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A review by alexauthorshay
The Mystery of Angelina Frood by R. Austin Freeman
4.0
Definitely one of the better Thorndyke novels. Every novel has a twist, and each novel deploys said twist at different times, though all within sight of the end of the book. This novel deployed it very near to the end, almost like in "Helen Vardon's Confession." However, where the Helen Vardon novel failed beyond atrocity, this novel put the twist in with time to spare and was not nearly as irritating for doing so.
This particular crime's twist was not as surprising to me as it might have been had I read this book as a stand-alone or after taking a break from the series, but the rest of the plot was intriguing enough that the surprise at the end was hardly even relevant to the quality of the book. It simply made things more amusing and provided the happily-ever-after that looked impossible. (But of course you should expect as much when the detective is Thorndyke; his whole purpose is solving and explaining the impossible.)
This particular crime's twist was not as surprising to me as it might have been had I read this book as a stand-alone or after taking a break from the series, but the rest of the plot was intriguing enough that the surprise at the end was hardly even relevant to the quality of the book. It simply made things more amusing and provided the happily-ever-after that looked impossible. (But of course you should expect as much when the detective is Thorndyke; his whole purpose is solving and explaining the impossible.)