The Widow of Bath

May 1, 2022
A disgraced underling of the British Embassy meets up again with his betrayers--but this time the danger's not to him. While he was stationed in Paris during World War II, Hugh Everton refused a proposal from Freddy Ronson that he do a bit of illegal smuggling in return for some cash that Everton needed very much. Next thing he knew, he'd been fished from the Seine and was on his way to prison. Now, reviewing hotels for a travel agency back in England, he runs into Lucy Bath, the bewitching woman who'd touched him for a loan, leaving him short back in Paris, and her retinue, which includes her husband, retired judge Gregory Bath; the judge's niece, Jan Deverell, who'd befriended Everton in Paris; Lucy's friend Gerald Cady; and hotel owner Col. Atkinson, who looks an awful lot like a freshly groomed Freddy Ronson. Yielding to Lucy's pressing invitation, Everton accompanies the party back to her place, where, shortly after an intimate dialogue with Everton, her husband is killed. Bennett's novel, originally published in 1952, turns up the cleverness at every turn. The plot behind the judge's murder is mind-bogglingly complex, the subsequent developments a series of canny bait-and-switches, the observation of the familiar character types acidulous, and the killer deftly hidden till the very end. What lingers most in the mind is the arch dialogue, which is so relentlessly witty that some readers will lick their lips with incredulous gusto while those craving greater realism make for the exits. A polarizing find, but those who love it will be eternally grateful to the British Library Crime Classics for digging it up.

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June 30, 2022
This mystery, published in the UK a few years after the end of WWII and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, centers on the plight of a young man, Hugh Everton, who falls back in with the same seductive set that landed him in prison. The wealthy, pleasure-loving group lands him in the middle of a murder investigation. The trouble starts when Everton accepts an invite to a party at the home of the femme fatale at the core of the group. This gorgeous young woman is married to the much-older Judge Bath, who ends up shot to death upstairs as the group below plays bridge. A series of murders follows, all of them bizarrely executed and seemingly unconnected to the others. Everton, a hotel inspector and food critic, uses his knowledge of how things should work to figure out the mechanics of murder. While the plot can get a bit too intricate at times, the postwar details and astute character sketches make this a worthwhile read.

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