Category: Catherine Dilts

Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: THE ECHOING STRANGERS (1952) - Post #1

4/9/2023

Hello, and welcome to the Mitchell Mystery Reading Group discussion of 1952’s The Echoing Strangers. In this first post, readers have sent me their comments on the book’s initial six chapters which I will organize around topics and present here. I try to avoid major plot and solution spoilers as I craft the conversation and we work our way through the story. If you want to join in, you can visit this earlier post to see the April submission timeline.

This time around, we have some reading group veterans as well as a new voice, and I welcome you all! Joyka and Chris join us once more, as does mystery fiction author Catherine Dilts. As well as penning multiple book series, Catherine’s new short story “Claire’s Cabin” appears in the current issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (March/April 2023). We also have busy crime fiction bloggers José and Tracy K. on board. You can visit Tracy’s great site at Bitter Tea and Mystery while José oversees A Crime Is Afoot, his excellent blog offering visitors an in-depth, self-described “random walk through classic crime fiction”. And a hearty welcome to Theda, who joins the reading group for the first time; we are so happy to have you with us!

This time I will structure the observations as a sort of group discussion roundtable, moving from the comments of one contributor to another without building them into narrational paragraphs. This saves me some energy (which is in depressingly low supply these days) and I think it will move the conversation along a bit more fleetly. We begin, aptly, at

THE BEGINNING

José – The Echoing Strangers, a mystery detective novel by British writer Gladys Mitchell, is the 25th entry in her long-running series featuring psychoanalyst and amateur detective Mrs Bradley. The story was first published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd. London in 1952, and it has been reprinted several times, the latest in 2014 by Vintage Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Catherine – Mrs Bradley still endures Gladys Mitchell's harsh physical descriptions, but seems more human than in earlier novels. She has a reputation for solving mysteries. Mrs. Bradley sniffs out an intriguing one when she witnesses a youth pushing a middle-aged woman into the river. Her chauffeur fishes a soaked Miss Higgs from the water. She is apologetic for the boy Francis, who is deaf, dumb, and beautiful. Mrs Bradley settles into the village of Wetwode and is soon directed to a body when Francis sculpts a macabre scene in plasticine.

Joyka – This is my favorite type of Mrs Bradley book: she is the psychiatrist. I get so immersed in her “sessions” that I forget she is totally fictitious. Her work getting Francis Caux to open up was first class.

Tracy K. – Mrs Bradley discovers very quickly that the boy is the grandson of Sir Adrian Caux, and has been living with Miss Higgs for several years. He is deaf and dumb, and has a twin brother.

THE TWINS

Theda – The differences in how the twins are described are striking – at least in part due to the presumed observer (Mrs Bradley for Francis, [cricket player and tutor] Tom Donagh for Derek).

Francis: large eyes, a saintly expression but focus is on the fact that he is troubled, traumatized, and unable to communicate, but is teachable in other things (ex: chess).

Derek: exquisitely beautiful, but girlish traits emphasized in descriptions: “hand as slender as a girl’s”, “shrieking in a high girlish voice, near to tears”. To Tom, he is most often repugnant, in how he sings, in how he and his grandfather Sir Adrian interact, in how much his eating habits are commented upon. Even his own words disparage him: “I’m sure I shall find myself telling them things, true and untrue, if they begin to question me”.

Catherine – The attitudes toward differently-abled people is true to the 1952 era. Francis' issues were caused by the shock of seeing his parents die. There is sympathy for him, but people treat him as defective.

José – The twins’ parents died in a car accident. Francis, we are told, was in the car with them and managed to get out unscathed, but the shock left him deaf and dumb. His grandfather got rid of him while taking the other son, Derek, into his care, making him his sole heir.

Catherine – Tutor Tom Donagh finds the doting grandfather's relationship with his grandson Derek peculiar. Tom catches Sir Adrian cheating during games. The man takes cricket way too seriously. And then a player on an opposing team is murdered.

