Francis A. Miniter
2018-06-12 03:01:29 UTC
Some years ago I came across two mystery stories by Elizabeth Ironside,
"Death in the Garden" (1995) (short-listed for the Golden Dagger Award)
and "The Accomplice" (1996) (sort of a sequel). I very much enjoyed
both of them, and I believe that I posted on RAM at least as to "Death
in the Garden". A long time passed before I came across more of her
work, but this spring, I found two more: "A Very Private Enterprise"
(1984), her first novel which won the John Creasey Award for Best First
Mystery, and "A Good Death" (2000). I have just finished both of them.
First a word about the author. "Elizabeth Ironside" is a pseudonym for
Lady Catherine Manning, used because her husband was a British diplomat,
having for some been the Ambassador to the USA. During his tours of
duty, they traveled to Poland, India, Russia, France, Israel, and the
United States. I mention this because India is the setting for "A Very
Private Enterprise" and France is the setting for "A Good Death" with
one Russian character and a young Jewish girl. Lady Manning herself
took a PhD in History from Oxford. Her writing is first rate, and can
be very subtle. For all this, she is virtually unknown in America.
Felony and Mayhem (the publishers, that is) have published at least 5 of
her six works.
"A Very Private Enterprise" begins with the murder of Hugo Frenchman, at
about 12:30 AM on June 1st [fn. 1], at his home in the compound of the
British Embassy in New Delhi, as a party is given across the street at
the Ambassador's residence. A security man, Sinclair is sent from
London to make sure that there have been no security leaks. He meets
Janey, a British woman who is a Tibetan scholar and archaeologist, who
arrived from England on the morning immediately following the murder,
and who is staying at Hugo's house. Sinclair opts to stay there as
well. Inevitably, Sinclair gets involved in trying to solve the murder.
And, inevitably, he and Janey become lovers. The story goes to
Tibetan India, a region culturally Tibetan which lies immediately to the
west of Tibet itself and is no less rugged in terrain.
Most of the novel, while narrated always in the third person, is seen
from Sinclair's perspective; but as we get toward the final scenes, we
begin to sometimes see events from Janey's point of view. The shift is
made subtlely but it is important, as the final narrative viewpoint is
Janey's not Sinclair's. Sinclair has failed to solve the murder and has
returned to London, whereupon the murderer comes to Janey and confesses
in private.
Janey has a strong personality, one capable of going out into the
mountains on her own. She reminds one of Gertrude Bell, memorialized in
the biography (and later movie) entitled, "Queen of the Desert". And it
appears that the Ironside wants to make a point about the similarities
and differences between men and women, including the ways that each tend
to approach problems.
"A Good Death" is set in southwestern France, in the region that the
Germans allowed the Vichy regime to govern for some time before
occupying it with military forces. The time is World War 2. The
story begins in August, 1944, immediately after the German forces have
left the plantation at the heart of the story, Bonnemort, which
translates "a good death". A German SS Major is found naked with his
throat slashed at the entrance to the estate. The next scene takes
place in September, 1944, when the man who owns the estate, Theo, who
has been fighting with the Free French Army, makes a surprise return
visit to the estate, to find his wife, Ariane, with her head shaved, a
punishment meted out to French women who slept with German soldiers.
(Jacques Cartier-Bresson has a stirring street picture of a woman being
tried for such a "crime" after the end of the occupation.) Theo,
without saying a word, without asking for an explanation, turns on his
heel and leaves.
Theo is at the start a rather unreconstructed male. At the start of
Chapter 5, he goes on the following rant (which needs this explanation -
Ariane is his second wife and Sabine is his daughter by his first wife):
"Sabine was his first responsibility, he told himself. When he was in
exile he had had half-formed ideas about the future, when the war was
over, of living in Paris with Ariane and Sabine and other possible
children, making a new family with a normal life of school holidays and
family festivals. These visions were dead before birth. So Sabine
would have to go back to the convent. He wanted her to be like her
mother, gentle, domestic, with no conversation or interests outside the
family. He had had enough of modern women: he had no wish for her to be
highly educated as Ariane was. The convent would do very well."
But Theo is not the only narrator of this novel. We see from Ariane's
point of view, and from that of Suzie (whose real name is Rachel), a
Jewish girl living as a Christian on the estate to avoid capture.
Occasionally, we have narrations by others of certain events. For Theo
it is a long road from pompous ignorance to understanding of the
oppression to which those who remained in France were subjected. We see
the oppression operating at many levels. The Germans take over most of
the plantation. The German Major makes advances toward Ariane. Sabine
is a victim of beatings from the school master and transmits her
victimhood into bullying of Suzie. And then there is Lou Moussou
(Pyrenees patois of "Le Monsieur" - no that is not explained in the
novel), a big, fat, pink, hairless pig, being fattened for the
slaughter, and whose slaughter is depicted in detail, as his feet are
bound, and he is hoisted screaming onto the killing table to have his
throat slashed, an image that has so many tangential points to events
and fears in the story, not least to the killing of the German Major.
There are many questions to be answered in the story, including who
killed the German Major and why. But the focus is always on the horror
of oppression and its omnipresence, not just in war, but in families as
well.
fn 1. The author does not tell us the year that this story takes place,
but from two references it is easy to establish. Sinclair checks the
price of gold one morning and finds it is US$832, which happened only in
1976 and 1978. Also, we learn that India has recently withdrawn the
1,000 Rupee note from circulation. That occurred on January 18, 1978.
