Henrietta Who?

I whizzed through this second Inspector Sloan book in a single car journey and was so immersed in it that I didn't mind being in an almost immobile queue of traffic for large parts of the trip. 'Henrietta Who?' has the same police personnel as 'The Religious Body' and it depends upon a cunning trap at the end to get the villain but otherwise it has little in common in either content or tone.

I was propelled through the book partly by the novelty of the idea: that a violent death reveals that Henrietta, a young woman approaching her twenty-first birthday, is not who she has been raised to believe she was. The subsequent investigation is as much about finding out who Henrietta is and why she was given a different identity as it is about show more investigating the violent death.

The pieces of the puzzle are revealed one at a time and with great dexterity. I enjoyed the view that they gave me of rural England in 1968, when World War II was a childhood memory for the youngest character, while the oldest one served in the Boer War, and when 'murder by motor vehicle' was rare enough to feel novel.

I can see that Catherine Aird is going to become a go-to author for comfort reads. Her ideas are original. Her storytelling has a light touch that keeps the plot moving without making it feel forced. Her humour, which plays upon the many ways in which we misunderstand each other, is mostly kind. Her close observation of people and places grounds her stories, making them easy to relax in.

She has also contrived a clever way to prevent the exposition needed to solve a puzzle from becoming tedious by providing Inspector Sloan with two foils to discuss the case with: his not-stupid but sometimes slow to see inferences and consequences young DC, who needs coaching and his micro-managing, usually impatient boss who is always looking for the quick solution, even when the solutions contradict one another. It seems to me that when Sloan is talking to either of these two, he's the voice of the author tickling the reader to work things out for themselves. Aird softens the edge of this kind tickling by imbuing both relationships with an attitude of long-suffering humour from Sloan.

Aird's novels are bite-size things, almost novellas by modern standards, so, to me, they're like watching an episode of a clever police series where the detective solves a new mystery in a new setting every week.

I'm expecting to consume of alot of them over the coming months. show less

Henrietta Who? by Catherine Aird is a police procedural set in a small rural English village that was originally published in 1968. It is the second in the author’s Inspector Sloan series of mysteries. The book is quite short, being less than 200 pages, but I found it to be an interesting storyline as the hit and run death of the middle aged Grace Jenkins has the unusual consequence of revealing that she could not have been the mother of her supposed daughter, Henrietta. Then when further investigation reveals that not only was her death deliberately planned but important papers were taken from her cottage, Inspector Sloan realizes he must find out who Henrietta is and how she came into Grace’s care as a very young baby in order to show more solve the case.

The focus of the investigation becomes very much a hunt through the past as Henrietta’s true identity is being traced. The main character, Inspector Sloan is a competent, seemingly straight forward detective who often becomes irritated at his plodding assistant who is frequently the source of humor. On the most part the characters were likeable and interesting, the only irritant I found was Sloan’s superior who was a little too over-the-top.

Catherine Aird’s story is both witty and entertaining. Henrietta Who? was a well plotted mystery and I will definitely be reading more from this author in the future. show less

A hit-and-run accident uncovers a lot of secrets in the second in the Calleshire Chronicles. At first it looks like it could have been an accident, but the autopsy indicates that Mrs. Jenkins was run over twice. And the autopsy shows that Mrs. Jenkins never had a child, yet it is her daughter Henrietta, a nearly twenty-one-year-old university student, who identifies her mother's body.

Detective Inspector C. D. Sloane of the Calleshire police force is called in to investigate. He wants to know who murdered Mrs. Jenkins. Meanwhile, Henrietta is more concerned with finding out who she is since she now knows that Mrs. Jenkins wasn't her mother.

All Henrietta has to contribute to the investigation are stories her mother told her when she was show more growing up and she doesn't know how many of them were true. A break-in at their cottage indicates that someone is looking for something they are convinced Mrs. Jenkins had. All Henrietta knows is that her mother kept her papers in the locked bureau that the thieves broke into.

This was an engaging historical mystery. Attitudes about illegitimate children play a role in this one and highlight that it is a historical novel. I enjoyed all of the period detail. I also liked the various characters and have a bit of a soft spot for Sloane's young confederate who is being taught by Sloane but who is just a little dim.

Robin Bailey did a good job with the narration. I liked that he didn't even try to mimic women's voices but had quite a variety of men's voices at his disposal. show less

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley.

Grace Jenkins' body is discovered lying in a quiet village road by the postman and the post-mortem reveals both that she has been run down deliberately and that she has never had a child. Her daughter, Henrietta, who is away at college, is therefore left not knowing who she is. Grace has always told Henrietta about her father, whose photo sits on the mantelpiece and who supposedly died fighting in WWII, but the police determine that this too is a fiction.

I gathered that this mystery was set in the early 60s, when phone calls were always made from call boxes and (surprisingly) everyone was available for questioning over the weekend - gentler times! I enjoyed this story very show more much and read it in one sitting. The detective running the investigation, Inspector Sloan, was humorous and gently contemptuous of both his constable, Crosby, and his superintendent, Leeyes, (in true Morse fashion). The story is largely dialogue and plot-driven, with little in the way of musings on the nature of evil or lengthy back-stories explaining why certain characters were in some way "damaged". The plot was logical and clearly laid out and Henrietta's despair at ever finding out her true identity seemed all too understandable at times. The rector and his wife were lovely supporting characters and I was glad that Bill stood by Henrietta.

Slight niggles: why did Henrietta's birth family never try to find out what had become of her? I did not really buy into the suggestion that her parents might have been murdered. show less

This was a very interesting mystery. Good solid police investigation before the days of DNA and modern technology. Woman is found dead in the middle of the road by a mailman on his early rounds. First believed to be a hit and run but then the coroner states that she was run down and then the car backed over her after she was dead. The case switches to her daughter, Henrietta, away at university when the coroner reveals that Mrs. Jenkins never gave birth to any children. So, who is Henrietta?

Henrietta Who. Catherine Arid Calleshire Chronicles Book 2. 2015,(originally,1968). The Kindle folks are smart. I finished The Religious Body when I was at the gym and it led right into 3 chapters of this book. I was hooked by the time I finished my time on the treadmill and the bike! Detective Inspector Sloan is called to the sight of a hit and run accident. The postman found Mrs. Jenkins body. Henrietta, the daughter, is called home from college and discovers that a desk in the house has been broken into. Meanwhile the medical examiner tells Sloan, that Mrs. Jenkins is not the mother of Henrietta or anyone. Henrietta is devastated and it is up to Sloan to untangle the mess which he does very neatly!

A fun cozy mystery. Great narrator. I really enjoyed this. Flew through it. Quite the page turner for such a sweet cozy mystery. I look forward to reading more of this series.