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MURDER ON MONDAY
by Ann Purser
Berkley Prime Crime, October 2002
280 pages
$5.99
ISBN: 0425192970


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

There is a saying that "No man is a hero to his valet." Then it follows that no people are heroes to the person who cleans for them.

Lois Meade, mother of three, decides to increase the family income by cleaning houses. When her husband and children express mortification, she agrees to confine her clientele to a neighboring English village. At that village, spinster Gloria Hathaway is strangled while preparing coffee for post-lecture refreshments after a very boring talk by a woman who was discussing life during World War II.

When her application to become a Special Constable is turned down, Lois decides to do her own investigating. She finds pornography among the vicar's things, learns that the professor (husband of the woman who found the body) was not actually on a teaching assignment when he left town, that Gloria wasn't the harmless spinster she seemed to be, and that the village nurse is covering up. No one in the village, including Lois' husband is without a secret.

More interesting than the murder mystery, really just the traditional British village cozy, is the subplot, involving Melvyn, an unctuous young man reminiscent of the oily Eddie Haskell on "Leave It to Beaver," utterly obsequious to adults while hatching various plots. Melvyn's plot involves what appears to be an attempt to seduce Lois' fourteen-year-old daughter, Josie. He first takes her to a deserted warehouse, then to his uncle's farm, and finally back to the warehouse, where he has fitted up a lovely apartment and proposes that they live there. He does not, however, go through with the seduction. Melvyn succeeds in pulling the wool over Lois' eyes but not over those of her rather boorish husband Derek.

A couple of plot points don't make sense. We think that there is something suspicious about the hasty exit of the lady speaker, but that comes to naught. In addition, Lois' reaction to being rejected as a Special Constable seems excessive. It is apparently included to "guilt" the rejecting police officer into sharing more information than he should with Lois.

When the story heats up towards the end, the reader will be pleased to have stuck with the book.

Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, November 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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