When Gregory Matthews, patriarch of the Poplars is found dead one morning, imperious Aunt Harriet blames it on the roast duck he ate for supper. After all, she had warned him about his blood pressure. But a post-mortem determines the cause of death as murder by poison. Suspicion falls immediately amongst his bitter, quarrelsome family. Each has a motive; each, opportunity.

It falls to the quietly resourceful Inspector Hannasyde to sift through all the secrets and lies and discover just who killed Gregory Matthews. He faces the deadliest test of his career when members of the wealthy Matthews clan begin to die, one by one. With motives everywhere, it is no easy case for the inspector to solve in time to spare the next victim. Meet the Matthews -- while they last... Gregory, Harriet, Gertrude, Zoe, Guy, Stella and Randall. Hemingway/Hannasyde Book 2 ( )

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Did grumpy old Uncle Gregory die from a stroke, brought on by high blood pressure and over-rich food, or was he poisoned? If the latter, who did the unpleasant deed?

This novel is set in 1930s upper-class England, contemporary fiction of the time. Georgette Heyer's detective stories don't have such clever plotting as Agatha Christie's, but their characterisation is always very well done. This book brings in the intelligent Superintendent Hannasyde and his sidekick, Inspector Hemmingway. The pair are frequently foiled in their investigations, not just by the lack of clues but by the prevarication of Uncle Gregory's family. Most of them had plenty of motivation to bump him off, but insufficient expertise or, indeed, opportunity.

Just when it seems that the crime may never be solved, another one is committed, which confuses everyone still more and causes the domestic staff to give notice. I was pleased that I managed to figure out what had happened to cause the second crime before any of the characters did, but had not guessed the identity of the perpetrator. The ending, when it came, was rather sudden and abrupt, and while it made sense, it didn't give the satisfaction that the final resolution of a Christie book usually does.

Still, as a piece of social history and some nice characterisation, I thought it a good book. Re-reading ten years later, I concentrated more on the people than the crime, and enjoyed it very much.

Latest longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2022/10/behold-heres-poison-by-georgette-he... ( )

OK, pretty much all the main characters (except the Scotland Yard men) are unlikable in this one. Totally not ok with the romance in this one, either. Randall had no redeeming qualities and was a rude jerk to everyone, including the cops and Stella, so why the hell should Stella fall for him? ( )

This is a book I should have enjoyed more than I did. The dialog between characters is scathing, often hilarious in a ‘I can’t believe he/she said that out loud’ kind of way, and the murder was clever and the karma both just and tragic. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, so much as I think I might have been better off choosing something else at that moment, with the result that I was impatient with the reading of it. It’s a weird place to be when you’re reading thinking this is good and are we done yet? at the same time.

Heyer’s strong point in writing wasn’t her detectives; Hannasyde is flat and Hemingway needs to switch to decaf, but the rest of the cast of characters are all vividly written, and as I said, the dialog scorching. Mrs. Lupton came on the scene with a speech that had me laughing and wanting to stand and applaud and the rest of the case all have a shot at each other at least once or twice.

The romance, arguably Heyer’s raison d’être, just … failed. To put those two together with so little development or subtlety makes me wonder if Heyer hated these characters and wanted them so suffer. I mean, there’s playful verbal sparring, and there’s what these two were doing. Me? I don’t find anything romantic about being called a little idiot. ( )