{"id":17309,"date":"2022-09-21T19:28:46","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T23:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17309"},"modified":"2022-09-21T19:28:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T23:28:46","slug":"the-ten-commandments-of-murder-by-david-breitenbeck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17309","title":{"rendered":"‘The Ten Commandments of Murder,’ by David Breitenbeck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I thanked him and sat down in one of the armchairs, feeling much the same as I had when I\u2019d been called into the headmaster\u2019s office at school. The big clock ticked off the seconds with an unusually heavy tread, as if it were driving a rivet with each tick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We have under consideration here<\/strong> an attempt at a new cozy mystery franchise, and it\u2019s not a bad one at all. The Ten Commandments of Murder <\/a><\/em>is sort of blend of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Nero Wolfe, with a nice, well-integrated infusion of Christian morality. Utterly unbelievable, but plenty of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfred More, our Watson\/Hastings\/Goodwin here, is at the time of the story (1903) a feckless young idler, the younger son of a Pennsylvania steel magnate. The company is run by his brother Jonathan, with whom Alfred lives. Every April, according to established family tradition, they host a dinner party at their mansion on Long Island for family and family friends. Alfred looks forward to seeing Violet, a young woman he\u2019s been in love with since childhood. But that also means seeing her insufferable husband, Nathan Gale, who is vulgarly rich and delights in offending people. The party also includes the family doctor and a \u201cprogressive\u201d clergyman and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan Gale loses no time in making himself odious to everyone. At one point he insults his wife Violet, and Alfred our narrator is incensed enough to say he\u2019d like to kill him. That will come back to bite him when he hears a noise in the nighttime and enters Gale\u2019s room, finding him shot dead. In the honorable tradition of stupid mystery characters since forever, he sees a gun on the floor and picks it up, to be found that way by the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows passes belief, but is highly suitable for a cozy mystery. The intelligent police detective who comes to investigate does not believe Alfred guilty (I was never sure why), and instead suggests that he engage the services of Mr. Malachi Burke, a former policeman and brilliant consulting detective. Burke turns out to be a huge, unkempt (think W. B. Yeats), aging Irishman who walks with a cane and quickly takes charge. He enlists Alfred to assist him (!) and explains his approach to crime solving, based on his personal list of the \u201cTen Commandments of Murder\u201d (he also frequently refers to the real biblical commandments, and he\u2019s deadly serious about it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the rest goes as expected. Malachi Burke discerns secrets, sees through lies, and ultimately identifies the real murderer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was all very satisfactory. The writing was good too (though the author has occasional trouble with homophone confusion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all things considered, I greatly enjoyed The Ten Commandments of Murder<\/em>, and look forward to the next installment in the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thanked him and sat down in one of the armchairs, feeling much the same as I had when I\u2019d been called into the headmaster\u2019s office at school. The big clock ticked off the seconds with an unusually heavy tread, as if it were driving a rivet with each tick. We have under consideration here … Continue reading ‘The Ten Commandments of Murder,’ by David Breitenbeck<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4353,4351,4352,4354],"class_list":["post-17309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-alfred-more","tag-david-breitenbeck","tag-malachi-burke","tag-the-ten-commandments-of-murder"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17311,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309\/revisions\/17311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}