TWINNING IN THEME AND STRUCTURE

Tracy K. – In this section of the book, the chapters alternate between Mrs Bradley and her investigations, and Tom Donagh and his time spent with Sir Adrian and Derek. I like that style of storytelling; it builds suspense and keeps me interested in the story.

Chris – From the distinct settings of the opening two chapters, we learn that Gladys Mitchell has set herself the challenge of constructing a mystery with two contrasting locations, one familiar - the New Forest in Hampshire - the other a ‘holiday-adventure’ scene, the Norfolk Broads being a wetland of linked rivers and lakes enjoyed by boating enthusiasts. As becomes clearer in these first six chapters, the locations are contrasted thematically as dry versus wet, on the basis of their summer sports activities: cricket cannot seriously be played in the rain - although Sir Adrian tries his worst - any more than swimming and boating can be conducted on dry land.

The contrast appears also in the dramatis personae: Mede is a traditional village hierarchy dominated by the lord of the manor, who has both the local clergyman and the pub landlord in his pocket along with all the servants, while Wetwode is a more accidental association of weekenders and summer tenants, among whom identities and social relations are opaque. The connections made between these settings rely in part on unlikely coincidences, and in part on the use of a highly traditional device of European comedy (Plautus via Shakespeare), the separated-twins plot. The locations themselves are separate and yet ‘twinned’.

This split-location structure invites us to assign special importance to any discerned links between them, whether overt, as with the reuniting of the Caux twins in Chapter 6 (effectively the dramatic ‘curtain’ to Act 1) or half-concealed, as with certain clues to the two murders: when we learn that the murdered cricketer Witt originally came from East Anglia, and that the mystery man who commissioned the iron hoops for Campbell’s corpse from the Wetwode blacksmith spoke with a West-Country accent, we suspect that the two sites may be twinned in ways that are yet to be disclosed.

CRICKET, WIT, AND WITT

Tracy K. - The fourth chapter is entirely about cricket, and the games that the local teams are playing, with lots of details which went way over my head. In this plot thread, one of the cricket players is murdered. Are the two murders connected?

José – What follows might be a bit difficult to understand for those who, like me, are not familiar with the game of cricket. Anyway, suffice it to say that when the day of the game between Mede and Bruke comes, the game has an unexpected end when Witt, Bruke’s captain, is found dead in the dressing rooms. According to Sir Adrian, Witt was known to have one great enemy, Peter Cornish. There was bad blood between them for years. It began during the war, though nobody ever quite knew what was all about.

Theda – Cricket: I have even read a book on this sport and still don’t fully understand it. I wonder, however, if the game is simply to provide tone, location, or possible motives for the murder. It’s also a good look into Sir Adrian’s character, which may prove important not only to the murder but to how the twins move forward. Still, I wonder if how the game is played, its rules, will somehow be important to the plot later on – because there is a great deal of detail about the actual game play.

Chris – The story can be understood and enjoyed without detailed knowledge of cricket, although it helps to know that the basic principles are akin to baseball. Bowling in cricket, though, differs from baseball pitching in that the bowler usually aims to make the ball bounce up to the batsman unpredictably from the grass surface in front of him. Hence the significance of the ‘bowler’s wicket’ (the title of Chapter 4), otherwise known as a ‘sticky wicket’, meaning a grass playing surface that is treacherous for batsmen on account of its unevenness or dampness.

More important here than these technical features of the game are its social and ethical contexts. We are told in this chapter that the ethic of English cricket is Decency, although Sir Adrian’s many ways of cheating and fixing clearly prompt us to question this claim.

