DEATH IN THE OLD COUNTRY

by Eric Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1985

For Toronto cop Charlie Salter (The Night the Gods Smiled), the ""old country"" is England--where Charlie and wife Annie, in need of some time alone to refresh their stale marriage, are taking a four-week holiday. And the first half of Wright's third mystery is more comedy than suspense, with delicious vignettes of British-inn hospitality at its very best and very worst. Halfway through, however, after the Salters have happily settled in for a week or so at the Boomewood hotel in Tokesbury Mallett (superb food, cheery new chums), the suave Boomewood management suddenly falls apart: middle-aged hotel-owner Terry Dillon is found stabbed to death--soon after being accused Coy his young Italian wife) of uncharacteristic behavior (adultery) with sluttish Miss Rundstedt, another hotel guest from Canada! Was Dillon murdered by his wife or her feverishly proud brother? Or was the killer someone from Dillon's shadowy past? (He disappeared during WW II in Italy, then resurfaced, wealthy, some 30 years later.) And what was Dillon's real connection to Miss Rundstedt? Those are the puzzles for shrewd Charlie--who, spurred on by an amusing rivalry with a smug British super-cop, starts vacationing less and sleuthing more; Annie doesn't mind much, since the trail leads them to Pisa and Florence (an impromptu side-trip). But, though Charlie does come up with a thick web of revelations (switched identities, blackmail, etc.), the plot is Wright's weakest one thus far. So the appeal this time is almost entirely in the trimmings: the English-village charm, the droll peripheral characters, and the Salters themselves--who just may be the most endearingly tart cop-and-wife couple since Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION