Category: Mitchell Mystery Reading Group

April 2021 Mitchell Mystery Reading Group event: SUNSET OVER SOHO

3/4/2021

I am pleased to announce the next Mitchell Mystery Reading Group title! This April, I will moderate weekly discussions of Gladys Mitchell’s moody 1943 wartime mystery, Sunset over Soho. This is currently one of the author’s more elusive books -- translation: out of print -- but when I asked the site subscribers, most of those interested in taking part said they have or will be able to obtain a copy. (Apologies to those who said they will need to wait until the next group reading this winter.) American Kindle owners can download the ebook from Amazon inexpensively, but print editions are costly to obtain.

Sunset over Soho has long been an enticing title to revisit, and I have been meaning for years to take another look. If you would like to be part of the discussion over the month of April, I ask readers to please send me your observations (e.g., a couple paragraphs of observations or opinion) for a targeted group of chapters each Tuesday, and I will curate, assemble, and share them in a post by that weekend on this www.jasonhalf.com blog. My email is jason@jasonhalf.com .

Many intriguing conversations have resulted from previous group title readings, and there is much to discuss with this one. You can view past blog entries by clicking on the Mitchell Mystery Reading Group link in the right side Categories column accompanying this post.

Let’s look at Sunset over Soho using this reading schedule:

TUES. APRIL 6 – Comments due for Chapter 1 “Blitz” through Chapter 6 “Mermaid”
TUES. APRIL 13 – Comments due for Chapter 7 “Fugitive” through Chapter 12 “Tryst”
TUES. APRIL 20 – Comments due for Chapter 13 “Castaway” through Chapter 18 “Angels”
TUES. APRIL 27 – Comments due for Chapter 19 “Prodigal” through Chapter 23 “Meeting”

Of course, readers are welcome to read ahead, but please make notes of future chapters and send those comments on the appropriate week. And if you would rather read along with us but not send in weekly comments, that’s fine too!

Let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to revisiting this Mrs. Bradley mystery, and I promise that December’s chosen title will be one that is currently in print and available to all!

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: LAURELS ARE POISON (1942) - Post #4

10/4/2020

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Welcome to the concluding group discussion of Laurels Are Poison, where our Four Musketeers look at the final (uncharacteristically brief) chapters of the book. While each contributor provided comments on the detective story's solution and the fate of the murderer, as moderator I will stop short of naming the culprit and will tread carefully with the quotations to avoid complete spoilers for new readers. At the same, I include details that illuminate Mitchellian plot turns, as the conversations stemming from them are well worth having.

It also transpired that the Wattsdown College gentlemen, Chris B and Martyn H, focused on literary allusions and gender and genre expectations while the young ladies of Cartaret Training College, Tracy K and Joyka, explored the author's attitude towards justice and shared their subjective responses to this and Gladys Mitchell's other mysteries. So without further ado, I turn the lecture over to our teachers in training!

CHAPTERS AND VERSE

Martyn always pays attention to the author's chapter titles, and I am indebted to him for doggedly connecting the dots and sharing his findings with the class. He writes:

"After the allusive expansiveness of earlier chapter headings, these last five have an unexpected brevity, apart from "Iddy Umpty Iddy Umpty Iddy", which I imagined to be GM’s playful rendition of the uninformed attempts at scansion [by a character quoting a poem]. However, it was specifically a card game for teaching the Morse Code Alphabet – a hint that the mystery of Athelstan House is about to be broken?"

Martyn continues, "The first two chapter titles, "Rag" and "Bone", are monosyllabic to the point, though the collocation ‘rag and bone’ must have been in her mind, for the rag and bone man was a familiar figure when GM was writing." Indeed, such a character is integral in Mitchell's classic tale of childhood The Rising of the Moon, published three years after Laurels.

The final chapter is named "Itylus", and I will let Chris B pick up the titular thread. The title, he reports, refers to A.C. Swinburne's 1865 poem, where a key character compares "her own family tragedy to that of Tereus, Procne and Philomela in the Greek myth as retold by Ovid in Book VI of his Metamorphoses. The poem, Chris explains, "is an imaginary epilogue to that story, in which Philomela, by now transformed into a nightingale, addresses her sister Procne, now a swallow, in grief for the latter’s murder of her own son Itylus." I will leave it to the astute reader of this discussion to decide whether the context provides a fair-play clue or an unwanted spoiler as to the killer's identity and motive. I will also note that our previous reading group entry, 1937's Come Away, Death, similarly relied on poetry quotation to help literary readers spot the culprit.

