Why Shoot A Butler?

A thoroughly conventional cozy mystery, but since that is my favorite sub genre of the mystery section, I still enjoyed it. The scene is England, the mysterious events all happen in country manors or the fog shrouded countryside, and the characters are wealthy and intelligent and, oh yes, beautiful. It's as if Heyer took all the most common elements from the cozy mystery and threw them into the mixing pot to create her little concoction. The result is a story that is predictable and runs along well-trod ground, but since I love this type of story, I liked it. Reading it felt like slipping on an old favorite sweater: you know exactly the feel and texture, but it's comforting all the same.

Frank Amberley, a rich barrister, stops to help a show more stranded woman on the side of the road one night, and discovers a dead body in her car. He feigns disinterest in the case, but begins quiet investigations nonetheless, and learns that the dead man is actually a butler for one of his parent's rich neighbors. This is the biggest twist in the story, and Heyer capitalizes on it, as everyone is bewildered about the motives of killing a butler. The cranky old man who owns a sizable fortune? Yes. The butler? Unheard of. Of course, the money does play an important factor in unraveling all the clues, as does the mysterious girl, Shirley Brown, whose sparring with Amberley also provides a little romantic subtext.

Heyer is not know for her mystery novels (I think she only wrote three) and this is not one of her better works. Still, a fun read, and if you enjoy this type of mystery story, worth a check out. show less

This is the first Georgette Heyer I have read and I enjoyed it but it didn't blow me away. It could have had some thing to do with the fact I was reading a 1963 edition of a 1933 book, so it clearly had not been PC'd the way some other newer editions may have been.
The male protagonist - clearly the basis of a series - is kind of a jerk - totally insulting to the police, other characters and in spite of never explaining anything (and withholding evidence) totally expects everyone around him to have jumped to the same conclusions as he has (pretty far fetched storyline by the way)and to have solved the case. He also get angry at other characters giving away info / interfering in his plans when he hasn't told anyone what he is actually show more doing... So all in all I found it a bit frustrating.
I was expecting Agatha Christie and got Arthur Conan Doyle - entertaining but not the same quality. show less

When London barrister Frank Amberley gets lost on the way to his uncle’s country house, he notices a car parked on the side of the road and stops to see if he can assist anyone – only to discover that the driver is a surly young woman and that the man sitting in the passenger seat has been shot dead. Although everything seems to point to the woman as the culprit, Frank’s instincts tell him that she is innocent. When he later discovers that the victim was a butler at his uncle’s neighbor’s estate, Frank suspects that there is much more to this murder than meets the eye. After all, as one of the other characters points out, why shoot a butler?

I absolutely love Georgette Heyer, and having read most of her Regency romances, I’m show more now making a start on her mysteries. I really enjoyed this English-country-house mystery, which is similar in style to the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. My favorite aspect of the book was the characters, especially the clever but arrogant Frank Amberley. I also enjoyed the romantic subplot, which Heyer always does so brilliantly. The mystery itself was good too, although in places I felt that Heyer tipped her hand a bit too much. While I didn’t predict the entire solution, there are a few hints at the beginning of the story that enabled me to figure out some pretty important plot elements. Overall, though, I found this an extremely good read and look forward to reading more of Heyer’s mysteries. show less

For the fan of Heyer who reads this book because they are entranced with her Regency Romances it will probably be a let down. It is not a badly written book and while the plot is cliched it is not patently ridiculous as is the case with some books written contemporaneously, although it does lack the lightness and wit that readers of the Regency Romances came to expect from the author.

For the fan of Heyer’s detective stories this, her second murder mystery, shows the author still experimenting with a format that will let her bring the strengths of her Regencys to a different and more modern genre.

Readers may also be turned off, or even depending on their own experiences horrified, by the degree to which the they are presumed to show more empathize with the idea that aggressive and almost abusive behaviour is experienced (when carried out by the right person) as romantic and attractive.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Heyer’s second excursion into the world of the detective story does not, in the opinion of this reviewer, age as well as the first. The “missing will” and “long lost relatives” plots were even at that time overused in English fiction and Heyer goes to the well of local constabulary incompetence with a frequency that rises to the level of constancy as the book unfolds. The talented amateur benefits from knowledge he never shares with the police and indeed withholds information from the police without which there was no chance for them to solve the case.

The opening scene in which the protagonist “meets cute” with the mystery lady over a dead body is in itself a giveaway to the entire plot. Only the most inexperienced reader will not know by the end of this encounter that they will battle with each other through the rest of the book only to realize close to the end they have been in love the whole time. The fact that they find each other intolerable and cannot have a conversation of more than a few minutes duration without a violent argument breaking out does not bode well for their future happiness together. show less

Georgette Heyer is probably best known for being the Queen of Regency Romance, having written a barouche full of witty, clever, meticulously detailed examples of the genre over the years. I've read every one of her Regency capers, many of them more than once and some of them more than twice, but I'd never tried one of her forays into the mystery genre until now.

The first clue that this mystery is not set during the Regency period is that motor car on the book cover. Indeed, we are in 1930s England, where a young barrister, Frank Amberley, happens upon a car containing a dead man one evening after getting lost on a country road. There's a young woman standing next to the car, but Amberley's instincts tell him she isn't the culprit. Who show more was, and why, fills the rest of the book as Amberley conducts a parallel investigation to the official police inquiry.

The central mystery is solid, with lots of red herrings and twists to keep a reader guessing. And of course there's the obligatory romance subplot, though it's all very low-key until the very end. Heyer proves as adept at writing for her own time as she was at channeling 19th century high society, though with much less baffling slang and minute descriptions of clothes and vehicles. I don't know if I'll ever think of Heyer's mysteries on the same level as her romances, but I'm certainly willing to read more of them. show less

Every family has secrets, but the Fountains' are turning deadly…

On a dark night, along a lonely country road, barrister Frank Amberley stops to help a young lady in distress and discovers a sports car with a corpse behind the wheel, dead from a gunshot wound. Shirley Brown protests her innocence, and Amberley believes her -- at least until he gets drawn into the mystery and the clues incriminating the girl begin to add up… The new heir to Norton Manor discovered the difficulty of keeping decent help when the butler got murdered on his night off. But why would anyone shoot a trusted old family retainer?

The bumbling police are well-meaning but completely baffled. Fortunately, barrister turned amateur sleuth Frank Amberley, is as show more brilliant as he is arrogant. He has a couple of suspects in mind, the nervy young lady discovered at the scene of the crime and the snooping gentleman in the halls of Greythorne, when suddenly there's a second body. In this dramatic tale of upstairs, downstairs and family secrets, Amberley, although he wants to discover the desperate killer, this time he's not sure he wants to know the truth… show less

I read Why Shoot a Butler? while the kids were off at school today. I’m more familiar with Georgette Heyer’s romances, but I like her enough that I was willing to try this (besides, my sister gave it to me with a glowing recommendation.)

It turned out to be a light, fun read. Frank Amberley’s obnoxious brilliance is entertaining, so much so that I was only slightly annoyed at all the places where he investigated this or that–and then didn’t tell what he discovered. Probably best that way, because it kept me from guessing everything on the second page. As it was, even my somewhat sluggish mind had unraveled about two-thirds of the puzzle by book’s end, so if I’d known more, I probably would have guessed the whole, which show more tends to make a mystery less interesting.

Still, the dialogue is witty, the characters crisp, and the setting the type of idyllic British countryside town I love to visit in books. (I’ve never had the opportunity to visit one in person. Who knows if they even exist, and if so, whether they’d be any fun?)

Definitely worth curling up with for a couple of entertaining hours. show less