Pursuit and Persuasion (Ben Reese Mystery)

I was in Big Sleep Books in St. Louis recently. A small shop in what we St. Louisans call the Central West End, Big Sleep is devoted to one genre of books - mysteries, broadly defined to include suspense and a few related areas. I wandered alphabetically about the store, and then found myself looking at the Ws. And there was Sally Wright. The store had the two mysteries I had previously read, and one additional one - Pursuit and Persuasion (yes, the titles sound like Jane Austen; they also sound like Dorothy Sayers). I bought all three. Set in the early 1960s, "Pursuit and Persuasion" finds Ben Reese in Scotland and briefly in England, helping a former student and assistant find out what happened to the woman who left the student a large estate in Scotland - and a letter indicating that she was likely murdered. Reese has two mysteries to solve - what caused the deceased woman to make the young woman her heir to the estate, and who, if anyone, killed the deceased. The first thing a reader notices about "Pursuit and persuasion" and all of Wright's mysteries is how well written they are. The next thing is how many characters are involved in the story, and the list of characters at the beginning of the story is immensely helpful, as is the map of the estate. (I love mysteries with maps like this - like the old S.S. Van Dine mysteries from the 1920s and 1930s). This time, Reese finds himself running up against a mania - a mania known only to collectors whose desire to possess sometimes lead to murder. And Wright introduces a love interest, or actually, two potential love interests, for Reese. "Pursuit and Persuasion" is a great read and great fun to rediscover. Best of all - there are three more in the series I haven't read.

Not being a reader of the mystery "who done it" genre I was surprised and pleased that I am having trouble putting done the Ben Reese series. He is a "kind of" Indiana Jones meets Agatha Christy meets Benjamin Frank Gates - much better than a movie. Another thing - how often have you started a new book, had a long time period been books in a series or had to put a book down for a week and wished that the author a cast of charters at the front of the book (ala Harry Potter) - this book does...thank you Sally Wright.

This is an engrossing and complex book. Not actually my favorite of Sally Wright's three mysteries, but beautifully written as always. And, a finalist for an Edgar this year. Worthwhile.

I don't read a lot of mysteries, so I compare them more to other things I read (novels, literature, history, etc.). With this work Ms. Wright's style moves more toward what I consider a novelistic style. Not only is there the usual mystery plot and the clues along the path to the solution, but there is a whole story of characters and their relationships. Ms. Wright's other works have a good eye for detail and a nice sense of character, but this one delves further into personalities and their interactions.The suspense carried me into the intriguing world of a number of people. The delightful interplay between the English, Scottish and American characters and their eccentricities fleshed out the mystery. Not to mention the charming tour of Scotland that I was taken on. All in all a fine work. Not great by "novel" standards, but I judged this as a mystery, since that is what it is.

Early 1960s, Scotland, a touch of Oxford, and pathological obsessions are the context for a fascinating plot. Though one of the author's Ben Reese series, the book stands very well on its own legs. Ben Reese, an archivist and unsung war hero, is called upon to help a friend solve the murder of a wealthy business woman who was also an Oxford scholar and professor. Ben is an American from Ohio academia, combining work with visiting friends in Scotland. The United Kingdom is familiar ground for Ben, from the years of WW II and subsequently his academic work. Some of the best aspects of the story are the intersections of the present with Ben's own past.This is no cardboard copy of the classic British mystery. It is original and spiced with plenty of suspense. The motives for murder are as classic as Shakespeare and as old as time -- avarice and self-absorption manifested in the singlemindedness of the obsessive, secret collector of rare and priceless artifacts. In this case it is a clever villain whose victim dies of apparent natural causes. But this victim was a worthy opponent -- she left a letter foretelling her death but not naming her murderer. Instead Ben Reese must unravel a complex set of clues which may (or may not) be linked with other murders of other times, including a 400-year-old murder in the turbulent Tudor reigns. Commingled with the clues are a cast of eccentric characters each with his or her own agenda. Sometimes the author's description of geography is a bit confusing, but the map provided at the beginning is helpful for those who want to accurately follow Ben's travels in pursuit of evidence. And while some of the characters are more like props than people, Ben is fully drawn and an interesting person to know. The prose is well done and lyrically augmented with poetry written by the victim as a form of diary.Whether by a fire on a rainy day or in the shade on a sunny summer afternoon, you will not put this book down until it's done and then you will wish it went on just a bit more!