Chris adds: "The book’s final literary quotation, recited by Jonathan as he carries the sleeping Deborah, is from Michael Drayton’s song 'Florimel’s Ditty' (1630). Suitably enough, this is for the ears of Laura, who has already indicated, in her interruptions to Deborah’s lecture in Chapter 14, that she is an admirer of Drayton’s poetry." It's also completely fitting that Jonathan shares this particular verse with the grounded (literally and figuratively) Laura in that moment and not with his attractive but perhaps superficial fiancée; the lines call out the inevitable fading of beauty with time!

And whilst with time we trifling stand
To practice antique graces,
Age with a pale and withered hand
Draws furrows in our faces.

Joyka mentions that the author's underlining of Deborah Cloud's physical charms is off-putting. Regarding the character's gift of dress and shoes from Mrs. Bradley: "Why another scenario revolving around The Deb’s beauty? Of all of GM’s reoccurring characters, Deborah is my least favorite. She is stubborn, willful, skittish, prudish, but all is to be ignored because she is beautiful!"

MASCULINE AND FEMININE

Speaking of ingénue Deborah, Chris and Martyn both tracked the mild-mannered but physically strong Alice Boorman's attraction to the object of conventional feminine beauty. Martyn starts by observing the contrast with Mitchell's depiction of the males from the nearby college, who should be the ladies' natural romantic counterpoints in a genre with straightforward societal mores: "How dull and formulaic are the beefy, rugby-playing male students of Wattsdown with their bulging torsos and fairy costumes compared with the mercurial, playful, ingenuous females of Cartaret. No wonder Alice had a crush on Deborah."

Chris goes further, and his analysis is very much aligned with my interpretation of the author's views and interests of female relationships as Mitchell presents them in her writing. He begins by noting that Laurels' "central action, comprising the bonding of the girl-gang and its adoption of Deborah, I would describe as a blend of semi-adult schoolgirl adventure with screwball comedy – the latter being the favoured form of romantic comedy on stage and screen in the 1935 to 1945 period. In both genres, the emotional substance of same-sex friendship and of heterosexual romance is coolly downplayed or screened by competitively witty dialogue."

Chris continues, "Half-concealed behind the straight, albeit 'screwballed', romance of Jonathan and Deborah there is a chastely discreet but visible thread of lesbian fantasy, reaching its culmination in the final College Ball, for which “the Deb.” has been especially beautified by Kitty as the Belle. In the expected straight finale, Deborah would of course be swept off for the last waltz by her fiancé; but he has been borrowed at this point for the capture of a hidden suspect. Fully aware that Alice has adored Deborah since the moment in Chapter 4 when she saw her emerge from her bath ('Isn’t she lovely!'), Laura steps in as Fairy Godmother, guiding Deborah instead to 'Take young Alice, and make her happy for life.' This is probably the nearest that Gladys Mitchell could safely get in 1942 to a Sapphic happy ending."

Chris concludes, persuasively, that "it is surely significant that what in any other novel would be the climactic moment of the murder-mystery, the arrest of the culprit by detective and sidekick, is entirely displaced into offstage action (very briskly summarised later), so that centre-stage can be claimed by Alice being taken into Deborah’s arms. Jonathan has no erotic significance beyond the conventionally decorative (“the Heathcliff specimen”, as one of the Wattsdown boys sums him up), his official status as suitor serving as a fig-leaf for the book’s stronger interest in same-sex attractions."

More on the author's penchant for offstage resolutions in the paragraphs to come. It is worth noting that, while male queer-oriented characters in Gladys Mitchell's work are almost non-existent, women who do not conform to society's "weaker-sex", feminine expectations abound. After Laurels Are Poison, the series is anchored on the relationship between a formidable, successful professional and her capable, athletic, and independent secretary in the form of Laura.

Lesbian figures in Mitchell's canon are visible and, even if not explicitly labeled, are rarely tormented by their emotions (such as a Christie mincing homosexual might be). Examples can be found in the first Mrs Bradley novel Speedy Death (1929) and later titles like Nest of Vipers (1979) and Here Lies Gloria Mundy (1982). Seven Stars and Orion (1934), the excellent historical novel published under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, features two memorable Sapphic pairings, one between two novices at a convent and the other between a rebellious tenant farmer and the lady of the feudal house that owns her land.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT

Joyka notes the author's penchant for letting her guilty characters stop short of being executed, at least by the courts. This may in part be due to the author's personal views of capital punishment, and (to my mind) also may be connected with Mitchell sharing her detective's view that there are degrees of guilt and culpability, especially when motive and situation are assessed. Joyka writes: "I have noticed in all of the Mrs. Bradley books that the perpetrators rarely go to trial, prison, or get the death penalty. Even though her son, Ferdinand, is a brilliant trial lawyer, we rarely see him in action, with the exception of [a highly memorable] murder trial in Speedy Death. I am trying to remember if there is another actual trial with sentencing in any of her books." There may be, but it would be the exception to the rule. It would also surely be treated the way Rex Stout handled the trials of murderers in his Nero Wolfe books: as a coda, meriting little more than a mention.

