{"id":4621,"date":"2022-10-17T07:19:50","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T14:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4621"},"modified":"2022-10-17T07:19:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T14:19:50","slug":"colleen-cambridge-a-trace-of-poison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/colleen-cambridge-a-trace-of-poison\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleen Cambridge: A Trace of Poison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The second book in Cambridge\u2019s delightful series about Agatha Christie\u2019s housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, does not disappoint.\u00a0 The first one was a take on The Body in the Library; <\/em>this book takes place at a \u201cMurder F\u00eate,\u201d an early version of a mystery book conference.\u00a0 In this iteration, there are just a few authors, but they are Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and Anthony Berkley.\u00a0 Pretty swoon-worthy. \u00a0There\u2019s also a short story contest judged by the celeb authors, and the outcome is hotly anticipated by the local mystery writing group. The prize is publication.<\/p>\n

The celebrities really play a very tiny part in the proceedings \u2013 these are Phyllida\u2019s books all the way.\u00a0 When the local priest drops dead at the opening cocktail party, Agatha takes Phyllida aside (the two had been wartime friends) and asks her to investigate things, much to the annoyance of the local constabulary. \u00a0Cambridge did an excellent job of establishing Phyllida\u2019s character in the first novel, and it\u2019s a perfect one for a detective.\u00a0 She\u2019s exacting, thorough, and misses no detail (which also makes her an excellent housekeeper).\u00a0 She\u2019s insatiably curious, which doesn\u2019t hurt either.<\/p>\n

Cambridge provides a nice circle of suspects within the writer\u2019s group, which is varied enough for interest and reaches different segments of village society. Pretty much everyone hated one of the members of the circle, and he was widely supposed to be the winner of the short story contest.\u00a0 It also appears that he, rather than the priest, may have been the intended murder victim.<\/p>\n

While Phyllida capably manages the festival, she\u2019s also conducting her own murder inquiry.\u00a0 Cambridge uses many, many golden age tropes, freshening them up with a bit of modern sparkle. \u00a0One of them is her version of Holmes\u2019 Baker Street Irregulars.\u00a0 Phyllida\u2019s informants are \u201cgarbed in aprons, caps, and livery.\u201d\u00a0 The scene where she extracts information from the various maids, cooks and underfootmen belonging to different households in town is one of the strongest in the book.<\/p>\n

Phyllida\u2019s b\u00eate noir is Agatha\u2019s chauffeur and his dog \u2013 she views the dog as a slavering beast, but it\u2019s clear from the reactions of other characters in the book that he\u2019s an adorable, sweet puppy.\u00a0 The chauffeur is also helpful, though Phyllida is certain he\u2019s smirking at her in the background.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nicely set up friendship and could certainly be a useful one in terms of detection going forward.<\/p>\n

This is a very traditional mystery, formatted very much in a golden age manner, complete, of course, with a summing up of the proceedings by Phyllida at the end.\u00a0 Like many another fictional detective she takes some disparate elements and clues and is able to assemble a full picture of what happened.\u00a0 The twists of the plot and the motivations are weirdly believable, and the whole enterprise is totally enjoyable.\u00a0 If you are a fan of the traditional detective novel, this is the read for you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second book in Cambridge\u2019s delightful series about Agatha Christie\u2019s housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, does not disappoint.\u00a0 The first one was a take on The Body in the Library; this book takes place at a \u201cMurder F\u00eate,\u201d an early version of a mystery book conference.\u00a0 In this iteration, there are just a few authors, but they … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[956,54,136,712,955,954,162,953,452],"class_list":["post-4621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-trace-of-poison","tag-agatha-christie","tag-british-village","tag-colleen-cambridge","tag-golden-age","tag-housekeeper","tag-kensington-books","tag-phyllida-bright","tag-traditional-detective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4630,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions\/4630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}