Also significant is the ironic title of Chapter 2, ‘Amateur Status’, which more directly concerns the social prestige of Sir Adrian’s (and Tom Donagh’s) class. In the 1950s a clear distinction was observed in cricket between Players, who were working-class men paid to take part, and Gentlemen, whose participation was strictly amateur and thus untainted by money. It’s worth noting that although Tom Donagh idly boasts at first that ‘I wouldn’t mind being paid for a week’s cricket’, in the event he scrupulously declines any payment for playing (while accepting the tutor’s fee), thereby salvaging his status as a Gentleman.

Joyka – The “cricket house” is certainly odd. I have never understood cricket. By the time I finished Chapter 4, I realized I will not get an understanding of cricket from this book. I definitely am getting a good understanding of Adrian Caux.

Chris – What I usually enjoy most about Gladys Mitchell’s novels is her creation of lavishly eccentric characters, and I’m reminded here of Mrs Puddequet in The Longer Bodies, who also asserts her power and wealth by setting up an unlikely sporting contest. Sir Adrian, along with his dubiously hired domestic entourage, is a particularly vivid example of the type, combining obsessive mania with satirically exaggerated social stereotype.

REFLECTING AND LOOKING FORWARD

Tracy K. – This story seems to be moving at a faster pace than the other Mrs. B books have done. Two murders have been discovered in the first quarter of the book, and there has been a good bit of investigation of the first one.

Catherine – Chapter Six ends with the climactic moment Mrs. Bradley reunites the twins by bringing Francis to Sir Adrian's home.

José – To everyone surprise, Francis begins to speak: “You are Derry. I am glad to see you. I am Francis. We are twins. There was a dead man underneath the boat. I do not like dead men. Do you like dead men?”

Theda – I’m eagerly awaiting the interactions between the twins now that they are together (and Francis is speaking! Albeit as a 7-year-old would).

Tracy K. – I am very enthusiastic about this story so far. It is unlike any Gladys Mitchell book I have read, but I have only read four so far. It has been a fun read to this point and I laughed out loud at some of Mrs. Bradley's behavior.

Joyka – I think I should keep a list of my favorite GM expressions. In this story, we are told that Mrs Bradley could “charm the jewel out of a toad’s head!”

And that concludes the comments on the first six chapters of The Echoing Strangers. Thank you everyone for contributing! Join us next week as plots thicken and discussion continues.

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: DEAD MEN'S MORRIS (1936) - Post #4

2/29/2020

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Understandably, the end of the year and the beginning of the next found many of us busy juggling family, work, and life (usually all at once). This was the case for some of our readers involved in December’s Mitchell Mystery Reading Group discussion of 1936’s Dead Men’s Morris. As I am always happy to talk Gladys Mitchell and Mrs. Bradley, I am grateful that mystery writer Catherine Dilts has shared some concluding thoughts about the book! Here are her observations, along with a few of my own, to add to the recent conversation.

NATURE AND NARRATIVE

Looking at Morris’s second section, Catherine writes: “I am accustomed to the witty dialogue in a Mitchell novel, so was pleasantly surprised by detailed description of the countryside.”

The woods were the colour of woodsmoke, and had almost the same dense obscurity; on the opposite side of the road, far off beyond fields and hedges, a line of trees, a thin straggle of windblown trunks and leafless arms, stood up on the crest of a ridge like jagged clouds in the wake of a windblown storm. The sky was grey behind them, and they were silhouetted against it, a scarecrow brood with menace in their very shapelessness.

That is a great example of visual description that certainly sets the tone and reminds us that nature is literally a fundamental element in Mitchell’s prose and storytelling. From the primeval rains and muds of The Devil at Saxon Wall (1935) to the parched, dusty Greek grounds of 1937’s Come Away, Death, this decade definitely shows GM at her most evocative regarding the natural world and Mrs. Bradley’s relationship to it. Her excellent Stephen Hockaby titles of this fertile period display the same exploration of untamable nature, sometimes placid and beautiful but often threatening and destructive to humankind.

Catherine observes that the author’s descriptions of her unique detective carry their own intriguing duality: “Depictions of Mrs. Bradley could still be harsh, but at other times were flattering.”

