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Heyer, Georgette

Page history last edited by Jon 14 years, 7 months ago

Georgette HeyerGeorgette Heyer, (pronounced "hair"), (August 16, 1902 – July 4, 1974) was a historical romance and detective story novelist. She was born in London and educated at Westminster College London. She married George Ronald Rougier, who later became a barrister, in 1925. She also wrote as Stella Martin.

 

Heyer's first published work, inspired by Baroness Orczy, was The Black Moth, and was written while she was seventeen to amuse her convalescent brother. She became an increasingly popular writer, supporting her family through her work. Her writings were mainly Regency romances, but she also wrote a number of classic country-house mysteries, four contemporary novels and a number of short stories. Her series characters were Superintendent Hannasyde and Inspector Hemingway.

 

Georgette Heyer's mysteries have been reissued by Random House in the UK.

 


Mike Grost on Georgette Heyer

 

Heyer was most famous for her historical romances, but she also wrote several mystery novels. The one of these I liked best was Envious Casca (1941). Its mystery plot is above the standard of her other mysteries.

 

Many of Heyer's regular mysteries lack good puzzle plots. The overpraised A Blunt Instrument (1938) has a cute final gimmick, but little more. Death in the Stocks (1935) is undistinguished as a puzzle plot, to put it mildly, but it has much clever black comedy in the Vereker family, a group of outrageously eccentric murder suspects. All of the Verekers are completely self absorbed, care nothing about the deceased or the social amenities, and say whatever selfish things they think. They are a bunch of monsters, but ones given superb dialogue by Heyer. The sparkling dialogue recalls stage comedies by Noël Coward, and the over the top families in Coward plays such as Hay Fever (1925). Heyer's dialogue is both subtle and intellectually complex, showing considerable logic; at the end of Chapter 11 she compares it to a stage play by Chekhov. It is also remarkably sustained over the whole novel. The ability of several members of the Vereker family to justify themselves, no matter how venal or corrupt their actions, recalls Uncle William in Allingham's Police at the Funeral (1931). So does the tone of Heyer's comic dialogue for these characters, which blends whiny self-justification with a sort of parody of petit-bourgeois earnestness and conventionality. The use of long missing relatives in Death in the Stocks also recalls Allingham's novel. Heyer's book in turn looks forward to Ngaio Marsh, and her comedies of manners mysteries. Indeed, Heyer's social comedy seems like Marsh's nearest ancestor in the mystery field. Marsh would create her own family of eccentrics in Death of a Peer (1940).

 

It would be a mistake to call Heyer's book a satire: the Verekers do not seem to represent any social class or profession, or even a standard human personality type. Instead they are a bunch of unique individuals unlike any other. They keep only to their self interest, and have no concern for murder, the tragedies of others, or anyone's feelings. They are pure self interest coming straight up from the id. This gives a child like quality to the Verekers: they seem like a bunch of 5 year olds who are only concerned with their own wants.

 

Heyer, like Marsh, is an intuitionist writer. Like other intuitionists, she often favors amateur detectives. Although Death in the Stocks introduces her continuing policeman character Superintendent Hannasyde, much of the actual sleuthing is done by solicitor Giles Carrington. He is a relatively nice and normal person in a book full of the outrageous Verekers. The opposite pattern is found in the earlier Why Shoot A Butler? (1933), where the abrasive barrister Frank Amberley serves as amateur detective among a cast of nice people. The deliberately rude, rather witty Amberley can be seen as a very rough sketch for the later Verekers; like them, he is given to saying the unexpected, and to shattering social conventions of politeness. Also like the Verekers, he disdains sharing information with the police, and enjoys puncturing clichés of good form during a murder investigation - see especially in Chapter 5. The Verekers' ingenuity and lack of social inhibition in suspecting themselves and each other of the crime also breaks down mystery conventions. Heyer's work here forms a sort of logical analysis of the mystery genre itself, a kind of logical debunking of received ideas. Allingham also wrote several stories that involve a logical parody or satire on mystery ideas. Why Shoot A Butler? is rather more a thriller than a pure detective story in the Golden Age definition. It is a very dull book.

 

When Giles goes off sleuthing at the end of Death in the Stocks, his first step is to dress in evening clothes. This is not surprising in an author whose historical novels stressed fashion: see Powder and Patch (1923). Heyer's best historical novels also include Faro's Daughter (1941).

 

They Found Him Dead (1937) also has some good comic characters, in the tradition of Death in the Stocks. They are more normal and less monstrous than the Verekers, but they are impressively complex just the same. Heyer's satiric scalpel is especially good with Rosemary, the wife obsessed with her feelings. The most successful parts of this book are the opening Chapters (1 - 5) before Scotland Yard begins its investigation. The book also shows Heyer's skills at constructing motives. These motives are part of the intricate network of relationships existing among her characters. Their logical design forms an interesting and beautiful part of the plot. The system of inheritance among the characters, and the motives deriving from it, resemble those in Death in the Stocks.

