Mitchell, Gladys - Here Lies Gloria Mundy (1982)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

A return to the old Mitchell. A good book, with strong surrealistic elements, especially in the powerful final chapter, indicating that in the 1980s, Mitchell was attempting a return to her style of the 1930s and 1940s.

The criminal is announced three-quarters through, but there is no sense of anti-climax, and the attempts to discover how the murderer committed the crime are interesting. The mystery is solved equally by Dame Beatrice, and by the peculiar Mme. Eglantine, the host's aunt with a bee in her Chaucerian bonnet about witchcraft — one of the themes of the book.

As well as Mrs. Bradley, the book abounds with references to the Malleus Maleficorum, quoted extensively by Mme. Eg. Gloria Mundy herself is a descendant of a witch who had been burnt at the stake, creating her distinctive red and black hair. Dame Beatrice herself is descended from a witch, her ancestress Mary Toadflax having narrowly "died within the odour of sanctity". Great-Aunt Eglantine herself commits witchcraft at the end, believing that witchcraft must be fought with witchcraft.

Note that Corin Stratford visited the Callanish stone circle at midnight on Midsummer's Eve (c.f. The Whispering Knights).