She looked like an ancient, benevolent goddess, wrinkled but immortal.

“I felt like Mitchell had grown to love her protagonist too much to draw her as a hideous creature. Yet other characters see her as intimidating.” Tombley, for one, is not put at ease by the old woman:

To bring this terrible little old woman into the heart of his affairs was rather like asking a shark to defend one from cannibals.

Catherine notes that “in many cozy mysteries, the victim is unlikable. The author does not want the reader to be emotionally involved with the victim, and gives other compelling reasons why the murder must be solved. Typically, it is to free the wrong suspect from suspicion. In Dead Men’s Morris, the two murder victims are without redeeming qualities.” She offers up this amusing exchange as evidence of Gladys Mitchell’s approach:

[Mrs. Bradley:] “You know, Selby, Fossder was a greedy, grasping, and rather foolish old man, and Simith was a nasty, bad tempered old man. Why should we bother who killed them?”

“Morbid curiosity on your part; a sense of civic duty on mine,” said Sir Selby, grinning.

CLASS AND CONSCIENCE

Regarding the Third Figure and the final section of the book, there is this positive comment: “I was enthralled with the story, to the point that I didn’t slow down to write up notes.” One exchange gave her pause, however. Catherine writes that near the end of the book “there is a startling revelation of the social attitudes of that era that stopped me in my tracks. Carey asks Mrs. Bradley, ‘But how could [the murderer] reconcile with [his/her] conscience the murder of Priest, if that had come off?’ Mrs. Bradley replies, ‘On the principle that to the average European the slaughter of coloured people is not a matter of conscience in the same way that the slaughter of whites would be.’ Carey continues, ‘You mean that just because Priest was poor, and a country man, and uneducated—'”

Catherine concludes, “The manner in which Mitchell presented this conversation made me believe it was her commentary on an unpleasant situation, not approval of the attitude. She seems ahead of her time as an author, but is not in-your-face with her beliefs.” I agree with this interpretation, and also understand the reason for the shock. It’s a moment that directly exposes an ugly Colonialist ideology, and the British Empire is not the only nation whose citizens were quietly (or vocally) complicit in the genocide of indigenous people to promote nationalist expansion.

The parallels between European class consciousness and its corollary of racist contempt in United States history is an interesting and unappealing one. England, with its masters-and-servants divisions and a lack of belief in upward mobility, is historically different from the American view, which has always been predicated on the shakily idealistic premise that one can go from rags to riches if one only worked hard enough. America’s ugly division, historically speaking, is not as much about class as skin color, and who has power over whom, in the past and in the present. Regarding the potential murder of the uneducated laborer Ditch, I believe Mrs. Bradley has a point: the killer can dismiss the act by rationalizing that the death of a menial is not of great concern. Catherine also smartly notes that Mrs. Bradley “distanced herself from that prejudice with the phrasing ‘to the average European the slaughter of coloured people is not a matter of conscience.’ We know Mrs. Bradley is not average.”

THE VERDICT

Catherine’s final thoughts on Dead Men’s Morris below bring joy to my heart, and I look forward to future conversations with her and other group readers as we continue to discuss Gladys Mitchell’s many books!

“The closing explanation of the murder and clues was a bit long, but the convoluted plot required this, in my opinion. And at the end, I wanted to start re-reading the novel. After reading Dead Men’s Morris, I am a confirmed Mrs. Bradley fan.”

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: DEAD MEN'S MORRIS (1936) - Post #1

12/10/2019

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Welcome to the first installment of our current reading group title, Dead Men’s Morris. Author Gladys Mitchell has conveniently separated the book into three sections, and I will use that grouping to order our discussions this month. First up: Fossder’s Folly, where we discover that Mr. Fossder, a fusty lawyer with a weak heart, is found dead on the towing path beside the river. A mysterious letter with money attached lured him to the spot where a ghost in a horse-drawn carriage is rumoured to haunt. Mrs. Bradley, visiting her nephew Carey Lestrange at his Oxfordshire pig farm, begins to investigate, and her timing is good, especially as another rustic death will soon occur…

There are four of us taking part in the dance this time around: Catherine, Martyn, Joyka, and me. As they have provided so many interesting observations, I will let them lead. We all are enjoying the book – it is more engaging than I remember it, and the working class dialects feel much more organic and less intrusive this time out.