Joyka notes that the guilty party in Laurels "is allowed to take the easy way out [through suicide] rather than paying society for the murder [of two people]. The vicious pranks are forgotten. One should feel sorry for the police when Mrs. B gets involved. The bad guy or girl is sure to be identified and buried almost at the same time."

Tracy K found the explanation that the murderer was insane unsatisfying, and understandably notes that she doesn't enjoy that revelation in any mystery story. I certainly sympathize; a "crazed" killer, even if there is a logical pattern of action, tends to be disappointing. Mitchell can also be criticized for relying on insane villains too often (at least until the nondescript smugglers settle in for good in the stories from the 1950s on). I return to the choice of a psychoanalyst as series sleuth, and wonder if the diagnosis felt like it fit comfortably within the purview of her character.

SOLUTIONS AND SHORTCOMINGS

Which leads us to GM's handling of her mystery plotlines, both in her work in general and in Laurels in particular. Chris writes that here "the usual satisfactions of a murder-mystery are withheld by keeping the detective process largely offstage, and the murderer completely offstage until the final twist. Puzzle-purists have grounds for complaining that fair-play conventions have not been upheld. That said, this oddly unsatisfactory design is, within its limits, cleverly constructed in that Laura’s central viewpoint is used to misdirect our suspicions towards her prime suspect while Mrs Bradley pursues the true solution elsewhere."

Personally, I admired - and was frustrated with - the narrative structure for exactly these reasons. In these last chapters leading to the ostensible climax, the reader is given a limited view into Laura's thoughts, and the other actors, like Jonathan and the not-overcurious Miss Crossley – chosen by Mrs Bradley because she is a "good stupid horse that will eat [her] oats"! – have limited knowledge of the detective's surmises. In this way, Mitchell is able to deliver a pleasantly surprising perception shift when we realize that the scenario is not what we (or the players) imagined.

But that shift is not brought about by fair play clueing but instead by some late-chapter information that puts a key relationship in the correct perspective. More frustrating to me and the reading group was the choice that most of the important scenes involving the murder story are indeed "offstage" (or alluded to rather than shown). As the Mrs Bradley books over the decades continue, this becomes the norm, as we follow a benign pair of reader proxies who have some physical proximity to the mystery – they discover a body on the moors or are teachers at a school where an instructor goes missing – but they do not actively engage in the drama itself. (They are never really suspects or stakeholders, for example.) Instead, they are perpetual commenters, and Mrs Bradley may visit and talk with them, but likely victim (already dead), suspects, and killer will all remain on the periphery.

Prefacing her earlier note about the strain of insanity in GM's work, Joyka writes, "I find the endings of her books to be the weakest part of her writing." It is another point of dissatisfaction for classic mystery fans: the reveal of the who, why, and how should be the most triumphant part of the journey, the moment they have been waiting for. Tracy observes that Mitchell "uses a different approach from other mystery authors of the same period. Thus, if the reader's main intent is to read a coherent plot that leads logically to the answer, the reader will not get what they want. You have to be open to a circuitous course and (in some cases?) a resolution that may be questionable." I find that a very fair summary, and I understand when a reader's patience is tried along the way.

Even with this criticism, our readers still found many elements and moments to celebrate; this is, after all, a Gladys Mitchell novel. From Martyn: "The initial crime, and the people it involved, is a grim and tawdry affair. It is a miracle that GM managed to concoct such a high-spirited confection with such memorable denizens within it." The characters in Laurels, Deborah's vanity aside, are enjoyable and affecting. Joyka's summary is that "Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley books keep me interested even when I am rereading. I enjoy the characters, the settings, the descriptions of the countryside and, most of all, the dialogue and dialect."

Tracy also singled out the women student characters in Laurels, and enjoyed Kitty Trevelyan most of all. (She stood out for me on this reading also.) And Chris saw the utility of providing younger, vibrant characters to attract a wider reading audience. He writes that, with that goal, "the lively portrayal of the 'Musketeers' group is successful, of course at the price of sidelining Mrs Bradley and the crimes she investigates."

