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It takes two, they say, to tango. It also takes two to solve a murder in the "Herring" series of comic cosies that transport Golden Age cliches into the 21st century. The two in question are Ethelred Tressider and Elsie Thirkettle. The former is a hack genre novelist who has several series on the go under a variety of names. He does formula mysteries littered with the red herrings that got him his nickname and, as Amanda Collins, romantic fiction. As well, he has a set of historical books featuring Master Thomas, who is employed by Chaucer, but as he cheerfully admits, aside from the dating, they are all pretty much of a muchness. We are treated to quite a lot of Master Thomas in the course of this story, as Ethelred is churning out the next installment. As he does, he uncovers hints toward the solution to the murder of his host during a dinner party, the body found in the proverbial locked room, in this case, the library.
The narrative alternates between Ethelred and his faintly terrifying, chocolate-addicted agent, Elsie. Elsie speaks as she finds, and what she finds isn't good. It is difficult to say which she holds in greater contempt - the authors she represents or the readers who buy their books. She doesn't much care for Tressider's posh friends, either. Still, she has an obvious talent for merchandising. Any agent who can peddle three or four Tressider books a year is clearly earning her 12½%. Ethelred (inevitably, "Ethel" at school) is a sweetly trusting soul, not perhaps the most desirable trait in a detective; Elsie isn't, but her cynicism can also lead her astray, albeit in a different direction. Together, they add up to a reasonable facsimile of an amateur detective; separately, they would be hopeless.
In any event, although there is a serviceable mystery plot to resolve, it's one fairly familiar to experienced readers of cosies and certainly not the reason to pick this one up to pass a few cheerful hours. The attraction here is the good-humoured sendup of genre fiction and the entertaining contrast between the main characters, who regardless of the broadness of the humour, still manage, each in his or her own way, to engage the sympathies of the reader.
THE HERRING IN THE LIBRARY was awarded the Last Laugh Award at Crimefest 2011 for Best Humorous Crime Novel of 2010.
§ Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, January 2012
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Contact: Linda Wilson (ljw@reviewingtheevidence.com), Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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