Joyka considers theme in Dead Men’s Morris and observes that “this book is all about lasting relationships. We finally get to meet “the family.” What better time than at Christmas and what better present than a huge boar’s head that takes three men to strap into the car?” Indeed, that opening scene does seem perfectly in keeping with Gladys Mitchell’s warm but strange sense of humour.

Martyn Hobbs smartly spots in that initial scene a grander game playing out: “[It] is a beautifully crafted exchange, and in its formal play of negotiation, deference and reward, exemplifies something of ancient rules and order of the Morris dance.”

THE DANCERS

For me, nephew Carey Lestrange is drawn in an intriguing way that we haven’t often seen from Mrs. Bradley's friends and relations in the book series up to this point. From Joyka: “To be sure, he doesn’t sound all that attractive, with clothes looking like they have been slept in, nicotine-stained fingers, and paint-stained hands, but if Mrs. Bradley has both personal regard and respect for him, so then do I!”

Equally notable, Carey is allowed to show genuine physical and verbal affection for his saurian aunt, and that is rare to find in a Mrs. Bradley story. On several occasions, Mitchell describes Carey as taking the old woman in hand to aid her across the grounds or “placing his arm around her bony shoulders” in a bonhomous spirit. Carey’s loving attitude certainly adds to a slightly more human depiction of Mrs. Bradley, although I’m relieved to say that she still cackles harshly and can provide her relations with a display of knife-throwing when the mood strikes. (Catherine noticed this difference too; see her later comments.)

On relations, Joyka continues: “I feel GM must have created a whole raft of characters for this book with the express purpose of seeing who was going to make the final cut for the rest of her books. We have Carey (pig farmer extraordinaire and painter of posters and pictures), young Denis (scab but already a violinist), Jenny (whom Carey hopes Aunt Adela will like), Mrs Ditch (who can cook and serve pig for breakfast, lunch and dinner), our Walt, Lender [the family pronunciation of Linda], Ditch, and Priest. It is a cast of characters most promising.”

With the earthly setting comes some very earthy characters, and we see this in the delightfully drawn Ditch family and Carey Lestrange’s farmer neighbors, the fractious old man Simith and his unhappy nephew Geraint Tombley. Linda Ditch, with her catting around (I’m not sure of a more politic phrase), is a slight surprise to find in a Golden Age cosy mystery, but her nocturnal adventures are part of the plot. Her behavior also surprised Catherine, who writes, “I tend to fall into the trap of allowing the past to be painted with a brush of innocence, when I know people have always behaved in flawed and passion-driven ways. Mitchell doesn't hold back on her characters.” And Catherine notes Ditch’s response to her daughter’s wild ways:

"Nay, us'll just let her be. Her can make her a bed where she will. 'Tis her 'ave to lie on it later," said Ditch, with heavy philosophy.

It is true that Mitchell’s cast here is particularly earthy and vivid, and I am enjoying their company greatly. But we mustn’t (indeed we are not allowed to) forget exactly where we are, which is the muddy rolling lands where pigs outnumber the people five to one. Martyn offers this comment: “We soon learn that, while the environs of Oxford may have more than their fair share of toffs and gentlemen farmers, it is positively overrun by the swinish multitude; there are pigs galore! There’s no denying that pigs are widespread in Oxfordshire (predominantly free-range now – the traditional farmer Simith was absolutely right), but they seem to occupy a few too many conversations in the first six chapters. However, I have absolute faith that later on these pigs or boars will earn their time in the limelight.” Hold on until our future conversation about Section Three, and I think you will have your faith in the porcine population restored…

THE LANDSCAPE

Joyka: “I know Gladys Mitchell gets criticism for her lengthy descriptions of villages, rivers, forests, et cetera. I really like it. Even though I have read these books many times, I never skip the background material. I feel if it was 1940, I would be able to find these exact places and enjoy them as much as she does.”

