Postscript to Poison

Do you think it’s a secret that you are slowly poisoning Mrs Lackland?

When Dr Tom Faithful received the third anonymous letter, he knew it was time to call the police. The wealthy Mrs Cornelia Lackland was recovering steadily from a serious illness, diligently cared for by the doctor, family members and her household staff. But something is amiss in Minsterbridge. Mrs Lackland rules her house with an iron fist, keeping granddaughters Jenny and Carol as virtual prisoners and bullying her attendant Emily Bullen. Scornful and dismissive of everyone, she is planning to make one final change to her will. But before she can meet her solicitor Cornelia Lackland is dead, the apparent victim of a poisoner.

As Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe of Scotland Yard and his colleague Sergeant Salt investigate, they find motives for murder much broader than first anticipated. This is a town where everybody’s business is known by everyone else. Pardoe is a satisfying and likeable creation, described by a Sunday Times reviewer as having ‘humanity and common sense as impressive as his intelligence’.

Dorothy Bowers was an advocate of the ‘fair play’ school of detective novels, and displayed great ingenuity in piecing together the necessary elements of a baffling mystery, with clues shared freely with the reader. When Inspector Pardoe indicates he knows who the murderer is, the reader knows virtually everything he does. Bower’s great skill is in obscuring her characters’ motives, while writing perceptively about their feelings and situation, which allows her to hide the identity of the murderer until exactly the right moment.