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A review by hcq
A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer
3.0
Another lightweight, yet surprisingly solid upper-class English mystery. Heyer is charmingly consistent (or, if one is feeling less charitable, one might say a tad repetitive). I am a sucker for witty/eccentric young men, though, so it's nice for me that they're stock characters for her.
This story stood out for two reasons, though. First, this was one of the rare mysteries in which I was able to work out "whodunit" all on my own, around the halfway mark. Normally, I don't even try; I'm terrific at suspension of disbelief, and I love to just let myself be carried along by a story, without trying to figure it all out. But here, Heyer seemed to have outsmarted herself a bit; she made the original murder situation so impossible, only one solution could possibly fit, and it was relatively obvious.
Second, because it made me recognize a minor hypocrisy of my own: I hate it when people try to make something seem more important by capitalizing words inappropriately, when their motive is clearly pretentiousness or insecurity. But, apparently I'm totally fine with the exact same offense if the offender is quite obviously Doing It for Fun. (Even worse, I enjoy it.)
This story stood out for two reasons, though. First, this was one of the rare mysteries in which I was able to work out "whodunit" all on my own, around the halfway mark. Normally, I don't even try; I'm terrific at suspension of disbelief, and I love to just let myself be carried along by a story, without trying to figure it all out. But here, Heyer seemed to have outsmarted herself a bit; she made the original murder situation so impossible, only one solution could possibly fit, and it was relatively obvious.
Second, because it made me recognize a minor hypocrisy of my own: I hate it when people try to make something seem more important by capitalizing words inappropriately, when their motive is clearly pretentiousness or insecurity. But, apparently I'm totally fine with the exact same offense if the offender is quite obviously Doing It for Fun. (Even worse, I enjoy it.)