Writes Tracy: "One major reason I enjoy vintage mysteries is the time that they are set in, and how the life of that time is described. In this case I was surprised that the book was published in 1942 and there was no mention of the war going on. There are plenty of mysteries by other authors of this time that ignore the war. Was this because they wanted to provide entertainment over reality, or because it was impossible to know the outcome at the time?"

Certainly the omission of world events here was a conscious choice for Gladys Mitchell, but she was not one to ignore her circumstances, and in fact used the war and its high global stakes in three intriguing works from that period: Printer's Error (1939), Brazen Tongue (1940), and, most strikingly, in Sunset over Soho (1943), set during the London Blitz. Indeed, GM managed to write and publish eleven titles (!) between 1939 and 1945, in addition to teaching, so one could hardly fault her for being hesitant or idle.

I certainly thank everyone who has contributed their thoughts and those who have read along with us! (I know there were a few, as I heard from them through emails this month, and we had some enjoyable sideline chats.) The next group reading will likely be in Spring 2021, and I want to consider another title published in the 1940s. If you want to make a suggestion or two, hire Ferdinand Lestrange to plead your case and send proposals to Jason@jasonhalf.com .

Cheers and happy reading – Jason

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: LAURELS ARE POISON (1942) - Post #3

9/27/2020

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Once more, the Mitchell Mystery Reading Group discusses a section of 1942's Laurels Are Poison. This week we focus on Chapters 10 through 14. Two caveats/apologias: as much of each reader's submission explored the busy and often confusing plotlines in this section, there will be plot-specific spoilers within this post (but no direct reveal of a murderer) and necessary editing or cutting of the offered comments to avoid repetition.

REFERENCES

Why not begin with the title of Chapter 10? The obscure reference sent us all on a brief search, and Chris B can speak for the group. He writes, "'The Flying Flacoris' names a real variety/circus act, a troupe of trapeze artistes that can be found listed in various showbiz posters in the period 1927 to 1938. It is understood to be an elaborate title for the rival rope-ascending gymnasts of this chapter, Laura and Miss Cornflake." Tracy hopes that the allusive and elusive heading "would have been more obvious to readers at the time the book was written."

Readers of the Mrs Bradley series will know that Mitchell enjoys letting her psychoanalyst sleuth refer to infamous figures from actual criminal trials. Constance Kent, the teen who was accused of killing her stepbrother, is mentioned in multiple GM books, and George Joseph Smith, the Brides in the Bath murderer, also appears as a reference (most notably in 1934's Death at the Opera).

Chris calls these additions "deliberately tasteless references to gruesome real-life murder cases that were within the living memory of her first readers." I often wonder about the synergy of sensational crimes and its effect on then-contemporary mystery fiction readers whenever I come across a notation, and Mitchell wasn't alone in this practice. But I never thought of the references as tasteless, but rather as an acknowledgement of a mystery writer's plot inspiration and as a wink to popular true-crime chroniclers of the time, like William Roughhead and Alexander Woollcott, who wrote up other people's tragedies and delivered them in a highly entertaining, compulsively readable format.

But back to Laurels. Chris reports that in Chapter 11, "Mrs Bradley asks her nephew Jonathan to carry an old trunk across the campus for the purpose of comparing two skeletons, [and Jonathan responds] 'Lead on, Patrick Mahon'. This Patrick Mahon was a notorious murderer who in 1924 had killed his girlfriend Emily Kaye, hiding her corpse in a trunk before partially disposing of its dismembered parts. The crime was known as the 'Crumbles Murder', after the Sussex beach near which it was committed."

On a (somewhat?) lighter note, Gladys Mitchell also shows her familiarity with Mark Twain. Joyka shares: "I do like the image of [Laura and her companions] 'parked like Tom Sawyer at the funeral' during their short stint in the gymnasium gallery."

And Chris provides the context for one further illuminating reference. "A stray literary allusion arises in Chapter 14, during Deborah’s Laura-interrupted English lecture, to Richard of Bordeaux by 'Gordon Daviot' (Elizabeth Mackintosh, the Scottish writer better known as 'Josephine Tey'). This was a notably successful 1932 historical play starring the young actor-director John Gielgud." Thanks for connecting the dots, Chris; this is quite an enjoyable nod to a fellow mystery novelist!

RESPONSES

Based on the responses for this section, it appears that Gladys Mitchell is trying the readers' collective patience as incidents accumulate and, as fresh details emerge, others become more mystifying still. Joyka comments, "I have to say that despite all of the clues strewn about in these chapters… it is [still] very confusing to me. The whole plot seems to be going off in various directions. Mrs Bradley has her ideas, the police have theirs, and Laura is hot on the trail, she thinks."

