Georgette Heyer Fans discussion

For readers who want to comment as they go along. No spoilers beyond the end of Chapter 10, please.

What edition has everybody got?
What are your first impressions if you haven't read it before?

This is me, and my copy has only just arrived, so I'm as yet completely in the dark. I have the edition Goodreads is using as an illustration and all I've read so far is the blurb; I just hope you don't have to know anything about bridge to be able to understand it!

Jenny
No bridge knowledge necessary to enjoy the book!

I first read this more than 50 years ago. Here's that edition: .

Most recently re-read was when this group read it in March 2021, so I'll skip it this time.
Enjoy!

I read it for the first time earlier this year and thought it started a little slow but ended up liking it well enough. I have this cover.

Duplicate Death

I do like some of the source books covers for Heyer's mysteries but this one is kind of bland, IMO.

Hmmm ... I've read the first few pages and am finding it quite hard going. The language seems very convoluted - for example

...his post had contained a demand from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue which anyone less well-acquainted with this body of persons might have supposed to have been an infelicitous essay in broad humour

and it's quite a job working out who all the people are. But then I am brain-fogged, so perhaps if I try again in the morning after a caffeine fix I'll find it easier.

OK, I'm getting there. I'm usually pretty hopeless at identifying the murderer in this kind of story, but I'm glad to see that I can still spot a potential victim - I guessed quite early on who was going to be the first for the chop, though I understand from the blurb that there will be another and I can't think who that will be.

I don't really get much sense of character from anybody, except possibly the murderee. I think not having a central PoV character works against that - we don't seem to get inside anybody's head somehow. That's probably because in a murder mystery there has to be mystery about the characters - any of them has to be a potential murderer so we can't know too much about any of them. It does make it difficult to care about any of them though, or even to be very much interested in what they do.

I won't re-read but have read this one often enough I can comment if I think of something else to say. This was one that is not one of my favorites of her mysteries but it grew on me over the years.

I’ve got this edition , and used a credit for the Audible narrated wonderfully by Matt Addis . I actually reread in January with another group, but am listening again because I enjoy the humor and characters so much. I just finished a dark nonfiction read, was ready for some laughs! I already know whodunnit, can just enjoy the performance.

This one isn't her best mystery but it does feature Terrible Timothy all grown up.

I just realized, this is your first time reading it Jenny? Very interesting!

I totally understand why the beginning is confusing, now that I think back.

I've read this one loads of times but I can't remember WhoDunnit or why! I can remember some bits of the plot...so I am enjoying it all over again.

I'm reading an old hardcover from the library (no dust jacket) and it's a first-time read for me. I haven't read anything by Heyer since They Found Him Dead late last year, and I am really enjoying it, especially encountering Terrible Timothy as an adult. Many of the characters in this one I find especially despicable.

Sheila (in LA) wrote:
which characters do you particularly dislike, and why? I would be interested to know!

GreyGirl wrote: "Sheila (in LA) wrote:
which characters do you particularly dislike, and why? I would be interested to know!"

GreyGirl, I was thinking of Seaton-Carew and Mrs Haddington, I found both of them to be quite sinister. (view spoiler)[When I wrote what I did, I don't think Mrs Haddington had yet been killed--but I had no trouble believing the two of them would meet such a violent end. And they were more subtly creepy than some of Heyer's victims (I'm thinking of the more stereotypical family tyrants). (hide spoiler)] Heyer describes both of them smiling, for example--it's part of their way of doing business. They gave me the shivers!