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A review by helenephoebe
Requiem for a Mezzo by Carola Dunn
4.0
Yet another Daisy Dalrymple book that I steamed through. Daisy is such an engaging character in the way that she is often looked down upon for working for a living, and for her developing relationship with Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher. The people around her, of her own class, seem to think that she can do better, but she ignores them and does what makes her happy.
The supporting characters in this novel were intriguing - Bettina, Muriel, Lakov, Mr and Mrs Gower, Mr and Mrs Cochran, Robert. They all had their own reasons to want Bettina dead, and more motives just seemed to keep coming to light. I did guess who had done this murder before it was revealed, so that was a nice surprise for me as I don't often seem to guess it.
I'm enjoying seeing Alec and Daisy growing closer, and how Daisy keeps getting herself embroiled in murders without meaning to, and how people just seem to confide in her. It was difficult to feel sympathy for the victim, though Alec and Daisy make it easy to feel sympathy for her relatives, as we learn more about how Bettina treated people and manipulated them. I don't think you are supposed to feel sympathy for the victim, it is more about misdirection.
What does keep annoying me in this series, as I think I said in my review of the first book, is that people speak almost stereotypically, as we thought they would have spoken, using words like "spiffing", which I don't believe were ever used as much as they are in this series. Sometimes I wish the characters would just speak normal English as it almost seems to halt the story or make it seem less real.
The supporting characters in this novel were intriguing - Bettina, Muriel, Lakov, Mr and Mrs Gower, Mr and Mrs Cochran, Robert. They all had their own reasons to want Bettina dead, and more motives just seemed to keep coming to light. I did guess who had done this murder before it was revealed, so that was a nice surprise for me as I don't often seem to guess it.
I'm enjoying seeing Alec and Daisy growing closer, and how Daisy keeps getting herself embroiled in murders without meaning to, and how people just seem to confide in her. It was difficult to feel sympathy for the victim, though Alec and Daisy make it easy to feel sympathy for her relatives, as we learn more about how Bettina treated people and manipulated them. I don't think you are supposed to feel sympathy for the victim, it is more about misdirection.
What does keep annoying me in this series, as I think I said in my review of the first book, is that people speak almost stereotypically, as we thought they would have spoken, using words like "spiffing", which I don't believe were ever used as much as they are in this series. Sometimes I wish the characters would just speak normal English as it almost seems to halt the story or make it seem less real.