This from Martyn: "In terms of the greater mystery, I find the motives for these crimes and misdemeanors difficult to fathom. Who’s doing them and why? I’ve no idea. There does seem to be a financial (or penury) angle… and the cross-dressing Miss Cornflake appears to be up to her neck in it. But beyond that? All is dark. Fortunately, it’s the characters and the storytelling that keep me hooked."

And Tracy, a prolific crime fiction blogger from Bitter Tea and Mystery, offers this generous perspective: "It has often been said that Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley mysteries are an acquired taste. I believe that I will grow to love the mysteries in this series, but at this point, reading only my second Mrs Bradley book, I am finding it quite a challenge. I get confused about what is going on, and the forward movement seems to be very leisurely. However, I firmly believe that the joy of reading is in the journey and that everything does not all have to be completely comprehensible. So I am enjoying this new experience."

Tracy's reactions are insightful, and I'm glad that Mitchell's overzealous plotting and eccentric mystery-story logic don't cause her or the other readers to surrender. She also underlines the prime criticism of mystery fans who, after sampling, want nothing to do with the Mrs Bradley series. Readers accustomed to Golden-Age Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers or Nicholas Blake expect a serious approach to fair-play clueing, and justifiably so: the genre entices with just such a promise. With her murder mystery storylines, Gladys Mitchell doesn't "cheat" so much as not confine herself to a puzzle logic, especially when a flight of fancy will result in a dynamic scenario.

The following year's The Worsted Viper will see Mrs Bradley chasing Satanists by boat through the Norfolk Broads, while Death and the Maiden (1947) presents a pair of near-drownings in which motives and specifics remain opaque even after two readings. The conventional fair-play mystery fan will understandably lose patience with such quixotic storytelling and illogical incidents. Personally – and one must speak for oneself, thumbs up or down – Gladys Mitchell delivers delights of characterization, setting, prose, and yes, even plot that allow me to overlook unresolved puzzle points. I still recognize the deficiency, but the journey is what rewards me.

One example of a GM delight? I'm with Martyn, who finds the author's evocative and often humorous turns of phrase – especially as given to her characters – something to celebrate. He writes, "It seems there are three parallel investigations on the go: Mrs Bradley’s, the police’s, and Laura’s. Laura’s has the linguistic verve. I loved her wordplay and her impossibly brilliant analysis of the movements of Mrs Castle’s corsets:

'Can you imagine the cook without them? I bet the murderer gave one goggle-eyed look at the mass of adipose tissue, then took a despairing look at the corsets, decided two into one won’t go, and slung the corsets into the river after the body, never dreaming that they’d fetch up where they did.'

REVELRIES

This week the reading group members also took turns celebrating the fast-developing friendship between Mrs Bradley and Laura Menzies. Martyn states that these chapters show "the evolution of Laura into Mrs Bradley's sidekick." I agree; if Laura had not been so resourceful with her own investigations and as quick-acting as a bodyguard in this first appearance, it would be difficult to believe that she impressed the psychoanalyst enough to be offered a job as secretary and Watson. Martyn adds that "they make a formidable duo, and just as well, as there is a marked increase in danger in this section. Revolvers are employed on more than one occasion."

The dress is 1970s pattern, but 1940s Mrs Croc would likely approve.

But it is the interplay between detective and Kitty Trevelyan, budding cosmetologist, that is most memorable for Joyka. "My absolute favorite moment of the book is Kitty taking Mrs B in hand to get her ready for the dance. When Kitty sees Mrs Bradley decked out in a four year-old orange and blue evening frock, 'her jaw drops, her eyes open wide and she makes an odd gurgling sound.' Mrs Bradley asks, 'Are you ill?' Kitty replies, 'Well, you might call it that.' True to her nature, Mrs B allows Kitty a free hand to work her magic."

Chapter 13, "Harlequinade and Yule Log", provides a charming montage of scenes where the author, sometimes in just a few paragraphs, orients each of the characters in representative activities over the Christmas break. Alice, for example, rejoins her church choir for some carol-singing, much to the relief of a soprano who thought her college friend would now have airs; George asks leave to visit his sergeant-major from the war; and this is how Kitty updates her mother about the goings-on at Athelstan Hall:

'Ghosts, murder, old Dog nearly getting pneumonia, somebody slashing up coats and breaking open trunks and tins of disinfectant, School Prac., all sorts of rumours that the last Warden disappeared at the end of last term, although some only say she was ill, and…'

'What was that about Laura getting pneumonia, dear?' asked her mother, detaching from this welter of rhetoric the one accessible and assimilable fact.

