The Herring-Seller's Apprentice

This was funny, quirky and filled with wonderful characters reminiscent of Wodehouse. Ethelred (aka Red) Tressider is an author with three pseudonyms, each writing different genres. One writes mysteries, that garnered his agent's nickname of the "red herring seller". The agent, Elsie Thirkettle, is an eccentric who takes no nonsense from anyone and sets her own rules. With Elsie as the apprentice they investigate the murder of Ethelred's former wife. Although they divorced some years previously, he is under suspicion because her body was found near where he lives. This humorous novel is the first in a series, of which I am fortunate to own the second - and the surprise ending ensures it will be read soon.

This cosy crime novel started off promisingly with a dryly voiced narrative by a writer, Ethelred, who is facing the predicament of being modestly successful but only by dint of cranking out three different series of easy-reads: a detective series, a romance series under a woman's name, and a historical whodunnit series set in the reign of Richard II. The problem is that his detective has become a character in his own right and is not co-operating when Ethelred tries to write the next book in the series, so throughout the story extracts appear of book beginnings which Ethelred deletes as unsatisfactory. Events in his own life are interfering with his ability to channel the policeman's character.

Meanwhile, he has had to identify the body show more of his ex-wife whom it seems has been found murdered at a local beauty spot. He appears to have the cast-iron alibi of having spent a few days in France around the time of the murder yet the police keep questioning him, as does his literary agent, a chocolate fixated eccentric middle aged woman called Elsie who insists on leading an investigation in parallel to the one being conducted by the police. It becomes apparent that there are a number of people who were swindled by Ethelred's ex-wife even though he has remained friendly with her despite her adultery and manipulative behaviour.

I thought this was promising to begin with given the wry humour, but I found the Elsie character a bit too irritating and 'forced' somehow, especially when the novel suddenly switched to her viewpoint and more and more of it was from that. I also wasn't keen on the twist which started to loom more and more obviously by about half way, certainly by two thirds of the way through. The ending itself is rather deflating, though I gather this is book 1 of a series and things are therefore not as they appear - the seeming death of one of the main characters. Therefore this balances out at a 2-star OK rating and I won't be looking for more of the series. show less

Author Ethelred's ex-wife Geraldine goes missing and then he is called upon to identify her body. Ethelred seems (to his agent Elsie) to be keen on carrying out an investigation of his own, rather than helping the police.

Ethelred was very entertaining, although I went off him by the end; Elsie on the other hand was an extremely good character, both in the chapters when Ethelred is talking about her and in those chapters in her own voice. I found the sections where Ethelred is trying to write his next crime novel boring, although I suppose I see the point of them. I'm pretty sure the author is wrong on the effect of divorce on a will made during marriage. It is hard to write about the end without giving things away, but this turned out show more not to be the sort of story I thought it was going to be.

I'm keen to read more about Elsie. show less

I find I enjoy stories about writers. This is a murder mystery told by two narrators, a third rate mystery/romance writer and his literary agent. The agent is abusive and dismissive of the writer and the writer has a bit of sardonic self knowledge. The novel opens as the writer returns to his home in England after a short vacation in France to find that is wife is missing and presumed dead. This is a quite clever and filled with black humor.

I believe this is the first of a series and I had already read a later installment. The ending of this novel leaves me with a bit of a mystery about how the later installments recovered from this ending.

Ethelred Tressider, mystery write (aka herring seller “it was a facetious reference to the red herrings that she considered my stock in trade”), and his agent, Elsie (the herring seller’s apprentice?) try to solve the mystery of the apparent death by suicide of Ethelred’s ex-wife Geraldine. Geraldine had taken several people, including another of her ex-husbands and her banker, to the cleaners with an investment scam.

Even though I recognized the cleverness of the plot at the end of the book, I doubt I’ll read more of this series since I remember feeling confused—almost disoriented–most of the way through. (Maybe it was those painkillers?) Jane (when she was blogging at Fleur in Her World ) recommended this.

4 stars

This book started off really well - I love the idea of Ethelred and Elsie setting off to investigate the crime. But somewhere around the middle of the book things started to go wrong, the dialogue and prose became less sparkling, I guessed the twist at the end of the tale and Ethelred's writing (or lack thereof) tries to become an important plot point. Somehow none of this quite works and overall I was quite disappointed by this book.

Droll and witty, this book started out with great promise. By the mid-point, however, it was pretty clear what was happening and the rest of the book sort of fizzled out.