Death Sits Down to Dinner

Here's to Ben Bag-Bag, rabbinic sage. With a name like that, he has to be good. Another fellow seems to have a built-in echo in his name: Alexandra Hall Hall.

And this other one reminds me of some other double-names that we are familiar with: Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh .

We all know Ann- "Boom-Boom" Margret, whose own hyphenated name is interesting unto itself.

And then there's Marilyn "Boom-Boom" Monroe of the Boston Monroes. You get the picture.

Would have never got the Guys and Dolls reference without a crib sheet.

I was looking for the Seinfeld clip on Guys and Dolls...the one where George says, "It's not guys and guys, Jerry. It's guys and dolls."

Still very early in Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman . I didn't get much reading done over the weekend. The sun was out so I spent some time cleaning the grounds.

However, the first question for Mr. Flu-Flu is: How do you pronounce "Iyntwood"?

Interesting to see the detective relationship emerge with her ladyship and Mrs. Jackson. There's a good scene where Clementine is in the thick of it, feeling overwhelmed, but steeled to the need to act decisively.

She meets with Mrs. Jackson and then proceeds to completely scandalize Mrs. Jackson with her requests, her familiarity, and the breaking of the wall between servants and masters. Clementine piles on heaps of scandalous ideas in a fast-paced soliloquy as she considers what actions need to be taken, especially by Mrs. Jackson. Mrs Jackson spy on (or question) members of her own staff? Her ladyship discussing with her the actions of the family and friends? Her ladyship asking Mrs. Jackson to given an opinion on her family and friends?

Mrs. Jackson has a hard time sleeping that night as she considers all the broken upstairs/downstairs conventions she has been asked to take part in. She finally gives her equivalent of "eff this" and decides that the primary job of serving and protecting the family will, in this instance, allow for these various breachings of convention. And we all know (from later books) that she takes to this like a duck to water.

I generally agree that the book was a decent read.



What a wonderful, non-woke dig at the French. I loved that line. I don't know a lot about Tessa Arlen, but more than a little affinity for traditionalism seeps through.

Even with the inclusion of the suffragette movement, it is clear that Arlen is not taking that side too easily. The idiot daughter of the Lambert-Lambert-Lamberts is hardly treated as an unblemished hero. Arlen outs her as the kind of spoiled, bored-with-life, narcissistic yute that infects our own age with their stridently self-righteous "causes." She does so again in the novel in which Iyntwood is turned into an Army hospital during The Great War, more than once pointing out the superficial silly city girls who are a fish out of water in the hospital.

Like I said, just throw me a bone. Although I think if we take the long view (centuries-long) we might view the suffragette movement as a disaster for the West, Arlen does throw me the bone of showing one if its adherents to be an insufferable c-word.

Still, my initial criticism of the plot stands and is confirmed by the ending. Teddy was such an irrepressible dirt-bag, the rest of the upper-class characters are left in the position of being "shocked, shocked" that this yute was 100% evil.

The very people whose station in life depends upon their class being perceived as being inherently superior seems not at all bothered by, or perceptive to, the behavior of Teddy. The preservation of their reputations (and the avoidance of scandal) should have led them to distance themselves from him.

Teddy deserved what he got and yet Lord Montfort – whose family totally failed Violet Simkin – has the temerity to give Mr. Simkin that whole "England is a land of laws" speech. It was a dollar short and a day late. Justice would have led Lord Montfort to supporting a "person or persons unknown" verdict.

As it was, Mr. Simkin would pass the few remaining days in his house. But, still. This is where the self-righteous Lucinda Lambert-Lambert-Lambert has her strongest case. Teddy was repeatedly raping Violet and yet no one in the house (include the staff) were even mildly aware of this girl's intense trauma. It is Ms. Lambert-Lambert-Lambert who rescues her from the meat-grinder.

The plot got a bit convoluted here and there. That's almost unavoidable with a mystery story. The worst bit was when Mrs. Jackson was out strolling the grounds at night and is attacked. The guy tells her to lay off her investigation or else. But how did he know she would be out taking a walk just then and just where she did? Was he waiting in the bushes for days (and in the rain) for just such an opportunity? It was a terribly gadgety plot point and unworthy of this otherwise mostly logical novel.

Fairly early-on my top assumption was that Teddy was murdered by Violet's father. When Violet went missing, it seemed obvious that she must have been assaulted in some way. But that was just a guess. It was a theory that didn't take in or resolve 90% of the other plot points left hanging. But it turned out to be correct.

However, I thought the resolution would be something different. I expected some bigger plot, some plans of Teddy that went terribly wrong. And when we got that offshoot of the jewel robberies, that didn't seem to be a good culmination of some of the loose ends. It seemed more like one of Agatha Christie's cheap red herrings (or "red fish" as Poirot calls them).

Still, you are immersed into this historical time period and that aspect seems fairly well done. We learn near the end that the estate of Lord Montfort is 80,000 acres. That's a piece of land that is 11 miles by 11 miles. That is almost a Texas-sized holding.

Good point. I'm used to being let down by endings and there was a bit of that for me in this one. What I liked were some of the individual scenes. There's one where Mrs. Jackson strolls the gardens nonchalantly but is actually intent on catching Mr. Stafford's eye. And they have a nice moment together in the garden where the ice queen's adherence to slavish in-service sexlessness begins to melt.

And that is an issue that we see dealt with to some extent with Mrs. Jackson. For her, service was a path out of the gutter. But she wonders what price she has paid. Is there any identity for herself outside of serving these people who are born with a silver spoon in their mouths?

Also interesting (and I wish this was explored further) was the apparent ubiquity of what could only be deemed wife-swapping. There was apparently a lot of adultery going on at these house parties...presumably less so at the more conservative house of the Montforts. They were described as a somewhat rare couple: They actually loved one another and didn't fool around on each other as some kind of "entitlement" for the upper crust (as long as they kept it quiet).

When it was learned that Teddy was blackmailing one of these couples, it was a moment where you have to scratch your head and wonder who the villain is.