Chris did not enjoy the "pointlessly digressive interlude" – it is accurate to say that the sequence of scenes does not advance the plot – while Tracy calls the Oxfordshire excursion "lovely" and adds, "This is just one small event within the larger story, but it is one the best pictures of a family Christmas that I have run across in mystery fiction." Nick Fuller often refers to Gladys Mitchell's prose as "lucid" and, for me, connected with that is an ability to evoke distinct settings and characters with just a few sentences and well-chosen details. We don't need to know how George, Kitty, and Alice spend their holidays (and we don't get more than these brief glimpses; i.e., they do not overstay their welcome on the page), but Mitchell's decision to do so makes her created world that much more vibrant.

REALITIES

Which brings us to a theme running through this post: the fictional indulgences that the writer engages in contrasted with the realities of life as we know it. (Or at least the delivery of genre expectations.) This bridging of fact and fiction must to some extent be recognized and honored – especially in mystery stories – or else we would have locked-room teleportation and unconvincing coincidences galore, with no one likely satisfied. I want to use the hoary phrase "suspension of disbelief" here, but I also think this ties back to the question of why a person reads a Gladys Mitchell mystery, if he or she chooses to read one at all. What are they looking for in the experience?

There is stylization, or a sense of unreality, that can be highly rewarding for the reader. Martyn comments that "the courtship of Deborah and Jonathan is pure drawing room comedy." He also argued, persuasively, that the constant entrances, exits, and near misses around the crime scene in The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (1929) are a knowing attempt at simulating stage farce.

At the same time, criticism can be directed at authorial oversights that intrude on that suspension of disbelief. The absence of logic – again, not a Mitchell rarity – pulled Chris out of the story when it came to details surrounding Miss Cornflake's identity. Certain behaviours "suggest to Laura that Miss Cornflake is in fact a Secondary School teacher, and therefore almost by definition already qualified ('certificated'), which means that she has no legitimate reason to be studying at Cartaret at all. Mrs Bradley’s subsequent enquiries at the Senior (i.e. Secondary) School in Betchdale confirm that all teachers there are certificated, and this is the school at which Miss Cornflake claimed, in her filed application to Cartaret, to have been teaching."

Chris continues: "The strange thing is that Laura, without any of the evidence concerning that application, detects the anomaly, while [Cartaret College Principal] Miss du Mugne has failed to notice anything odd in such an application, not even the glaringly bogus breakfast-cereal surname. The Principal seems indeed to have acted unprofessionally in admitting Miss Cornflake solely on the strength of an application letter, without seeking any reference from her supposed employer. We must also believe that in faking her CV, Miss Cornflake could somehow be confident that her claims would never be checked out."

There is also a fact-against-fiction dissonance in the story's geography, as Chris explained to me in his notes for the previous post. He writes, "I’m less than convinced by the topography of the setting. We are suddenly told in Chapter 9 that there’s a small public park next to the Carteret hockey-field. But why would anyone lay out a public park on out-of-town moorland? Who would use it? This is one of those cases (Death at the Opera is another) in which Gladys Mitchell gets so deeply immersed in the intrigues of an institution that she forgets to create a credible environment for it."

The criticisms are completely valid, and they likely frustrate other readers as well. I speak only for myself when I state honestly that such lapses in logic or assaults on pragmatic reality never occurred to me, although they are there on the page for all to see. And joyously, knowing the flaws exist doesn't hamper my enjoyment of a book like Laurels Are Poison. And that is due, I expect, to not how I read Gladys Mitchell's stories but why I read them.

Next week we look at the final four chapters – a slim 40 pages by my count! Thanks to all who have contributed and to all who are reading along with us.

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group: LAURELS ARE POISON (1942) - Post #2

9/20/2020

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Welcome to the second installment of the group reading of Gladys Mitchell's Laurels Are Poison.

THE STORY

While all of the readers write about enjoying elements of the book, the mystery plotline in Chapters Six to Nine takes a backseat to characterization and dialogue. Certainly incidents and events occur, but the initial puzzle that brought Mrs Bradley to the college – to surreptitiously investigate the disappearance of the previous warden (or housemistress) of Athelstan Hall – seems to be overtaken by continuing pranks and the death of a staff member.

Chris B notes: "It’s becoming clearer at this stage that the imaginative and emotional heart of the novel is the bonding of the Three Musketeers [students Laura Menzies, Alice Boorman, and Kitty Trevelyan] through shared trials and teasing banter. The murder-mystery side of the story seems perfunctory and rather slow to develop: no proper corpse until the end of Chapter Eight, and it’s that of a mere bit-part character."

