Heads You Lose - Christianna Brand

First Published - 1941

My edition - Kindle edition

     In an attempt to read through the books on my shelves (or in this case my Kindle) as is my personal challenge for the year, I looked back through Goodreads at the books that I had added the earliest in my time on the site and picked out the ones that were still unread. Many of these I had purchased as Kindle deals and they simply have laid untouched on my device until now. Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand was the first unread with a date added of July 2014. How did something sit on my Kindle for almost a decade!?! How embarrassing. And even more mortifying is that it's not alone.

     The bulk of the plot revolves around a small group of friends that are visiting Pigeonsford Estate. Poor Grace, a little liked spinster, is killed on the property after making disparaging remarks about a silly hat belonging to one of the party, Fran. The murder of Grace is not only shocking because of how it was carried out (beheading), but also that the ridiculous hat is found upon her head at the scene of the crime which occurred shortly after she has said she wouldn't be caught dead wearing it. Inspector Cockrill is brought in to solve the troubling case.

     While I enjoyed much of the novel there were a few things that left me feeling exasperated. Sisters Francesca and Venetia, are written as entitled, fluffy headed society girls who, quite frankly, grow more annoying as the story unfolds. However, I don't think Brand wrote them this way ironically, but instead they are intended to be well liked main characters. I'm sure at the time this was published in 1941 that they were the height of sophistication, but that way of viewing women hasn't aged well. Secondly, the almost incessant repetition of the clues and methods to pull off the murders was taxing at times. Lastly, but what struck me the most, were the several instances of antisemitism that I felt were very jarring. I'm familiar with critiques of Brand's work that suggest that the antisemitism found in her books is used as a device to show pettiness and small-mindedness among the characters that she wants to appear as unlikable or as possible suspects. I just couldn't see where the two characters who were given these thoughts were otherwise made to look like horrible people and felt that there were other ways to have done this better.

     The actual mystery plot and subsequent red herrings were actually quite entertaining. At one point in the story a character takes it upon himself to do some old fashioned sleuthing involving train schedules. Though the outcome differs from his expectations, this portion is very fun and such a departure from the way mysteries are written so often now with the emphasis being centered around technology or just straight interviews with witnesses and possible suspects.

     A future reading of the author's subsequent work is not off the table for me entirely, but I'm not sure it's an immediate need that I will be filling anytime soon.