The first time that the Gold Dagger was won by the same person in consecutive years. Only happened once since. And not just the same person: the same protagonist, Jimmy Pibble, again defying his dreadful name, investigating a good old-fashioned country house murder.
The setting allows Pibble to indulge again his lively interest in architecture and also this time to show some fairly recherché knowledge of painting. It also seems to encourage Dickinson to let himself all the way off the leash. The last book, one got the sense that he was being polite, neutral and restrained as he negotiated the slightly tricksy subject matter he’d set himself. This one, with the setting and dramatis personae entirely and quintessentially English, there is no neutrality or careful handling of character. With the exception of Pibble, pretty much everyone important in this book is mad. We have mad old generals, mad retainers, mad businesspeople and mad daughters. They’ve all been driven mad by the second world war, which is not a thing that’s been in thematic focus in any of these books for a while, but provides sufficient explanation of the madness here.
The mad old generals own a big country estate. In an obvious parody of a trend of the time, they’re trying to coin it from American tourists by converting their estate into a sort of combined Olde Englande live-action experience and safari park. This allows Dickinson to introduce many useful bits and pieces early on: lions, a gibbet, antiquated firearms, a little train, a watermill. With pleasing adherence to the Chekovian maxim, all are employed later on in the book.
While it does teeter on the edge of excess, the book never quite falls over. At its core, it’s a kind of thriller-mystery cross, not quite a whodunnit as the target keeps shifting, but tricked out with the trappings of one anyway: clues, red herrings, all that. I found the solution a little unsatisfying, but I think that’s down to a predilection of mine rather than a fault of the book. It’s a highly enjoyable read, and again pleasingly short (barely 150 pages in my copy). Once I’m done with all these I might well chase up the rest of the Pibbles. Still a terrible name though.