Why a character can't just be smart when sleuthing?
December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas Eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos.Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager. With the New Year’s Eve ball approaching fast and the hotel’s reputation hanging by a thread, Cleo must find the killer before the ball, and the hotel itself, are ruined. But catching a murderer proves just as difficult as navigating the hotel’s hierarchy and the peculiarities of her family.Can Cleo find the killer before the new century begins? Or will someone get away with murder?
A Cleopatra Fox Mystery. Book 1
Fell flat. And I have a lot to say.
The plot is too obvious and also too convenient. A lot of forced parts. There is a biggest plothole in there. The establishment of characters is flat. And the main character despite impressive name did not impress me. Although a lot of things happened it left me with the feeling like I don't care.
Also the story is told from 1st person POV, which I dislike.
Let's dissect.
Part 1. Arrival. Character introduction.
Cleopatra Fox is a "poor relation" of her uncle and aunt Ronald and Lillian Bainbridge. Here she finds out that uncle sponsored her for all these years and she had no idea (why establish this fact, who knows). Her two cousine Florence and Floyd are people who are the most basic youth among the wealthy, quite carefree and positive.
Cleopatra meets several main figures of the hotel that will play a role in the consequent development. The manager Mr Hobart, his nephew Mr Harry Armitage (whose father is a detective inspector of Scotland Yard). She also witnesses how Mrs Kethering, a housekeeper reprimands a maid Edith who wasn't supposed to go to 5th floor. I have no idea how more obvious you should be to establish that one of the characters has illicit relationship with one of the guests.
I hope I didn't butcher their names, because this is how some of the characters are forgetful.
because Cleo is now part of the family she is given room to occupy on the 4th floor with the rest of the family. Her maid is called Harmony.
Part 2. Murder.
The one murdered is called Mrs. Warrick. We have to rewind back to introduction of this character. I had no idea how old she is actually, they say she is old enough. Cleo first met Mrs Warrick in passing in front of the lift, where Mrs Warrick turned back and commented to herself that "this person shouldn't be here". Meaning she recognized someone, but who for some reason couldn't be here in the hotel in her opinion. This is what I call convenent, it works for the story, but if we were in the universe that comment might mean nothing at all and can't be used as a solid lead, but will be used as such.
The other convenience that happens is that there are only 3 men that she could have talked about - Mr Armitage, Mr Hookly and Mr Duffiled.
This happened on Christmas Eve and the next morning Mrs Warrick is found dead, poisoned in her own room.
Honestly, if Poirot was here he'd crack this case in a nanosecond if I'm being honest, but what followed is what got on my nerves the most - the false lead. While to readers I think it becomes apparent who is at fault.
The circumstances of Mrs Warrick death: The door locked, found by maid Edith around 7 AM, all signs of poisoning, she did not dine the previous evening and only consumed hot chocolate (which was taken for testing). For a reader it becomes obvious that the two points of her recognition of someone and her death are connected. Which leaves three suspects, which can be reduced to one because of the two following scenes.
Part 3. Investigation.
It is known that police interviewed the staff and especially one footman who brought the chocolate. Now they need to establish what contained poison, time of death etc. All under the wing of Armitage's father who is brother to Manager Mr Hobard.
For some unknown reason, the above-mentioned maid Harmony asks Cleo to investigate. Absolutely no clue why, because Cleo just arrived, she had no prior cases to solve etc. Just because she is a relation and also does not believe the footman did it, or at least wants to prove the innocent.
What baffled me is how she discussed the details with all the staff, while being naively sure that none of them could have done it. Amateur mistake.
Now about the two scenes and why Mr Armitage couldn't have been the culprit but Cleo still took this false lead anyway.
Firstly, I was under the impression that Mrs Warrick stayed in the hotel not once. Proof: they talked about her "routines" about the time when she drinks her hot chocolate or tea, which means she stayed at this hotel several times and because Mr Armitage is a visible figure she should have noticed him on her prior visits if he was at fault. And Cleo followed this false lead for half a book, digging the past of Harry and actually exposing it to her uncle, which eventually led to his dismissal and she regretted it horribly, but honestly.. She felt so stupid at that time. Her leads were so flimsy, she thought that everyone would cover up for him (because of his relationship with his father). Anyway, her imagination got the best of her.
