The New Sonia Wayward

An amusing dark comedy. Not a mystery, and technically there's not even a murder. A not-too-smart overly class-conscious Colonel is on a yachting trip with his wife, a successful romance novelist, when she suddenly drops dead, of natural causes. This is more of a bother to him. In the first of many bad moves, he decides, while drunk, that it will be simpler if he just tosses the body overboard to avoid questions when he returns. Since she was his meal ticket, he decides that he can writer under name as well as she did. Thus ends chapter one. Pretty much one woe after another follows, but the more you know the Colonel, the more you loathe him, so it all works out. This would have made a classic episode of the hour-long Alfred Hitchcock show more television series.

Recommended. show less

Sonia Wayward is a well known writer of formula romance novels. When she suddenly drops dead while on a yachting holiday, her husband, Colonel Petticate, slips her body overboard and proceeds to cover up her death, telling people that Sonia has gone abroad on a little holiday. He finishes her current novel and submits it for publication and is not at all surprised in the slightest that this book is very well received. He is prepared to carry on with his deception in order to continue living his comfortable life of ease and quiet refinement.

The New Sonia Wayward is a very clever book, but does ask for a huge leap of faith from its readers to believe that Colonel Petticate would throw his wife’s body overboard. It is never fully show more explained why he wouldn’t report her natural death and then carry on living from the royalties that she has acquired. However, as you read about this character, his actions seem to fit in with his rather nasty self-serving personality.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive”! This old saying certainly fits as Colonel Petticate has a difficult time to keep things from unravelling and is struggling to keep the truth from surfacing. Both it’s withering look at the literary world and following Petticate as he sweats through the various complications that arise made for a very humorous read. Added to that is the author’s light prose and spirited dialogue which elevated The New Sonia Wayward to a much higher level. show less

Michael Innes, the alter-ego of J I M Stewart, an English literature professor at various UK universities, has written many mystery/detective novels under the Michael Innes name, many of them involving the detective, John Appleby (this is not one of them), and many of which have literary allusions or draw on Stewart's/Innes' knowledge of the publishing world. The Innes novels draw a diverse response from readers. That range of views is not explained solely by variability of the standard achieved (which would not otherwise surprising, given the large output).

Instead, the responses are better explicable due to different readers' preferences for mysteries/detective novels that are:
- clue based;
- plot driven;
- character driven;
- show more incorporating literary or other allusions (or not); or
- procedural driven etc.

I don't mind many of the Innes novels, even though some can be a little unrealistic. The New Sonia Wayward is a case in point. Sonia, is/was a reasonable successful romance novel writer and the main source of income for herself and her husband (retired Colonel Petticate). Sonia dies of natural causes whilst travelling on a yacht with Petticate.

Rather than do what one might think be the sensible thing, Petticate throws his deceased wife overboard and engages in pretending that Sonia has departed for foreign climes to concentrate on her latest book, with the aim that Petticate will continue writing her novels (as her ghost writer), thereby keeping the money coming in.

The book addresses the challenges that Petticate faces in convincing their many contacts that all is well, ranging from the family doctor, their friends and relatives, Sonia's publisher, their live in servants, etc. That last one is a bit of a surprise...Petticate and Sonia are not depicted as being rolling in cash and one wonders, even for a book first published in 1960, such is realistic. But as it adds another category of people Petticate needs to deal with, such is a positive for the narrative.

One would imagine that Petticate just has to come a cropper at some stage, and it is amusing to try to predict how that is going to come about. As it turns out, there is a twist at the end which beautifully leaves one scratching one's head.

A quick read at 174 pages, and well worth a read if you are looking for (as one review (Evening Standard) described as ) 'A polished, urban, and funny thriller.'

Stewart is also notorious in Australia, whilst holding the position of Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia, having been asked during WW2 to give a lecture on Australian literature, declared that as there wasn't any (Australian literature that is), he would instead talk about D H Lawrence's 'Kangaroo'.

Don't hold that against him!

Big Ship

8 August 2022 show less

When Sonia Wayward suddenly dies on a yachting holiday, her husband pitches her overboard and takes over writing her novels, their main source of income. Unfortunately, pretending she is alive and still writing leaves him open to blackmail as a possible murderer.

Mrs. Gotlop's cocktail party halfway through the book was the funniest thing in this comedy-suspense novel. I had read it before but I didn't really remember till quite near the end.

So much fun! Clever writing, great plot, British wit--I really must read more of this author.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!