While Creeping Venom by Sheila Pim is a murder mystery, it has its lighter side, too. The goat, the results of the gardening contest, and even the bones that come crashing through the ceiling add a bizarre humor to the story.
While the original emphasis is on Miss Rebecca Hampton, her death opens up opportunities for others to take center stage. Miss Hampton is a very rich, opinionated Protestant woman in Ireland. When she fears her relative, Liam Hampton, might marry a Roman Catholic, she threatens him, telling him she’ll leave her estate to a distant relative, Tim Licacre, if Liam marries a Catholic. She’s not happy when Liam doesn’t seem to care. But, when she dies after a lunch at her house after insisting on eating escargot, it’s Liam who is the primary suspect. Was he about to lose his inheritance?
Or, was her companion, Priscilla Hoyle, a killer? Priscilla swears she was the only one in the kitchen. The police find her an ideal suspect.
Written in 1946, Pim’s mystery is typical of the time period in that there’s a closed cast of characters who could be considered suspects, and just a few with reasons to kill. The police send for a detective from Dublin, but he really has no personality. That fits the time period as well, when the investigating police officer was not well-developed as a character. And, in fact, he’s not the one who solves the mystery.
Creeping Venom is called an Irish village mystery, and it does introduce a number of characters from the village. Fortunately, there’s a cast of characters list at the beginning of the book. But, one character appears at the oddest times over and over; the goat, who walks into gardens and houses, interferes with a tea party, and, eventually becomes involved in the local Beltane celebration.
While I enjoyed the investigation by an amateur sleuth who seemed a little too naive, and I appreciated some of the humorous scenes, I think one book by Sheila Pim is enough for me. I’m moving on to another author and setting.
Creeping Venom by Sheila Pim. The Rue Morgue Press, 1946, 2001. ISBN9780915230429 (paperback), 155p.
FTC Full Disclosure – A friend sent me a copy of the book.
Interesting how some older books get outdated and some don’t. Not that you mentioned that, but I imagine that could be part of the problem
It could be, Kim.
Besides what Kim said I also find it interesting to see which of these older, out of print authors, are getting reprinted these days. I’m always glad to see an author like Pim, who only had one of her books published in the U.S. back when they were new, get the attention. In my book hunting days in Britain, I’d definitely buy her Hodder hardbacks whenever they turned up.
And no, I never read one.
That’s funny that you said you never read one, Jeff, just that you bought them. I think it interesting, too, to see who is reprinted. I certainly don’t have the background or knowledge that you do, though.
Since I was buying older (mostly) mysteries to sell, I had to know who the authors were, at least, where the books were set, if there was a series character, etc. Plus, I read almost exclusively mysteries back then (late 70s and ’80s, for sure). I was very influenced by Barzun & Taylor’s A CATALOGUE OF CRIME at the time, too, and Pim was the kind of lesser known author they covered, like George Bellairs.
The goat deal reminds me of a guy I worked with many years ago. He was sure that goats were animals in devil form. He would unleash this spiel about how God had put goats on the planet to capture the Devil every time he appeared going back millions of years. The guy was dead serious.
He also did not think I was at all funny when I said every now and them how something had gotten my goat. One year we had the Christmas gift exchange that was supposed to be secret. I had gotten him the fisher price animal deal that made goat sounds when you spun the wheel just right. As soon as he started to open it, everybody started laughing and blaming me.
I got a lecture from the boss about what I had done before the day was over. The same boss who was later found to have been stealing money from the place AND had gotten two different coworkers pregnant. One of which he had hit on during the Christmas party.