920s.

The period details that I enjoyed in "Bloodstains" were mostly absent in "Armistice" and "Unsuitable Day," which will be it for me for Dandy Gilver. Ms. McPherson's writing style just doesn't entertain me enough, and when I realize it took me almost of month of a few pages a night to get through "Armistice," I know there are other books out there that are better fits for me.

[Laura Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A three. Barely. While McPherson is a competent writer there is just something about her style which doesn't appeal to me. Go figure. And I don't really care one way or the other for Dandy. Not a good sign when talking about the main character.

I also guessed the answer to the mystery and the reasons fairly early on. Not to mention, little action takes place until about the last 20-30 pages. Apart from that the story is mostly people talking to each other or mentally considering the aspects of the crime. Made it move very slowly. I was also dissatisfied with the ending. If I'm reading it right, the real murderer actually got away. I might try the next book just to see if this series improves at all, but I won't make a special trip to get my hands on it.

[BookAddict · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not your average run of the mill cozy, like I thought it would be. The writing was impeccable; character development was well done and the mystery maddening. The mystery takes so many twists and turns that it's easy to lose track. I'm still not completely sure about the ending. Because this tale actually ends with a bit of a mystery, that will not likely be solved. I look forward to reading more of Dandy Gilver.