(GoodReds Description)
Sunshine, seaside – and a body on the beach
Lady detectives Marjorie Swallow and Mrs Jameson enjoy a trip to a smart clifftop hotel for a very English seaside holiday… until a mysterious Italian woman appears, anxious to speak to Mrs Jameson. But Mrs Jameson definitely doesn’t want to talk to her.
When a corpse is discovered on the beach, every guest becomes a suspect, including our detective duo. What does Mrs Jameson know, and why doesn’t she want to investigate this murder? As Marjorie is drawn deeper into the mystery, she learns trust no-one. Secrets from the past come back to haunt Mrs Jameson. Is Marjorie about to discover what really did happen in Rome?
Murder On The White Cliffs is the sixth in the 1920s Murder Mystery series.
This is Marjorie Swallow’s last adventure… for now. I’m thrilled to hear that she may return in a future series because I truly loved these characters!
This is the conclusion of a mystery that has run throughout the entire series. However, I read it without any prior knowledge, and I could still follow it without any problem.
What can I say? I loved everything about this book.
First of all, the cast. The characters will always be the first thing that makes me fall in love with a book. Because this is a series, we have a recurring cast, a group of characters who are extremely easy to fall in love with.
They are well-rounded characters, with very definite personalities and bonds among them that give a feeling of extended family. They care about each other, and therefore, it’s easy for the reader to care about them, too.
The three central women are all different and still similar, and they give a perfect description of the 1920s New Woman’s different faces. Marjorie is a nice girl who is willing to push boundaries to get what she wants, which is her own life, her own satisfaction, and her own future. She’s resourceful and proactive, intelligent, and yet vulnerable. I really felt she was a friend.
Frankie is the ‘outsider’, the girl who goes maybe a bit too far with independence and doesn’t care for what other people think of her. She’s more of a tomboy, a girl afraid of nothing.
Mrs Jameson, though older than the other two characters, is still a New Woman, a businesswoman who has seen a lot both before, during and after the Great War. She’s the experienced woman who has used her skills to build her own life.
This trio really bring up how powerful the New Woam was at that time. And yet, they are also perfectly rounded characters, with their own dreams and especially their own fears, which play a very relevant part in this story.
Then, there’s the cast of this particular story. They, too, are a very true depiction of the people of the time. I have to say I had a soft spot for the war veterans, but that’s my weakness!
I surprisingly found the victim a very interesting character, shady but complex. The murder occurs quite a long way into the story, so we have a genuine opportunity to see this character. Not an easy one to decipher (for a long time, we don’t even know what her true name is) and this, in my opinion, adds so much layer to the story. I really like this choice.
And the setting: an elegant hotel situated in a castle on the White Cliffs. A real place, by the way.
I could almost see it, so vivid the descriptions are.
The story unfolded leisurely and gave me time to learn about the place and the people living there. I enjoyed reading about how well-off people enjoyed their holidays at the time, but also about the everyday life of the people working at the hotel.
It gave a strong Agatha Christie vibe, if I can say so, which – for me – was certainly a bonus.
The mystery is very well thought-out. Strong, but also not too complicated. I liked how Marjorie sometimes gets distracted by her fears and preoccupations, as I find it very realistic, which also makes the mystery more engaging.
In truth, what I liked the most about this mystery is that there was so much more than the mystery and yet, it was all about the mystery. I mean, these characters were trying to solve a murder, yet they also had to handle their own life, fears, and insecurities.
In this regard, the excerpt below is a great example (and one of my favourite episodes in the book): Inspector Dyson manages to manipulate Marjorie and he can do so because in that situation, not only does Marjorie have to handle the pressure of the interrogation (not something she faces every day), but also her own doubts, her loyalties and her fears. It’s a very realised, exceptionally well-handled episode, in my opinion.
It’s a great read, honestly.
It makes me want to read the entire series… even if now I know how it ends up!
Murder on the White Cliffs
Excerpt
‘What did you do then, Miss Swallow?’
‘I strolled along the cliff top,’ I admitted. ‘It was a nice evening. I walked along to the top of the steps to the beach, and looked at the moon rising above the sea.’
I wasn’t sure how long I’d stood there. I’d been lost in thought, remembering another sultry night on a different beach. A night of music and champagne and velvet darkness, when Hugh had kissed me. Until, of course, we’d been interrupted by a scream and the discovery of another corpse.
Sergent Cox shook his head sorrowfully. ‘You should have said so before,’ he said. He was right; I should have done. In all my concern about Mrs Jameson and what she’d told the police, I’d forgotten that I hadn’t told them the full extent of my own movements.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you asked before. I forgot. It was only for ten minutes or so, I think, and I didn’t see anyone.’
‘You went down to the beach’, said Inspector Dyson. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘No.’ I looked him firmly in the face. ‘I stayed at the top of the steps. I wouldn’t have gone down to the sand, in my new shoes. They would have got ruined.’
‘So you took them off,’ he said. ‘You took off your shoes, went down to the beach and saw the woman who has been threatening you ever since you arrived. There was an argument, and she demanded money to keep quiet about your past. You used your martial arts training to subdue her, and then you put an end to her. After which, you calmly returned to the hotel for a drink. You’re a pretty cool customer, Miss Swallow, aren’t you?’
‘What?’ I stared at him in amazement. ‘She wasn’t threatening me. I’d never met her before Wednesday. I don’t know anything about her.’
Sergent Cox sighed regretfully. ‘But that can’t be right, Miss Swallow. She knew all about you, didn’t she? She’d left a letter for you, in the post box at the hotel. We found it this morning.’
Inspector Dyson was holding an envelope, written in the same childish hand as the one addressed to Mrs Jameson that we’d seen earlier. It too had been slit open. But this was addressed to me.
The Thursday Quotables was originally a weekly post created by Lisa Wolf for her book blog Bookshelf Fantasy . It isn’t a weekly post anymore, not even for Lisa, but just like her, I still love to share my favourite reads on Thursdays and I still use the original template which included an excerpt.
