Book Review - Carter Dickson's The White Priory Murders
The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: November 7th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Mr. James Boynton Bennett has heard tales of his uncle, the great Sir Henry Merrivale. And on first meeting him he is surprised he meets his expectations exactly. The description was to a T. Bennett has arrived in London to escort a newspaper mogul, Lord Canifest and his daughter Louise Carewe, and stopped in to meet his uncle as he's a renowned sleuth and Bennett has a conundrum on his hands. The actress Marcia Tait is a huge Hollywood star who started her career in a flop in the West End. Tim Emery, her publicist, and Carl Rainger, her director, made her who she is and are aghast that she has broken her contract to once again tread the boards. She's set to star opposite Jervis Willard as a Restoration doxie in The Private Life of Charles the Second by Maurice Bohun, presented by Maurice's brother, John, who is in love with The Tait. Lord Canifest is backing the play and he and Bennett have been invited down to the Bohuns' place near Epsom, the White Priory, for Christmas. But for the last three weeks the situtation has been tense as Emery and Rainger try to get her to return to the studio while the Bohuns and Canifest are rooting for the play. Things took a turn though the day before when someone sent The Tait a poisoned box of chocolates, of which John Bohun suggested they ALL take a piece, because whomever refuses is obviously the culprit. Bohun, Emery, Willard, Rainer, and Bennett all took a piece, Emery collapsed two hours later with strychnine poisoning. And it's this toxic group of fellows who plan to decamp to Epson for the holidays, and Bennett is tagging along, but is curious what his uncle's take on the situation is. Could it escalate? Indeed it will, though they were powerless to stop it. The Bohuns have had the White Priory in their family since the time of Charles the Second when they built a "merry house." The "merry house" is called the Queen's Mirror and is off limits to tourists. The structure looks like an imitation temple on an ornamental sheet of water as it stands in the middle of an artificial lake. It was built in 1664 for Lady Castlemaine, perhaps Charles the Second's most notorious mistress. There's a scene in the play set in the pavilion and The Tait insisted on spending her nights at the White Priory in the Queen's Mirror. It was so like Marcia. And this decision would be her last. Because as Bennett arrives on the scene John Bohun has found Marcia dead. It had snowed overnight and there's only one set of prints that go towards the merry house, those of John's. It is a true mystery. A mystery that Bennett thinks only his uncle can solve.
One of the things I plan most assiduously for the holidays is my reading. I want just the right level of classic to modern murder mysteries. Because that is what the holidays are about, murder. Because you're trapped with your family and there's snow and by all that is holy, someone is going to die. So when Poisoned Pen Press reprinted Carter Dickson's 1934 Christmas mystery, The White Priory Murders, back in 2023 I knew it had to be on my holiday reading list. And then I learned it was the second Sir Henry Merrivale book. Which meant I couldn't just skip to the second volume, oh no, I had to first read The Plague Court Murders. But seeing as I learned this when it was still the Halloween season and the first book involves a séance, I felt like fate was throwing me a win. What was more interesting though is reading these two books back to back I couldn't help but wonder why he basically used the same locked-room contrivance. Now there are a million ways to do locked-room mysteries, I should know, I've read enough of them, but what's odd here is the similarities. In both books we have a freestanding structure, one is a stone hut, the other is a marble pavilion. Then we have the structure surrounded by a substance that would leave an impression if anyone had approached it, one is mud, the other is snow. Then we have the body found inside the structure, oh no! And it's not death, it's murder! How was this impossible crime committed!?! Now Carter Dickson was the king of the locked-room mystery, so while others might think this is sloppy to repeat yourself in such a way, I think it was a major flex. He created two entirely different books with basically the same setup. Like he wanted to give the reader another answer to his first book. Almost as if he was writing a Choose Your Own Adventure. Not satisfied with how Roger Darworth died? Try option two with Marcia Tait! It took balls, and I admire it. As for the Sir Henry Merrivale's detection skills? I have issues. Because Sir Henry has no fucks to give about the victims. He honestly doesn't care about them. They are nothing more than a riddle to be solved. And, if possible, solved without stepping outside his cloistered little bubble. I take umbrage that a person is nothing more than an object to him. The criminal and the howdunit are all that matters to him. The background of the victim? Why should that matter? It's like he doesn't believe the past informs how they died, which is ludicrous. It's not about timelines and who could have done what and when but why this person? Why did they have to die? And the answer isn't to provide Sir Henry with a diversion. But maybe that's me? Maybe I want depth, I want more, I don't want tab A going into slot B. That's too clinical a crime.
The Plague Court Murders by John Dickson Carr