 

Less successful is Heyer's immediate follow-up to Stocks, Behold, Here's Poison! (1936). While the Verekers are self absorbed and unconventional, the family in Poison is just plain nasty to each other. There is some clever dialogue, especially in the first four chapters, but mainly these people are unpleasant. They anticipate such Ngaio Marsh books, also lesser works, in which a bunch of bitchy characters spend time savaging each other to alleged comic effect: Death and the Dancing Footman (1941) and Colour Scheme (1943).

 

Few of the Heyer books I have read include a map or floor plan. Unlike many Golden Age authors, she has little interest in architecture or landscape.

 

Heyer and Freeman Wills Crofts

 

Heyer's novels show some signs of Realist school influence, especially Freeman Wills Crofts. Her first mystery, Footsteps in the Dark (1932), shows villains engaged in the sort of criminal scheme we associate with Crofts' The Pit-Prop Syndicate (1922) and pThe Box Office Murders] (1929). The criminals prove to be an international gang, with ties to France, just as in Crofts as well. Also Crofts like is the way that this book, and other early Heyer mysteries as Why Shoot a Butler? (1933), are not quite a standard Golden Age, solve a murder puzzle plots, but instead incorporate elements of the thriller. Later Heyer books will become far more like standard 1930's mystery novels.

 

Also Crofts like is the interest in alibis and time tables, in some of Heyer's later books. The way in which the time schedules never add up consistently in A Blunt Instrument (1938) is especially clever. Heyer's books also have professional police detectives in most of them. The way they share detection with ordinary people who get caught up in the events also has precedents in Crofts. Footsteps has a small time, not especially hard-boiled British private detective as well, the type that also shows up regularly Crofts' novels. However, all this said, there are big differences between Heyer and most Croftsians. Most of Heyer's books are comedies of manners. They do not have the police procedural approach of relentless, routine sleuthing found in Crofts and Croftsians. Furthermore, the puzzle plots in some of Heyer's books is distinctly intuitionist in tone. Solutions tend to have the detective penetrate the tricky puzzle plot of a case in a flash of insight. This is just as in Agatha Christie, and other intuitionist writers. There is also no sign of a Background in Heyer, or the "breakdown of identity", or much concern with trains, motorcycles or other means of transportation. Heyer's best pure mystery. Death in the Stocks, has no Croftsian features whatever, aside from a policeman sleuth. It is all comedy of manners.


Enrique F Bird on Georgette Heyer 

 

Georgette Heyer was a major talent who produced a definite masterpiece of the genre (A Blunt Instrument), another top drawer mystery (Envious Casca), and several other very good and entertaining ones. 2 reasons why she is not a major like the big four:

 

1- Her splitting her output between romances (or whatever) and mysteries. Thus she did not write enough mysteries to be thought of as a major writer. If she and Christianna Brand had written 10-15 more mysteries, we would be talking about the big 6 instead of 4, and these 2 would probably be be below Christie and above Sayers, Allingham, and Marsh at to plotters.

 

2- She did not have a distinct detcective personality as a hero. I like Hannasyde, but he is no Poirot/Marple, Wimsey, Campion, or Alleyn. And Hemingway is even less distinguished.

 

It is a pity and a loss to lovers of GA mysteries that we do not have more Heyer mysteries. She was easy to read, witty, and at her best a top-notch plotter. I have read and enjoyed A Blunt Instrument twice and plan on re-reading it again as soon as I find a copy of it.


Nick Fuller on Georgette Heyer

Rankings:

1.                  A Blunt Instrument

2.                  No Wind of Blame

3.                  Envious Casca

4.                  Detection Unlimited

5.                  Death in the Stocks

6.                  Behold, Here’s Poison

7.                  Duplicate Death

8.                  They Found Him Dead

9.                  The Unfinished Clue

10.              Footsteps in the Dark

11.              Why Shoot a Butler?

12.              Penhallow

 

Hallmarks of Heyer:

·        Generic: victim is head of family; family gathered in country-house.

·        Witty siblings with undesirable fiancé(e).

·        Barrister hero.

·        Marriage between cousins.

·        Murderer is outsider: middle-aged bluff sort, friend of victim.

·        ‘Snake’ type—often suspicious young man who gets girl and / or is detective.


Bibliography

 

Footsteps in the Dark (1932)

Why Shoot the Butler? (1933)

The Unfinished Clue (1934)

Death in the Stocks aka Merely Murder (1935)

The Talisman Ring (1936)

Behold, Here's Poison! (1936)

They Found Him Dead (1937)

A Blunt Instrument (1938)

No Wind of Blame (1939)

Envious Casca (1941)

Penhallow (1942)

Duplicate Death (1951)

Detection Unlimited (1953)

 

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