I agree: Mitchell can be a wonderful evocator of mood and landscape – 1935's The Devil at Saxon Wall nearly traps the reader into becoming a prisoner of its darkly primeval setting – and the wet, muddy pastures and pathways of Dead Men’s Morris become noticeably tactile. The author’s love of county ordnance maps is on prominent display here, with Mrs. Bradley referencing them freely as she treks around the countryside with Carey in tow.

Martyn, an Oxford resident, is particularly well-suited to assess Mitchell’s use of the landscape. (GM was born in the village of Cowley, a suburb of Oxford.) He writes: “The journey into the heart of darkness of Oxfordshire is a cartographic metaphor for the confusion and misdirections that are to come. We pass from daylight and places (Chiswick, Hounslow) and roads (West Road, Bath Road) with proper names and respectable dimensions to dusk and winding wheel-rutted tracks and names (Egypt Lane, Roman Ending) that no-one can explain. George, the Londoner, will take a sociologist’s attitude to all this in his analysis of ‘the conditions obtaining in a small village community.’”

Martyn continues, “One of the joys of this novel so far is the contrast and clash of registers of speech – from the aristocratic polish of Sir Selby Villiers to the van man’s “‘Arf a mo, mate” and George’s occasional cockney (‘Some lout’s trick, sir. I’ll learn him if I lay my hands on him’); Pratt’s upper middle class prattle (‘One finds oneself well’) to all the oddities of Oxford pronunciation and dialect.”

THE DETECTIVE (AND THE CHAUFFEUR)

The group unanimously approved of chauffeur, bodyguard, and factotum George, who made a nice addition to the tale. "George is hot stuff – go George!" encourages Joyka. Martyn states that he sees "much promise" in the man, and mentions an exchange that amuses me as well: "His almost telepathic observation, ‘The Holbein portrait of his grace King Henry the Eighth, madam,’ when Mrs. Bradley is struggling to remember who Tombley reminded her of, is pure Jeeves and suggests unplumbed depths."

Catherine Dilts, whose own outdoors murder mystery Survive or Die I enjoyed and reviewed earlier this year, notes that Mrs. Bradley here “is drawn in a more pleasant light” than in other reading group stories. “Although the reptilian references remain, they seem gentler, and delivered in less frequent doses,” writes Catherine. She points to this wonderful line from Chapter Three:

"Well," said Mrs. Bradley, with the loving smile of a boa-constrictor which succeeds in engulfing its prey with the minimum of hazard, "and so this is Mr. Pratt!"

Observes Martyn: “Mrs. Bradley is as hieratic and essentially alien as ever – she is an ‘alienist’ after all – and has added knitting and table tennis to the reading of modern verse as her pastime activities. Being likened to a sea-serpent was a new one for me.”

And Joyka’s well-chosen quotation from the inimitable detective can stand as the final word for this installment: “Murder is the applied mathematics of morbid psychology.”

Next time we pay a visit to Figure 2 and Shotover Simith (Chapters 7 to 12). The new post will appear on December 20. If anyone new wants to contribute, just send your comments by the evening of December 18 to [email protected] . Thanks to Joyka, Catherine, and Martyn for contributing!

