What do You think about Detection Unlimited (2006)?
inspector hemingway takes center stage in this one - unfortunately! heyer mysteries are always best when they forget they are actually supposed to be mysteries. wasn't so impressed with abe kobo's the ruined map (which is a surrealist or metaphysical take on detective fiction) when i first read it but now am inclined to think it rather brilliant. the tedium of that book is at least deliberate, and ostentatiously mundane - like with the dadaists, who took ordinary things and put them in extraordinary contexts. abe kobo's brilliance comes from his characters, who take themselves absolutely seriously and see their problems as absolutely critical but are also absolutely unaware that their own reality has been unmoored from ours (the readers). books like detection unlimited keep the tedium but not the self-awareness. oh well. without them i suppose books like the ruined map couldn't exist, so...maybe it evens out in the end.
—meeners
Everyone hated Samuel Warrenby - and when he was murdered, everyone turned detective to prove that their own pet suspect was guilty. The fun thing about this book is that it turns out that Chief Inspector Hemingway doesn't need the amateurs' help to solve the crime. One of Heyer's best detective stories, with a light touch to the satire and an interesting detective plot (her worst combine boring plots and settings where everyone comes across badly). But the comparison with Christie's use of the
—Helen
Rating Clarification: 3.5 StarsWho would have wanted to murder solicitor Sampson Warrenby?Apparently everyone in the village of Thornden.There's no shortage of suspects to question when Scotland Yard sends one of their finest -- Chief Inspector Hemingway -- to ferret out means, motive and opportunity. You've got the village squire and his ailing wife, the victim's long suffering niece, a rival solicitor, a mysterious couple, a crime writer, a handsome foreigner, and a military officer whose wife breeds Pekenese dogs with the unlikely names of Ullapool, Ursula, Umberto, Umbrella and Uppish. Oh, the wife had motive alright: Warrenby had had the unmitigated nerve to kick poor peekie Ulysses (!!!).Another classic whodunit from Heyer set in the mid-1950's, and one of her final mysteries. I enjoyed this one very much, and would have rated it higher except for the fact that the resolution and ending was too abrupt. It needed 2-3 more pages to smooth it out, IMO. In addition, this book would have been so much better with a map provided at the front of Chapter 1. It was hard to picture the village of Thornden and the juxtaposition of all the houses and plots of land which made up a good portion of the book. Otherwise, another winner from Heyer, whose powers of writing droll characters remains top notch.
—Hannah
