It seems a pity to me that novelist Georgette Heyer is remembered primarily as an author of historical/Regency romances. Not that there's anything wrong with historical romances, it's just that she was also the creator of about a dozen very good and enjoyably witty mysteries, written during the Golden Age of Detection, which really ought to be of interest to any fans of traditional mysteries and thrillers - she wrote both kinds. One that is more a thriller than a puzzle is the first mystery Heyer wrote, called Footsteps in the Dark (1932). I gave it an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years back. Here, slightly edited, is the text of that review:
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You have to have a little sympathy for Charles Malcolm. After all, the old house really had been left to his wife, and to her sister and brother as well. Come to think of it, it really wasn’t an old house – it was an old, and pretty-well ruined, priory, originally built hundreds of years earlier. Any problems that Charles could foresee didn’t seem to make much of an impact on the three new owners. Still, none of them had bargained for what certainly appeared to be a most malevolent ghost haunting the priory. And the discovery of a skeleton hidden inside the walls of the place should have been a warning. But Charles and the other three were all pretty tough-minded about it, and they refused to run away. Which leads to some very interesting complications in Footsteps in the Dark, by Georgette Heyer. The book, published in 1932, was her first mystery novel. Heyer is more often remembered as an author of historical romances, but her mysteries are generally quite well done and thoroughly readable. Certainly that’s the case with Footsteps in the Dark, whose plot really counts more as a classic “thriller,” in the Edgar Wallace tradition, than a puzzle-type mystery.
At the same time, it is set in a country house and gets off to the kind of start we would expect from such a mystery: three siblings – Peter and Margaret Fortescue and their sister, Celia Malcolm – have inherited the crumbling old house, part of a ruined priory, from a recently-deceased relative. There’s no electricity – in fact it sounds like there’s barely any running water – but a certain charm about the place makes the trio, along with Celia’s husband, Charles, eager to live there.
Others in the neighborhood, however, are less pleased to see the new residents, who begin to hear stories about hauntings and ghosts, particularly a rather nasty creature called “the monk.” Several people in town claim to have seen the monk, in his hood and cowl, walking around the grounds of the priory – and it isn’t very long before Charles and the three siblings also begin seeing this mysterious character inside their house. It isn’t helped when, after a series of strange events, they discover a skeleton which had been locked up inside a secret room, within the walls of the house. Things proceed from bad to worse, and eventually, of course, there is a murder. There are also some suspicious strangers hanging around the town pub who may be trying to put pressure on our four central characters to leave the Priory.
What’s really going on here – and why? Is it, in fact, something supernatural? Is the malevolent monk a spirit or a very dangerous human? If those questions sound like the soundtrack to an old-time radio serial, it’s not surprising. As I said, this is very much a thriller. There are some clues, to be sure, that can lead readers to suspect one or another of the characters, but the road to the solution really is reached through scenes of action rather than any really heavy thought on the part of the detectives.
All this, however, may give the wrong impression, so let me make it clear: this is a very witty and charming book. I have seen some of Heyer’s mysteries described as “comedies of manner,” and that really does provide a great description of Footsteps in the Dark. The dialog is very well done, and the characters are generally quite endearing – or, if not always endearing, certainly comic; Heyer has a great deal of fun with the local constable, but manages to avoid making him look like the dull-witted fool that we find in similar stories by lesser writers.
In the end, we are presented with a pretty good solution to the mystery, along with a budding romance between a couple of the major characters. Footsteps in the Dark, by Georgette Heyer, is very light, very frothy, and a pretty quick and enjoyable read.
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You can listen to the complete audio version of this review by clicking here.
Next: Somewhere in the House, by Elizabeth Daly.
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