Review: "Little Old Ladies" by Simon Brett

 

“Little Old Ladies” by Simon Brett from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine May 2010   I’m ashamed of how few of Simon Brett’s mysteries I’ve read. A handful of shorts and a novel so long ago I don’t recall its title; although, I do remember it featured Charles Paris and that I liked it. I was thinking all this while I was reading his excellent tale, “Little Old Ladies” with a smile on my face and only a smidgen of an idea of where the story was going. Morton-cum-Budely is a swank Devon village—“of almost excessive prettiness”— mostly inhabited by retirees. And those retirees tend to be little old ladies since their husbands “were made of frailer stuff” and now spend their time lying about in the graveyard. When the Chair of the Morton-cum-Budely Village Committee, Joan Fullerton, is murdered, the village’s women are aflutter and the investigating detective, one D.I. Dromgoole, is flummoxed. In fact, Dromgoole’s bafflement is so great he follows the Golden Age tradition of enlisting the help of a little old lady, Brenda Winshott, to solve the village murder, which (of course) she does in short order. “Little Old Ladies” is a delightful, somewhat slanted—in the best possible way—traditional detective story with a light mood and a good deal of humor. Brenda Winshott, the quietest and most competent resident of Morton-cum-Budely, is a perfect sleuth. She is liked by everyone, a little sneaky, and her tactful manner puts everyone at ease. The clues are scattered in the narrative and there are three solid suspects—none of them with an alibi. I only cracked the case a few paragraphs before Brenda revealed it on the page. If you enjoy a solid whodunit with an English Village setting, “Little Old Ladies,” will do just fine. Did I mention, I smiled from the first page to the last, which is something in these harrowing times.

“Little Old Ladies” was first published in the U.K. in Women’s Weekly Special, January 2008.