Little Knell

Catherine Aird's comedic touch wasn't as pronounced as usual but she still offered some zingers. This is another of her police procedurals with a twist of comedy. Aird takes aim at the illegal drug problem in England and offers a bit of 'the cure fits the crime.' Sloan still has Crosby, an immature constable who likes fast cars and faster routes. Superintendent Leeyes is even lazier than Crosby, but he's the boss. Sloan finally gets a lucky break (and he needs one after so many years with Crosby and Leeyes), when someone decides to try to bribe Sloan with rose bushes. The best news of all is that he gets to keep the rose bushes. Margaret had already informed Sloan that "they" couldn't afford the bushes. She was incensed when they arrived. Good things do happen to those who wait. I'm devastated; I only have one more collection and one more novel to read of Aird's. I've read them all at least twice. Aird is one of my very favorite authors.

Aird's mysteries are so short and so to the point, that when you reach the end of her book, you are going to say "I want more" like Oliver Twist. Unlike some writers who continue to write when there is nothing more to be said, Aird knows how to get to the heart of the matter without wasting words or space. And she does it with a large dollop of humor. In this book it is obvious that Britain is having its own problems with illegal drugs, and in this one mystery Aird manages to say a few things and demonstrate the awfulness of the toll that drugs take on individuals and on society, that absolutely tear at your heart. Similar to what I told my kids and continue to tell those I teach, you cannot take the chance of trying a drug 'just this once' because you cannot know if you have an addictive personality. With some drugs, it only takes that once, and many people never find their way out of this horrible lair... I've looked up to britain for years because of the way they handle law and police work for the most part. It breaks my heart that they too must deal with this modern day epidemic. Poor Sloan. He has a curmudgeon for a boss, and gets stuck continually with Crosby who sounds like a poster boy for most boys (and men) between 15 and 25, who are enamored of beautiful cars and speeds. Crosby never gets to go as fast as he wants to, and Sloan probably steps out of his car after their arrival with a desire to kiss the ground and wobbly knees after dealing with Crosby's driving. Someone made the mistake of opening a sarcophagus in order to replace the original occupant with a more recently deceased girl who happened to know a bit too much. The sentence passed on the murderer did not come from the courts but happened much more quickly...and his punishment was very fitting considering. Why do wealthy people, always seem to need more wealth no matter what means they have to take to get it? I got two more Aird books to read...can't wait. Karen Sadler

Ms. Aird's writing is superb in all of her books, and this one is no exception. I love correct English grammar and spelling and Ms. Aird is superlative at this, and she does it all with a dry wit and careful characterizations. I'm almost getting to the end of all her books, and I'm certainly sad about that. Ms. Aird is like no one out there. She is a little like a modern day Agatha Christie, but she's far funnier, her writing actually has more clever twists in it that most of the golden age detective writers. If you enjoy fine writing and clever plots, I suggest that you begin to read all Ms. Aird's books. You will totally enjoy them. In this book we see an intelligent look at the modern day drug scene. In her inimitable way, Ms. Aird captures this slice of humanity with a very sure hand. A body of a young girl turns up in a 2000 year old sarcophagus that is supposed to hold an Egyptian mummy. The girl is much fresher than 2000 years (in fact the corpse is about a week old when she is found.) Tracking this killer leads Sloan and Crosby into the drug world and they take a crash course on drug smuggling and money laundering. What a treat!

Aird always has ingeniously plotted crimes and very good characterization, and this is no exception. Her humor is dry, understated and one of the reasons I liked to read her as a teenager. Many of her titles are a play on words, like "Little Knell" and "A Religious Body." Hadn't read her in years, then I inherited my mother's paperbacks of just about all her books. I read them all one right after the other they held up to a second and third reading really well. Which leads me to the quibble...she's given a character name that shouldn't be here. Oh well. He's still the same sort he was in Last Respects. Obviously a solid English name and doesn't spoil the story a bit. Aird's a little like Agatha Christie as a writer about crime in the English village. She's a better writer than Christie, thourh. She is better with characterization--her characters behave more like real people. Christie tended to write rather flat, cartoonish, if easily identifiable characters--sometimes her villians often seem a bit two-dimensonal and overdramatized, her heroines (particularly in some of the earlier ones) oversentimentalized. I don't reread Christie unless I NEED a book and there's nothing else. Partly I guess it's the passing of years and changes in writing technique. I enjoyed some Christies in elementary and junior high school but don't think I would have "gotten" as much of the humor in Aird back then. Christie was good with puzzles, of course, and was very productive over her career. And her estate has managed her "brand" wonderfully. Aird's writing overall is more complete and more complex. The tags that identify her characters seem more naturally woven into the story (Sloan's roses, Crosby's driving, Leyes' attempts to use material from some evening class or other in possibly apposite reasoning). Her puzzles are satisfying without being too outrageous or silly and she does get a lot of good sharp jabs at human nature. Recommended.

The Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan (Seedy to his friends) books are probably some of the cleverest police procedural British mysteries around. Written with minimal violence, this is a very well written series that revolves around the very dry and droll exchanges between Sloan (a very precise and methodical man) and the many uniquely eccentric people he frequently works with -- from his long winded and quotation loving boss, Superintendent Leeyes to his very young and rather dim car-mad underling, Detective Constable Crosby. This latest Sloan mystery involves a missing mummy, a murdered young woman, and drugs.It all starts when the coroner receiving an anonymous tip that a body has been moved within his jurisdiction of East Calleshire, but without his knowledge or consent, and the coroner wants the police to investigate. It turns out that the body concerned is that of a mummy that has been bequeathed to the local Calleshire museum by the now dead Colonel Caversham. Sloan is a little annoyed. He has just received a warning from the customs and excise people to be on the lookout for increased crime since they had just removed about 4 kilos of heroin from circulation, and Sloan would rather spend his time trying to nab the ringleader of this local drug ring than chasing after a mummy. However when the sarcophagus is opened they find the body of a young woman who looks as if she's been dead for less than a week instead of the expected mummy. The curator of the museum is aghast -- where is the mummy? But for Sloan the questions are very different: who is the murdered woman? And who tipped off the coroner about the body? Sloan will have to sift through much before he can finally arrive at the conclusion of this very perplexing mystery.The great thing about Catherine Aird's Sloan novels is that there are no extraneous characters or plot lines. Everything has a significance, so that if you pay close attention you can actaully solve the mystery along with Sloan. This makes Aird's books perfect brain teasers. This entire series is clever, amusing and entirely engaging. "Little Knell" definitely makes for a very good read.