Winking at the Brim (1974)
1974 Michael Joseph:
The
Loch Ness Monster is always news and the author has always been a
firm believer in its existence. That this existence should lead
to murder sounds unlikely but, in this compulsively readable
beak, murder does follow the sighting of something not entirely
incredible in a small Highland loch called Loch na Tannasg
(Gaelic for Loch of the Ghost).
Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, sceptical as ever, is not called upon to testify to the existence of the monster, but to solve the vexed question of whether a supposed suicide is not, in fact, a case of murder, the victim being a mischievous, much-disliked, female member of a monster-seeking expedition to the west of Scotland.
<>The author has studied all the available literature on the subject of so-called monsters and has visited the Highlands many times. Winking at the Brim is therefore the result of some years of (admittedly biased) research, but, at any rate, the magnificent scenery of the countryside is a fact, and zealous readers of the book may even learn how to distil their own illegal Scotch.My review:
"And is it about the Loch Ness monster? ... I shouldn't think that would make a very good subject for a novel, would it?"
The Loch Ness monster parts of the book are well-enough done—only in a Gladys Mitchell novel would the heroine be winked at, or the murderer eaten, by the Loch Ness monster. The landscape, the Scottish dialect, and the dialogue are also good. What is not good at all is the detective story, in which the typical Mitchell victim of the 1970's dies of strychnine poisoning—an apparent suicide (hence the title - "Ode to a Nightingale"), but, as the reader knows, murder. The plot is not at all exciting, and loses impetus long before the halfway mark.