I was intrigued by The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds because the cover was so enticing that I ignored the following truths:
1. I don’t enjoy cozy mysteries much; and
2. I don’t enjoy modern authors setting mysteries in the 1920s much.
So, this book was something of the perfect storm being both a cozy mystery and a modern author imagining a 1920s setting.
Still, I enjoyed The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds. There were enough details and likeable characters that kept me reading even though the mystery itself was not challenging to solve.
I also liked the jazz club setting.
The mystery itself was pretty straight-forward and the way that the characters set about solving the mystery was a bit laughable, but what really bugged me was that the author withheld what fabulously deadly poison was employed by the baddies. It just felt like a cop-out to describe it as “fast-acting poison” in the solution and not give the reader – well, this reader! – the chance to work out how the poisoning would have worked. (Or indeed, if it could have worked the way the author described it in the story.) I admit that this is probably a negligible detail for many readers. However, I am used to the murders of Agatha Christie’s characters being described with plausible and real poisons making up much of the mystery and just being part of the puzzle. Reading Christie has taught me to want to think about which poison may have been used. It has become part of the fun for me, and not being able to see whether my suspicions in The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds were right just left me unsatisfied. I need answers!
So, in all, it was an ok story with fun characters, but just not really my cuppa.
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You might like also the blog murderincommon with lots of interesting forensics and crimes of today. From your review Kinsey loves the cliffhanger enticements for readers. Nice share dear friend! 🍂🍮🍂🍮How is your week going?
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Hi. Thanks for the recommendation. I shall check out their blog.
My week is going ok, even better now that most of the work week is behind me. 😉
How is your week going?
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Shame about the great cover …
Unsurprisingly, I‘m totally with you when it comes to knowing which poison precisely was used. And I don‘t even think that Christie spoiled us when it comes to that — as far as I can see, none of her contemporaries would even have contemplated withholding that sort of information, nor do most crime novelists today. It‘s just basic solid plotting and research! All that the withholding of that info makes me do is suspect the author themselves was afraid their mystery would basically be over by chapter 2 if they needed to be specific, because the state of medical knowledge and research would have left too little doubt. Unless, of course, you plumb for our old friend from the Knox decalogue, the mysterious unknown exotic poison …
Btw, did you see the guest post on Martin Edwards‘s blog with an update on The Decalogue? I had a good laugh at „Never let the police discover any clues that can reasonably be found by the amateur detective first“!
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LoL. Even Knox exotic poison would have been better than the generic “fast-acting poison”. It would at least have required the author to have some imagination, provided they described it’s effects. You know, like a certain “high-energy beam” in Christie’s The Big Four. LoL.
I have not come across ME’s updated Decalogue. Thanks for the prompt. I’ll head over there shortly. 😀
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This sounds like a cop-out; an author who didn’t want to spend the time (or didn’t have the time?) to research a proper poison. I can’t think of any mysteries I’ve read where the victim was ‘hit on the head with something hard’ or ‘bled out from an open wound made by something sharp’, or ‘killed by a fast-acting, high velocity object’. Still, at least the rest of the story was entertaining enough not to feel like a waste of time. 🙂
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Yeah, it was really disappointing. I’m not going to bother with the author’s other books, I think. This one was a bit too much on the cozy side for me, even tho I liked the jazz band setting. The setting reminded me a bit of Cyril Hare’s The Wind Blows Death, but Hare’s story was a much better read for me.
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