Mad
Hatter's Holiday
A
Sergeant Cribb Investigation
Peter
Lovesey
Soho
Constable (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-560-1 (1569475601)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-560-7 (9781569475607)
Publication Date: June 2009
List Price: $14.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Brighton in 1882 is the setting of this novel of crime
and tangled emotions. Albert Moscrop, a visitor whose holiday is
dedicated to peering through a telescope at the seaside scene, marches
down Queen’s Road to the beach and draws us through a
sequence of disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama,
played in the fashionable haunts of the nineteenth-century resort:
beach, piers, promenade, swimming bath, aquarium, and Devil’s
Dyke.
A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on
one particular family of holidaymakers—the Protheros, and
especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take
her excessively for granted. Gradually Moscrop moves into the circle of
the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.
All Brighton is horrified by the gruesome crime. The local police seek
the help of Scotland Yard, which is provided in the persons of Sergeant
Cribb and Constable Thackeray. These indomitable detectives soon find
themselves challenged by the strangest case of their careers, one that
is as mystifying as it is macabre.
Review:
Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray are summoned to Brighton when a
human hand is found in a crocodile exhibit in Mad Hatter's Holiday,
the fourth mystery in this series by Peter Lovesey. Originally
published in 1973, Soho Constable is reissuing books in this series as
trade paperbacks.
Set in the early fall of 1882, the story opens with Albert Moscrop, a
craftsman of optical devices with a shop in London, arriving in
Brighton on holiday, and taking "an observer's interest in his
fellow-beings" … for what reason or purpose is unknown, but
it seems vaguely sinister. The narrative puts the reader in the role of
a voyeur as well, "observing" Albert watching everyone else, an oddly
compelling, if at times uncomfortable, position. He soon focuses his
attention on a family: a well-to-do physician, his third wife, teenaged
son from a previous marriage, toddler son with his current wife, and
their nanny. Moscrop inserts himself into their lives, first as a hero,
saving the toddler, later as a confidant to the wife, who thinks her
husband may be trying to poison her.
Midway through the book a woman's hand is found in an exhibit at the
local aquarium. The local police realize they need assistance in
determining the woman's identity, and call in the Criminal
Investigation Department. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray arrive
to take over the case, and get immediate assistance from Moscrop, who
leads the detectives to believe the hand may belong to the wife of a
physician on holiday with his family, to which he has recently become
acquainted. But Cribb is suspicious of the man's motives, and the
evidence he gathers suggests the hand, and other body parts he later
recovers, may be of someone else entirely.
Mad
Hatter's Holiday is so deftly
plotted it isn't clear to the reader at any time what is true and what
isn't, and who to believe and who not to trust. Though relatively short
at just over 200 pages, the story is richly detailed and the characters
well drawn, the setting with its grand pier a metaphor for the case,
providing a contrast between the known above and the unknown below.
This truly exceptional novel ends on an ambiguous note, though, which
some readers may find unsettling: is the resolution to the crime that
Cribb and his associates agree to be the only one plausible, indeed the
correct one?
Special thanks to Soho Press for providing a copy of Mad Hatter's Holiday for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Mad Hatter's Holiday? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Wobble to Death
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), February 1970
ISBN-10: 0-396-06233-4 (0396062334)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-06233-2 (9780396062332)
The Detective Wore Silk Drawers
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), January 1971
ISBN-10: 0-396-06377-2 (0396063772)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-06377-3 (9780396063773)
Abracadaver
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), September 1972
ISBN-10: 0-396-06627-5 (0396066275)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-06627-9 (9780396066279)
Mad Hatter's Holiday
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), March 1973
ISBN-10: 0-396-06835-9 (0396068359)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-06835-8 (9780396068358)
The
Tick
of Death
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), July 1974
ISBN-10: 0-396-06972-X (039606972X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-06972-0 (9780396069720)
A
Case of
Spirits
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), January 1975
ISBN-10: 0-396-07218-6 (0396072186)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-07218-8 (9780396072188)
Swing,
Swing
Together
Dodd Mead (Hardcover), January 1976
ISBN-10: 0-396-07327-1 (0396073271)
ISBN-13: 978-0-396-07327-7 (9780396073277)
Waxwork
Random House (Hardcover), April 1978
ISBN-10: 0-394-50066-0 (0394500660)
ISBN-13: 978-0-394-50066-9 (9780394500669)
Omnimystery
keywords for Mad Hatter's Holiday
...
Location(s) referenced: Brighton, England.