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Book Review: SURVIVE OR DIE (2019) by Catherine Dilts

6/22/2019

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Author Catherine Dilts knows her way around the Colorado outdoors. So do most of her characters in Survive or Die, a reality television twist on the murderer-in-our-midst scenario found in mystery fiction. Catherine is the creator of the Rock Shop Mysteries and a regular contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and despite her busy schedule she has also participated in my first two Mitchell Mystery Reading Group book reads. I always enjoy the lively, active characters she creates, their strong sense of motivation and morals (even when said morals are bent or broken), and intriguing outdoor settings that often pit people against the harsh realities of nature.

-Survive or Die follows a motley group of factory workers as they gather for a mandatory week-long retreat in the Colorado woods. Their saturnine and increasingly drunken boss, Jack Bender, has hired ex-TV host Rowdy Hunter to create a Survivor-like series of challenges that will force his employees to choose teams and fight to keep their current jobs. The rope bridges and ATV obstacle courses may not be the real threat, though: it is clear that injuries, attacks, and even death are occurring at an alarming rate.

Aubrey Sommers thought husband Grant was providing a romantic getaway for them both, away from kids and clutter, only to find herself separated from him, sleeping in a tent, and part of a competing team. Sotheara Sok is on an environmental mission and needs to use the contest as cover to hunt for treasure of a different and dangerous kind. Berdie Placer, the old but tough-as-nails company receptionist, has a family score to settle. Together with Madison Wilhelm, a friendly figure initially ill-suited to the concept of "roughing it", the women form the team Stockton's Revenge, relying on each other for support and survival.

It is largely through their eyes that we view this wet and wild world, and as the contest begins and the book continues, it is Aubrey, Berdie, Sotheara, and Madison who evoke much of the reader's interest and empathy. It also helps that almost everyone else could be considered a potential killer, so we are more inclined to trust the ladies, especially as they become active in investigating the death of a photographer who was allergic to bees. When an unlikely few found their way into his cabin room, the victim's always handy epinephrine pen was suspiciously out of reach.

As the week pushes on and physical attacks (involving tripwires, flying arrows and tossed rocks) on the contestants escalate, Aubrey wonders if she'll be able to escape in time with her husband before a restless killer claims another victim. Survive or Die builds to a memorable climax as the women protagonists -- now separated and trying to get back to camp after a violent storm brings new dangers to the group -- confront the criminal(s) and uncover some unpalatable truths.

Some personal impressions regarding this energetic, busy mystery novel: for me, the story came together about a quarter of the way through, and once it hit its stride, it was very engaging indeed. The initial chapters suffered from the need to set up the many subplots and from the sheer number of characters at camp (over 40 employees are initially gathered to compete, not counting Rowdy's cooks and crew). Those numbers dwindle quickly, and once the reader becomes familiar with Dilts's designated heroes, the plotline snaps into focus and the book becomes more convergent.

Similarly, the paradox of factory owner Jack Bender, by all accounts a selfish and misanthropic man, providing a week-long company retreat for his employees (presumably with paid vacation, as no one complains about missing income) meant I needed to wait until the book's second half before I could learn more about circumstances that would provide context for the choice. I enjoyed the deft brushstrokes applied to the many supporting characters that painted brief, intriguing portraits of each person, their personality, their role at Bender's Clips, and the motivation that drives or limits them in the contest and in life.

I have always been a fan of mystery settings that isolate a group of people and plots that turn up the tension. J. Jefferson Farjeon's Mystery in White has his travelers stranded by a snowstorm in a country manor where murder may have just occurred, while Agatha Christie brings And Then There Were None's fated guests to Indian Island, with no means of escape. Catherine Dilts makes good use of her woods-and-mountains Colorado backdrop to trap and challenge her characters, and she keeps the perceived safety of civilized society just out of their reach.

Survive or Die makes for a fun beach (or woods) read and is available now through Amazon in eBook and print formats.

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: THE ECHOING STRANGERS (1952) - Post #1

Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: DEAD MEN'S MORRIS (1936) - Post #4

Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: DEAD MEN'S MORRIS (1936) - Post #1

Book Review: SURVIVE OR DIE (2019) by Catherine Dilts

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