Carolyn's Reviews > Scales of Justice

This is such a classic cosy mystery from the Golden Age of crime writing that it almost feels like a spoof of that genre.

Tucked away in the sleepy little 1940s English village of Swevenings is a little pocket of the aristocracy, clinging on to their old ways of life from before before the war. Privileged and eccentric they for the most part get on despite a few petty feuds. That is until Sir Harold Lacklander asks gives his old friend Colonel Cartarette his memoirs to publish. A few days after Sir Harold's death, the Colonel is found murdered in a very nasty way while fishing for trout in his own stretch of stream. Could it be that something in Sir Harold's memoirs that caused the Colonel's death or is there another reason altogether? To make sure the case is handled by a gentleman and not the local police, Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn is called in to lead the investigation.

There is quite a lot of humour poked at the characters who inhabit the novel. The feudal Lacklanders, the heir George who is an ass, his mother who is very large and paints and the son trying to escape by becoming a doctor. Then there is Octavius Danberry-Phinn, whose son committed suicide while working for Sir Harold during the war. Now he consoles himself by being surrounded by cats and kittens and trying to poach a very large trout from Colonel Cartarette's neighbouring stretch of stream. Commander Syce who practices archery recklessly and is so lonely he pretends to be ill to get the nurse to visit daily. Nurse Kettle, the only character not of the gentry and earning an honest living (apart from the police) was the unlucky person who found the Colonel. Of course there has to be a femme fatale, in the form of Kitty Lacklander married to Sir Henry but fluttering her eyelashes elsewhere. A very fishy tale involving old secrets, fish scales and a hungry cat. 3.5★