Gory Dew (1970)
<>1970 Michael Joseph blurb:
In
this story Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley finds herself in the
unusual position of being involved with a shady professional
boxing establishment run by a gang whose activities are a cover
for something which Damon Runyon would call, ‘by no means a
high-class business, and even considered somewhat illegal’.
Toby Sparowe, the
nephew of one of the Dame’s friends, has bought a derelict
railway station opposite the public house where the gang have
established their training quarters, and where a callow youth is
being coached for a non-existent fight. In fact, the boy is being
used as a cloak for the gang’s profitable but nefarious
enterprises. Toby befriends him and offers to help with his
training but this does not suit the gang’s plans and they
rudely brush off Toby’s offer.
When a murder is committed and the youth charged, Toby’s
suspicions are aroused. He invokes the help of Dame Beatrice who
uses her formidable wits to bring about a happy but not a highly
ethical ending.
My review:
Mitchell's forty-third novel is an
entertaining and well-plotted piece, involving boxing and
organised crime—sport is often associated with
crime in her books, e.g., The Dancing Druids. The inn
and village milieux are both good; the courtroom scene both good
drama and good comedy, as two daft criminals, Gracechurchstreet
and Maverick, are called up to testify. The solution is
surprising—good misdirection and reversal of ideas.
Note similarities to both David and Goliath, and to H.C.
Bailey's The Sullen Sky Mystery (read it).
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