Jesse’s Reviews > Murder at Holly House > Status Update

you can see that Bleakly is in on—SOMETHING—the moment that he recommends escaping with Grasby to a remote location. As for Deedee, like, I’m kind of bemused at this sort of a thriller at this point. There’s going to be a military coup from a communist faction and they’re going to be based in the Salt House?? What??? I’ll believe it when I see the final word of the text.

okay. Grasby finds out that a lot of people who profess to hating each other are working together. He is kidnapped and perhaps likely to be murdered, but the stunt in the outbuilding could just as likely be a scenario to deflect Grasby’s suspicions. You can never tell in a thriller. The end of this book can’t come quickly enough; a slow, meandering thriller isn’t enough to keep you hooked.

250 pages in and this is a very clumsy and ineffectual thriller—mostly undermined by Grasby’s internal monologue—that is very slowly dripping out plot points. Not that the intelligence bureau didn’t point the way toward espionage.
Now this is shaping up to be a Cold War spy story, though Ingleby’s suspicion that Damnish had sanctioned out the Salt House to the military vs. communist fear seem to be at odds.

all we know now is that British intelligence is involved, Grasby is being told to cover up the murders, Deedee is another player (from another party?), and someone has just tried to murder Grasby, quite possibly Deedee! Grasby as the dude trying to torpedo the murder investigation works brilliantly as in-universe people are just as likely to believe that he merely bungled it out of incompetence.

This dude is so annoying, lol. The amount of duplicity that he goes through in order to save face is kind of funny but also not given how smug he is when he thinks that he’s got one over.

Anyway, the death of Mr. Starr really kicks things off as we are right in the middle of British Intelligence covertly informing Grasby of some of the stakes at hand. THANK GOODNESS.

Grasby is a bumbling buffoon. He is trying to ship himself with the American, Deedee, who—in spite of being 30 years old to his 38–pegs him as middle-aged. He makes an ass of himself at the pub. He constantly tries to play up the importance of his rank, superior to the local constables. Is this dude a red-headed Mr. Bean???

Anyway, Mrs. Gaunt stole the show as the weirdo elderly goth lady.

Grasby has yet to wow me. He is a bumbling detective, more at home in a British sitcom with a laugh track reacting to his internal monologue. His boss assures us that Grasby can be a great detective, but we have absolutely no proof, particularly against the laundry list of his cock-ups. His counterpart appears to be a stunningly beautiful American criminologist who happens to be at the same village he’s shipped to.