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The Rising of the Moon

Page history last edited by Jon 11 years, 11 months ago

Mitchell, Gladys - The Rising of the Moon (1945)

 

 

Review by Nick Fuller

3/5

'At what point the people in our town began to dread the nights of the full moon I do not know, but the whispers, the rumours and the panic gradually grew.'

 

One of the most over-rated mysteries (for it cannot be called a 'detective story' proper) of the previous century. Despite the pervasive first-class atmosphere, the plot is very weak, the ending so opaque as to be totally confusing: If the murderous woman is responsible for the Deptford murders, what of the man on the bridge? If that man is the murderer, then what of the woman's Deptford past? And what of the cut faces suddenly mentioned at the end of the book? None of these make any sense. Neither does the geography of the town, which will have the reader thoroughly confused. The much touted child narrator is a sexually perverted juvenile delinquent, and unbelievable — why didn't Mitchell make him as credible as Aubrey Harringay in The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop? To make matters worse, Mrs. Bradley remains in the background throughout the story, which perhaps accounts for the weakness of the plot.

 

Note that the setting is Brentford, where Mitchell was brought up and where she taught as an adult. The Greenstone Griffins, a much better book, also features Brentford (under an assumed name). Both books are semi-autobiographical.

 


I've just finished this, my first Gladys Mitchell novel. Well, a couple of you warned me not to expect the moon. Even so . . .

 

The prose is somewhat better than I'd feared it might be, given all the negative comments I've seen about Mitchell. Very English, very amusing in its own wordy way. Sample line: Two of Sparks' admirers put the heckler under the seat, and thoughtfully shoved his handkerchief in his mouth to lessen his powers of obstruction. If that makes you smile – and it does me – then there's a lot of it to enjoy.

 

But the plot construction is just embarrassingly inept, and the two protagonists, who are 11 and 13 years old, insist on thinking and speaking as if they were middle-aged English gentlemen. Nothing in the end makes any sense – not the murderer's identity, not the motive, not the doings of the various innocent characters. Why is the whopping great clue that identifies the murderer on page 48 never again referred to? Why do the boys, who are detective Beatrice Bradley's confidants and assistants, fail to tell her they've seen someone's severed head boiling in a pot? Why IS that head boiling in a pot, anyway?

 

I'll end this criticism with a backhanded compliment. If this novel is typical of Mitchell, then she is one of those bad writers who is nonetheless an original. Like, for instance, Harry Stephen Keeler, she appears to know exactly what she wants to do, and will not be deterred by any considerations of realism or even common sense. There is a perverse appeal in such single-mindedness, and yes, I will read at least one more Mitchell – hopefully one of the more puzzle- oriented ones, just to see if she can pull it off.

 

John


 

See also: http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.ca/2012/04/return-of-mrs-croc.html

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