So 1978 is the year.
"Death in the Garden" (1995) (short-listed for the Golden Dagger Award)
and "The Accomplice" (1996) (sort of a sequel). I very much enjoyed
both of them, and I believe that I posted on RAM at least as to "Death
in the Garden". A long time passed before I came across more of her
work, but this spring, I found two more: "A Very Private Enterprise"
(1984), her first novel which won the John Creasey Award for Best First
Mystery, and "A Good Death" (2000). I have just finished both of them.
First a word about the author. "Elizabeth Ironside" is a pseudonym for
Lady Catherine Manning, used because her husband was a British diplomat,
having for some been the Ambassador to the USA. During his tours of
duty, they traveled to Poland, India, Russia, France, Israel, and the
United States. I mention this because India is the setting for "A Very
Private Enterprise" and France is the setting for "A Good Death" with
one Russian character and a young Jewish girl. Lady Manning herself
took a PhD in History from Oxford. Her writing is first rate, and can
be very subtle. For all this, she is virtually unknown in America.
Felony and Mayhem (the publishers, that is) have published at least 5 of
her six works.
"A Very Private Enterprise" begins with the murder of Hugo Frenchman, at
about 12:30 AM on June 1st [fn. 1], at his home in the compound of the
British Embassy in New Delhi, as a party is given across the street at
the Ambassador's residence. A security man, Sinclair is sent from
London to make sure that there have been no security leaks. He meets
Janey, a British woman who is a Tibetan scholar and archaeologist, who
arrived from England on the morning immediately following the murder,
and who is staying at Hugo's house. Sinclair opts to stay there as
well. Inevitably, Sinclair gets involved in trying to solve the murder.
And, inevitably, he and Janey become lovers. The story goes to
Tibetan India, a region culturally Tibetan which lies immediately to the
west of Tibet itself and is no less rugged in terrain.
Most of the novel, while narrated always in the third person, is seen
from Sinclair's perspective; but as we get toward the final scenes, we
begin to sometimes see events from Janey's point of view. The shift is
made subtlely but it is important, as the final narrative viewpoint is
Janey's not Sinclair's. Sinclair has failed to solve the murder and has
returned to London, whereupon the murderer comes to Janey and confesses
in private.
Janey has a strong personality, one capable of going out into the
mountains on her own. She reminds one of Gertrude Bell, memorialized in
the biography (and later movie) entitled, "Queen of the Desert". And it
appears that the Ironside wants to make a point about the similarities
and differences between men and women, including the ways that each tend
to approach problems.
"A Good Death" is set in southwestern France, in the region that the
Germans allowed the Vichy regime to govern for some time before
occupying it with military forces. The time is World War 2. The
story begins in August, 1944, immediately after the German forces have
left the plantation at the heart of the story, Bonnemort, which
translates "a good death". A German SS Major is found naked with his
throat slashed at the entrance to the estate. The next scene takes
place in September, 1944, when the man who owns the estate, Theo, who
has been fighting with the Free French Army, makes a surprise return
visit to the estate, to find his wife, Ariane, with her head shaved, a
punishment meted out to French women who slept with German soldiers.
(Jacques Cartier-Bresson has a stirring street picture of a woman being
tried for such a "crime" after the end of the occupation.) Theo,
without saying a word, without asking for an explanation, turns on his
heel and leaves.
Theo is at the start a rather unreconstructed male. At the start of
Chapter 5, he goes on the following rant (which needs this explanation -
Ariane is his second wife and Sabine is his daughter by his first wife):
"Sabine was his first responsibility, he told himself. When he was in
exile he had had half-formed ideas about the future, when the war was
over, of living in Paris with Ariane and Sabine and other possible
children, making a new family with a normal life of school holidays and
family festivals. These visions were dead before birth. So Sabine
would have to go back to the convent. He wanted her to be like her
mother, gentle, domestic, with no conversation or interests outside the
family. He had had enough of modern women: he had no wish for her to be
highly educated as Ariane was. The convent would do very well."
But Theo is not the only narrator of this novel. We see from Ariane's
point of view, and from that of Suzie (whose real name is Rachel), a
Jewish girl living as a Christian on the estate to avoid capture.
Occasionally, we have narrations by others of certain events. For Theo
it is a long road from pompous ignorance to understanding of the
oppression to which those who remained in France were subjected. We see
the oppression operating at many levels. The Germans take over most of
the plantation. The German Major makes advances toward Ariane. Sabine
is a victim of beatings from the school master and transmits her
victimhood into bullying of Suzie. And then there is Lou Moussou
(Pyrenees patois of "Le Monsieur" - no that is not explained in the
novel), a big, fat, pink, hairless pig, being fattened for the
slaughter, and whose slaughter is depicted in detail, as his feet are
bound, and he is hoisted screaming onto the killing table to have his
throat slashed, an image that has so many tangential points to events
and fears in the story, not least to the killing of the German Major.
There are many questions to be answered in the story, including who
killed the German Major and why. But the focus is always on the horror
of oppression and its omnipresence, not just in war, but in families as
well.
fn 1. The author does not tell us the year that this story takes place,
but from two references it is easy to establish. Sinclair checks the
price of gold one morning and finds it is US$832, which happened only in
1976 and 1978. Also, we learn that India has recently withdrawn the
1,000 Rupee note from circulation. That occurred on January 18, 1978.
So 1978 is the year.