A Piece of Justice

Picked this up as I recognised the author - she finished the unfinished Peter Wimseys, as started by Dorothy Sayers. Wondered what her own creation would be like. Pretty good, as it turns out. Imogen Quy (rhymes with why) is a matron in a Cambridge college and her lodger takes on the task of finishing a biography of an obscure maths don who produced one outstanding piece of maths and nothing of note before or since. In the notes, she discovers that 3 people hae tried to write the biography before here - but all dropped the subject and vanished into thin air... Futher investigation shows that they all get polished off when they start investigaing where the don was during the summer of 76. More curiously, the don's wife seems to be a show more split personality, nice as pie when things are going well and a harpy whrn that summer is discussed. Imogen starts to get interested and uses her connections to see what she can't uncover. It all gets very interesting when a rare quilt finds itself at the centre of the mystery, and at that point the pattern suddenly comes together.
Certainly good enough that I'll be looking out the previous 2 books in the series. show less

Jill Paton Walsh’s A Piece of Justice is part of the extensive stock of mystery novels in which the sleuth solves the crime (in this case, multiple murders) by a string of implausible coincidences and full, truthful disclosure by all, including the culprits. If real life were like this novel, all crimes would be solved and all defense attorneys would be unemployed. Imogen Quy, Cambridge University nurse, solves three old murders, the motives for which seem quite improbable. The saving grace is an excellent sense of place. Ms. Walsh obviously knows Cambridge well and loves it. But despite having completed two of Dorothy Sayers’ manuscripts, Ms. Walsh has not acquired Ms. Sayers’ understanding of misdirection, blind alleys and red show more herrings. show less

This intriguing mystery is pieced together as intricately as one the quilts Imogene Quy describes. It has a nice balance of plot and background history. The characters are all nicely drawn and interesting. It is a keeper.

mathematician's biographers die or disappear