Tracy K relates this part of the plotline: "After an incident with a ghost at Athelstan Hall (actually loud, disturbing noises in the middle of the night), Cook and Mrs. Bradley have a disagreement, and Cook is sacked." She echoes Chris's critique of a slowed-down story. "For several chapters, it seems like many unpleasant events are happening but there is no forward movement on the actual case. Maybe Mrs. Bradley had a plan, but it was not clear to this reader. At this point, I was ready for some action. "

It's a fair assessment, and for as lively as characterization and dialogue (and the steady busyness of incidents and events) are in Laurels, I have never been gripped by its plot the way I have with some other Mrs Bradley books. It's not that the crimes are merely academic; I think it has to do with Mrs Bradley knowing how to proceed while the reader essentially needs to ride the river and trust its current, as Laura does.

Tracy concludes that "It takes until nearly halfway through the book before there is a suspicious death. Usually I am perfectly fine with a crime novel that takes a long time to set up the situation, but this time I was getting impatient. We know that Mrs. Bradley has been hired by the school to investigate Miss Murchan's disappearance and that the school has kept that incident quiet. Mrs. Bradley thinks that all the malicious pranks are meant to get rid of her. But why? and who [is behind them]?"

Indeed, those 'rags' do inspire interest and speculation in this section. Joyka comments that "spilling creosote deliberately is a messy stunt for sure, but cutting the hair of a student who is sleeping while recovering from surgery argues a more pathological tormentor." And that "proper corpse" Chris mentioned earlier takes the form of Mrs. Castle, an insolent cook whose body turns up down river from the college. Joyka mentions an intriguing, related anachronism: "Why would Cook have taken her corsets off before going into the river? Or did she?"

THE SERVANTS

While Chris B is not able to say much about the lightly sketched character of Cook – he laments that "It’s a pity that Cook isn’t made more interesting before getting drowned" – he provides these excellent observations about the author's use of working-class characters in her mysteries:

"Gladys Mitchell’s cast of servant-class characters often throws up surprises. Clearly she doesn’t want to be limited to the stock English types, so her Cockney chauffeur is given demanding intellectual interests (Nietzsche and Freud, in other novels), while an international array of servant characters is brought in, beginning with Henri and Célestine. The unexpected Japanese valet in The Devil at Saxon Wall is another example.

"In Laurels the surprise is Lulu [a maid], who seems rather too obviously to have been parachuted in straight from Gone with the Wind (is there a Mitchell-clan in-joke here?). Her evidently stereotyped portrayal sets up a further surprise, though: after the night of the spooky noises, Mrs Bradley sends her away on the grounds that black Americans are well known to be terrified of ghosts; but when she returns, Lulu turns out to be proudly untroubled by superstition of any kind, and the otherwise infallible sleuth is proved wrong."

Chris adds: "There’s a parallel here to an earlier moment (Chapter Four) when Laura assumes that the athlete Alice will not recognise a literary allusion to George Eliot (to Aunt Glegg of The Mill on the Floss), but in fact Alice does read books, and knowledgeably disputes the relevance of the allusion. The lesson both times seems to be that even the most perceptive characters, up to and including Mrs Bradley and Laura, can be blinded by their assumptions."

THE STUDENTS

All of the readers noticed the strengthening bonds between the women students and, in particular, between Laura and Mrs Bradley. Joyka writes, "I think it is in these chapters that Laura and Mrs Bradley cement their lifelong friendship. Mrs B recognizes in Laura not a troublemaker like other school leaders but a unique, creative thinker. She is well aware of Laura’s tendency to jump into things before looking (the river swimming episode comes to mind [where Laura looks for clues by recreating Cook's downstream trajectory]) but Mrs B knows Laura has an intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. And Laura has christened Mrs B 'Mrs. Crocodile' or 'Mrs Croc', which she uses with love, not derision. She says, 'I like the old girl. I don’t care who hears me say so.' Later, Mrs Bradley returns the compliment, 'I like that child. She is intelligent.'"

Martyn Hobbs also notes the growing friendship, with Mrs Bradley appreciating Laura's "adventurous spirit and 'thirst for knowledge' and her linguistic gifts." Martyn goes on to note that in Chapter Eight, "Skirling and Groans," we learn that:

When Monday dawned, students in various degrees of anxiety and nervousness arose (many of them before the rising bell had rung in various Halls) and began to put ready the impedimenta (Laura’s carefully-chosen collective noun, much appreciated by Mrs Bradley when she heard it) for the day.

