Jean Potts (1910–1999)

A cast of characters converges on a seaside resort which becomes the scene of a murder. Potts offer up her suspects (and rules out most of them immediately) but this was never a taxing mystery. The thrill came from the different perspectives, giving the reader insights into each character's motivations, as well as revealing to us the hilarious disconnection between how a character thinks they're being perceived and how they were actually perceived by the other characters. The characters themselves were middling. We have a few couples that seem worn down by life in general, heightened by the melodrama of being in a mystery. The addition of Emerson the snot was an interesting authorial decision, may he grow up to be better adjusted and have less of a god complex. I would love a spinoff on Margaret getting to live her newly independent life, away from all other characters here.… (mais)

"Dead as they come," said the old doctor. "Don't know as if I ever saw a deader woman. That's the only kind of patients I get any more, is the dead ones. Now that I'm retired, they don't trust me with anybody still kicking. " He cackled at his own joke. "Who?" repeated young Dr. Craig. "You haven't told me yet." He didn't like to push the old man (nearly eighty, spry as a cricket, though names were apt to slip.his mind) but at the same time, he felt, it would be nice to know the essential facts. He had come back from a confinement case in the country to find the old doctor waiting for him, all agog with his news.… (mais)

Lew, the oppressive and hated patriarch who is also the big man around town, you know he is going to die, but how, when, and who?

But first, the book expertly leads you through all the whys, with each chapter from the perspective of his relations. Each character is realistically drawn, their personalities and inner lives adding a new interpretation on the first chapter from Lew's viewpoint.

The layering is really magnificently and sympathetically done, with the tension ratcheting ominously. The central "mystery" is only for the reader and the overall unusual structure was perfect.

Potts had won an Edgar Award for her first novel and if this later book is anything to go by, I can see why. I must hunt down her other books.… (mais)