Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Ticky Maltravers is celebrating his birthday in lavish style. Surrounded by friends, he eats and drinks the night away without a care in the world and is delighted by his birthday gift: an engraved silver flask. The night winds down, and all his guests go their separate ways, with Ticky and Cynthia Pilkington-Soames sharing a taxi. On the ride to their townhouses, Ticky complains of stomach pains, and Cynthia suggests he sip brandy from his flask. Ticky has a quick drink and follows Cynthia out of the taxi for a chat when he dies on her stoop, and she drags him into her townhouse.

That same night, Cynthia’s son, Freddy Pilkington-Soames, is stranded on the wrong side of town after drinking with his friends. He decides to crash at his mother’s place and quite literally trips over a dead body in her foyer. Too drunk to put up much resistance, he begrudgingly loads Ticky into a toy wagon and drags him to his front stoop a few doors away at his mother’s insistence.

The following day, sober and realizing that he’s now embroiled in covering up the mysterious poisoning of Ticky Maltravers, he pumps his mother for more information about the night before. She reveals that the guests at last night’s revelries were not friends but victims of Ticky’s long-standing blackmail racket, thus giving everyone at the party a motive for murder.

After Cynthia assures Freddy that she had nothing to do with his death, Freddy decides that he must uncover the true killer to exonerate his mother. Using his journalist credentials, he insinuates himself into the police investigation, befriending the police under the guise of writing about the death of this prominent socialite for his paper. He soon discovers that Ticky’s manservant was a willing participant in the blackmailing ring and will take over in Ticky’s stead, leaving Freddy no choice but to recover all of the incriminating evidence against Ticky’s victims and sift through their secrets to find out which one was worth killing to keep quiet.

The Review

Freddy Pilkington-Soames is Bertie Wooster’s spiritual successor in this laugh out loud comedy of errors mystery. Freddy, much to his chagrin is up to his eyeballs in mayhem after drunkenly agreeing to help his mother dispose of a dead body.

At the start of this book, Freddy is a flippant, man about town, who works to pass the time and to better afford the finer things in life, but after realizing that his mother has been paying a blackmailer for two years, Freddy quickly grows up and after a few stalled attempts actually tries to diligently dig into the unsavory past of Ticky Maltravers. His investigation which comes in fits and starts is barely concealed from the very capable police, but as Freddy realizes that several of his mother;s friends were paying to keep devastating secrets from their families or the press, he realizes that Ticky Maltravers was playing a dangerous game.

Watching Freddy grow from supercillious fop to an apt amatuer investigator was incredibly pleasurable. The stakes growing steeper really matched Freddy’s growth and coupled my enjoymnent of the book. However, the broad slap=stick situational comedy was present throughout the book, especially since at it’s core this book is about the miserable rich being miserable.

I think this book will be pretty polarizing. Either you are on board for the somewhat over-the-top investigation and can buy into the cardboard policemen who turn a blind eye to the shenanigans of the Pilkington-Soames and their equally ridiculously named ilk, or their antics will be too outlandish and quirky for you to enjoy the book. You’ll enjoy this light-hearted book if you want to read a mystery with a Bertie Wooster-type protagonist and strong Wodehousian humor appeals to you.

I liked A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia featuring Freddy Pilkington-Soames much better than her flagship series featuring Angela Marchmont; I am looking forward to continuing both series on the strength of this book.

Clara Benson Reviews

Angela Marchmont#1 The Murder at Sissingham Hall (2013)