Tracy says that she "especially enjoyed Laura's detective work following the discovery of the dead body, very resourceful and intrepid. And Kitty is one of my favorite characters. She has no real interest in teaching and would prefer to be a hairdresser. Down to earth and straightforward." I would agree that Kitty's personal motivations make a delightful contrast to her peers: as her true interests are not connected with her success as a teacher in training, Mitchell gives her a situational liberty that delivers some of the book's best comedy. This scene, where Kitty is observed in front of a classroom, is a marvelous example:

'So you see,' said Kitty, 'all you do – Hey, you, in the back row, stop pulling that girl's hair! No, dash it, you weren't doing up her slide. You were pulling her hair; I saw you. Oh, don't argue. You listen to me. Oh, hullo, Miss Topas. Take a seat, won't you… Now, you perishers – that is children – Look here, this is the point. No, not the decimal point, haddock! The point of my remarks. In other words, what I'm saying. Oh, all right, if you won't listen, you won't. Sit up, and we'll do some Pence Table. Don't know it? Don't know Pence Table? How does your father make out his betting slips, then? Come on, all of you. Twelve pence are one shilling. Eighteen Pence are half a dollar. No, I'm wrong at that.'

She got the class laughing. Then she rolled her eyes at Miss Topas and went back to multiplying decimals. Miss Topas gave her an average mark, prayed inaudibly for her soul, and passed out, highly appreciative, but, she feared, wrong-headedly so, of Kitty's capabilities as an instructor.

Joyka was also appreciative of the detective's (and her author's) playful worldview. "I love Mrs Bradley’s quirky sense of humor. After catching Kitty, who went out of bounds to buy treats for tea, Mrs Bradley decides she needs to see fair play during the sharing out so she invites herself to tea and eats two doughnuts and two-pennyworth of crisps which the others have paid for." It's another amusing detail in a book filled with moments of friendship and negotiation among women.

THE SPEECH

For these chapters, Martyn looked largely at language and word choice, and I am happy to share his observations here. Writes Martyn:

"A word on chapter headings. Some are clear but colourful ('High Jinks with a Tin-opener,' 'Revenge upon Goldilocks'), others are obscure ('Evidence of the Submerged Tenth'). This latter I long misread as the case of the submerged teeth. Now that could have made some sense, [but] actually, it was her corset, not her dentures, that had gone missing, which the wonderful Laura Menzies retrieves from the reeds. But the submerged ‘tenth’? That might refer to 'the supposed fraction of the population permanently living in poverty', a term used by the Salvationist William Booth (1890). Is there a financial motive behind all these shenanigans (a sort of rags to riches mystery)?"

As moderator and fellow reader, I am also uncertain what the 'tenth' refers to, although I had not thought of it before in terms of social class labelling! (Very nice detective work, Martyn.) When I had read Laurels previously, I had presumed the 'tenth' might be a British student designation for Laura – although earlier we learn of First-Year and Second-Year student rankings at the college. The athletic ingénue also submerges, and then emerges, with the evidentiary undergarment. If anyone else has a theory about the context of 'the submerged tenth', please feel free to share.

Martyn provides this optimistic observation: "Some of the chapter headings only become clear further on into the story. Those 'promiscuous vessels' of Chapter Four were, in fact, the missing chamber pots, as Mrs Bradley explains in Chapter Six. Up to then I had imagined that that had somehow alluded to the naughty antics of the 'weaker vessels' (women).

But back to Laura: Martyn notes that she is an influence on many. "'Come on my right side, for this ear is deaf' says Deborah to Miss Topas. Then she adds, apologetically, 'Shades of Laura Menzies.' That too is a citation from Julius Caesar. And, of course, a ghost is going to turn up at Athelstan Hall, just as Caesar’s ghost entered before the Battle of Philippi…"

And Joyka recognizes the author's wonderful synthesis of characterization and dialogue (and dialect), working in tandem. Joyka writes: "Another thing I love about Gladys Mitchell is her ability to describe the essence of a character in just a few sentences. The Ditch family is a reoccurring favorite of mine. They may be rural but they are not unintelligent, backwards people. Their comments are based on observations of the world in which they have lived for centuries. Here is Our Walt commenting on Miss Topas and her young man as they study their books and maps: "I say, our young Mam, do ee thenk their brains, like, ul stand et? Tis like so much witchcraft to I."

With readers wondering what witchcraft will come next – and with Martyn curious as to what the Flying Flacoris of Chapter Ten's title might be – visit us next week as we continue our discussion of Laurels Are Poison!

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