Passing Strange (C. D. Sloan Mystery)

Another cozy British mystery from Catherine Aird. "Passing Strange" is a story from her Inspector C.D. Sloane series about the bucolic English countryside and the murders that occur for a host of unusual reasons. This time, Inspector Sloane tackles the murder of the county nurse at a Horticultural Society Flower Show in the village of Almstone. Clues include a possible inheritance, a question of identification, a drunk cup of tea, and flower-arranging wire. Aird's stories always conjure up images from my sojourn in England--small villages, insular societies, fabulous accents, and all. Those who don't understand British humor or slang may find her stories a bit heavy going, and be sure to bone up on your Bible, French, and Latin since she always includes quotes from at least one, if not all, the previous.

This is a perfect little British mystery. We have a village flower show, the British firm of Terlingham, Terlingham and Owlet and loads of tea and ploughman's lunches. In this sparkler the village nurse/midwife is found murdered behind her fortune teller's tent at the flower show. Who would want to kill harmless, well-liked Nurse Cooper? Sloan and Crosby are sent to the village to discover the murderer. It all seems to hinge around a case of verified identity for property that is to be probated. The hardest thing that he has to determine is motive, but never fear, he manages to figure that out along with the identity of the murderer.

My story being done,She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:She wished she had not heard it...- _Othello, The Moor of Venice_ by William Shakespeare, Act I, Scene 3Like Desdemona, Joyce Cooper was strangled, but the similarity appears to end there. Far from being the beautiful victim of a jealous rage, District Nurse Cooper was a homely middle-aged spinster who lived for her work; her only hobby was her post as Almstone's church organist. (All the chapters are named for organ stops.) So it was that she asked for the fortuneteller's tent at the flower show on the Priory grounds, since she didn't have time for fancy cooking or gardening, and liked being useful. But when the tents were struck at the end of the show, Joyce Cooper was found dead just the same.Inspector Sloan has a murder that's out of the ordinary run of stranglings, where the greatest controversy of the show up to that point was why Ken Walls' tomatoes didn't take first prize. Almstone itself is a quiet village going through a growth spurt, where developers like Maurice Esdaile can make a lot of money if the new owner of the Priory will sell off some land. But who is the new owner? Richanda Mellows, daughter of the famous anthropologist killed in South America, is the heir - but she was brought up among the people her father studied, and her identification was stolen.Did someone kill the local midwife because she could identify Richanda - or because she couldn't?Lots of well-drawn characters and subplots here; as usual, Aird has given us a good book as well as a good mystery. Fred Pearson and his friend Ken Walls' tomato grievance is itself a small mystery, pursued by the Flower Show secretary. (Walls' pursuit of the perfect tomato, incidentally, is his way of living with a bad marriage.) One of Calleshire's recurring-character law firms, this time Terlingham, Terlingham, and Owlet, puts in an appearance as the executors of the Mellows estate. Aird also has fun with the Almstone attitude to newcomers and development, especially some of the wealthy newcomer farmers and the Preservation Society.