Murder at the Brightwell

Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s the early 1930s, and upper-class occasional socialite Amory Ames, trapped in a failing marriage, agrees to help an old flame to dissuade his sister from wedding the wrong kind of man. Together they decamp to the Brightwell Hotel on the south coast of England, where the sister is holidaying with her fiancé and numerous friends, and where eventually one of the party will die.

This is Weaver’s first novel and the beginning of a series of mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Amory Ames. It is as much a romance as a whodunnit, and at times my attention waned when it roamed into the romantic. The sound-bite review which the publishers have chosen for the cover (“An elegant Christie-esque romp”) may help with sales, but it does the author no favours. While it may be set in the 1930s, neither the plot, nor the characters, nor the style of writing mirror Agatha Christie’s in any sense. By setting up expectations in the reader’s mind, comparisons are inevitable—and that seems remarkably unfair to the author, whose writing style is quieter and more reflective.

There is a great red herring which Weaver develops extremely well, which any Crimes & Thrillers enthusiast will recognize and enjoy from the start, though for my money I would have welcomed a few more motives scattered about amongst the suspects, and a sight more insight from our sleuth. But who knows? That may come with Book II.

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