The premise of Murders at the Manor, by Milo James Fowler, is fairly traditional for a cozy English mystery – Inspector Willem Broekstein hears from his old friend Charles for the first time in 30 years. Charles wants him to visit him at the country estate he recently inherited. When he arrives, he meets several other guests, and Charles surprises them all by introducing his beautiful young fiancée. Then one of the guests is murdered, and Inspector Broekstein is on the case.
Only it’s not what the reader assumes. The setting is not England, but Connecticut. And Inspector Broekstein is not a police inspector, but a quality control inspector for a soap company. He is a socially awkward man who enjoys mystery stories and suffers from an overactive bladder.
Occasionally one reads a book and asks oneself “Why? What is the purpose of the exercise?” If it’s a mystery, is it challenging? Suspenseful? If it’s a comedy, is it, well… funny?
In my personal view, Murders at the Manor succeeded only marginally on the first question, and not at all on the second. Partly this is due to my own prejudices – it’s hard to make murder funny for me, and I don’t find bathroom humor funny at all.
The prose in Murders at the Manor, I’ll admit, was pretty good. But I got the sense that the author didn’t really like his hero – Willem Broekstein is a fairly pathetic character, lonely, unloved, and forever in danger of wetting his pants. I felt sorry for him, but I think I was supposed to roar with laughter at his frequent humiliations.
I didn’t like Murders at the Manor much. Your mileage may vary.
This somehow sparks me to ask if you have ever read The Pendragon Legend (1934) by Antal Szerb? It probably sprang to mind because its English Wikipedia article describes it as ” a philosophical thriller/comedy/murder-mystery/ghost story set first in London and then in Wales”. His English Wikipedia article refers to his “spending a year in London, England, from 1929 to 1930” and says that the novel “draws upon his personal experience of living in Britain”. I wonder if he had any Inklings contacts – especially given Tolkien’s interest in Magyar. Going by his various Wikipedia articles, it was apparently only translated into English in 1963, German in 1966, Swedish in 2010, French in 2012, though Dutch as early as 1937 – he doesn’t have a Norwegian article. I only recently became aware of it, and wonder if its worth reading.
No, sorry, that’s a new one on me.