It felt forced because now Harry can do what he wanted to do, he found himself attracted to being a private detective type. Because the reason he was shifty and Cleo suspected him is that he was also trying to find who was steling the silver from the hotel. Honestly so forced just to make your two character do the investigative work later on.
Other two suspects:
Scene 1. Mr Duffield who dined with Cleo because she needed to ask him questions or at least hear his story of what and why. She finds he is dressed in worn clothes despite telling her he had an estate. Later we find out tha 1) he indeed lied about his estate; 2) he was a neighbor to Mrs Warrick; 3) he sold gossip to paper for a reward. None of which are a solid motive.
Scene 2. Smoking room with Mr Hookly. Again Cleo was just talking and hears a story from Mr Hookly that he just returned from Africa after selling his mine. She noticed he has no tan and was rather pale but thought he wore a hat *facepalm*. Later on she learns from the post that Mr Hookly receives a lot of parcels from different places. Very early on she also found that he orders from different places in bulks, without paying the bill, the only thing he has is a letter from some noble or smth.
It becomes obvious that he is a fraud. And they find out later that he is a fraud because real Mr Hookly died months ago. At least this is suspicious. I don't say the characters should have connected him to murder right away, would have been too much, but at least thought that guy is a fraud. Could have been connected to murder later. But no.
I don't deny that some of the suggestions by Cleo were solid. Because no poison was found in chocolate or in her items, meaning she somehow digested it. She found who ordered a portion enough for two. Even if it led to nothing, but it connected her and Mr Hookly who is not Mr Hookly. It also meant that someone from the staff was indeed responsible and the first to raise questions is of course - Edith, who found the body. Because the spare keys that could have been taken from senior staff were all locked and there was no sign of breaking, which means only maids could have done it. One who was also present when they discussed theories and what police found etc. Conveniently only later Cleo remembered the first meeting with Edith and Mrs Kethering. Connected it to the fact that fake Mr Hookly was living on the 5th floor where Edith was found. And when they all came to these conclusions Edith was nowhere to be seen.
If you put it together and put the pieces apart it's not a bad idea, but I just felt like the order to reveal things was odd.
Part 4. Conclusion.
Fake Mr Hookly was apprehended and his identity was out. He was a footman of real Mr Hookly and his idea was to get all the things and money and leave.
Edith was a woman madly in love (though honestly we don't care because it suddenly is revealed at the very end) and believed all those sweet nothings how they're going to be together. The reasoning of this fake Mr Hookly to involve Edith is a story that Mrs Warrick was his past lover who threatens his life and hers too, so she believed it's kills or be killed. We absolutely don't care as readers and it sounds ridiculous. Because Edith was a nobody among other staff so far.
Characters.
Honestly, I wish Cleo would give me more. She is quite basic to me. She is said to be intelligent, but one thing is to say rather than show. Same as when she mentions her parents and suddenly has tears in her eyes. Honestly, I couldn't care, there were no bits and pieces to showcase at least something that would make her emotions more vivid, like even if it's a jealousy of the warmth others have while she lost it and it'ss till raw as she says. Sometimes these moments were a miss, sometimes they hit.
She said she wanted to prove herself, well, she got ahead of herself too.
Mr Armitage who will be the main lead later is also not that interesting, sure described as handsome, but basically they have little interactions with Cleo and it's always different in her impression from good to bad. We had no idea he was investigating something just to make him suspicious. How do they manage to make a character present and so background at the same time.
The only thing that was nice to me is how united the staff were in the face of this incident, they wanted to solve it, they felt close, they were rather interesting.
Cleo's family is okay, instead of her worst nightmares they're pretty close to her, though I agree it feels weird that they were not present in her life for all these years, but now they're close and it might have been to do with her grandparents, but who knows, not explained, left for later..maybe.
Well, yeah, I don't regret just spoiling the whole thing, could have been better, but it is what it is.
I really need a smart female lead, but not someone who is too boastful.
RATE: 3/5.
No comments:
Post a Comment