- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd; New edition edition (Nov 1984)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099392704
- ISBN-13: 978-0099392705
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.8 x 1.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,233,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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2 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Complex, but worth it
1 July 2001
Format:Paperback
Here's what the back cover says: "In the glittering thirties, all the leaders of art and politics attended the galas of the Countess of Snailwood. And there, one of them committed a dark and savage crime. Now, forty years later, the sole survivor of those opulent days must take up the disturbing mystery again--this time for keeps."
A theme of Dickinson's in a number of his mystery novels is looking back at the past, putting together information that you may not have had then, and having the whole picture of what you thought was true change underneath you.
This is one of those books. The time goes back and forth from the present (which is the 1980s in the book) to the past (England during WWII). Everything fits together in a complicated but satisfying manner. There is a real sense of a now distant time and place during the WWII passages.
Be forewarned: in most mysteries, the creepy stuff happens at the beginning. In this one, you get to that at the end.
Overall: good book, well written. I'd say buy it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Dickinson's Most Disturbing Mystery
6 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Peter Dickinson is an astoundingly prolific writer of British mysteries and young adult fiction most active from the 1960's through the 1990's. He is best known for his mastery of the British mystery and for that he still deserves a wide readership as his books are as good and in many cases better than many current offerings. His time period is generally the first half of the twentieth century and his milieu is the upper class or the dying English colonies. As this is the case, he spends a great deal of time in that halcyon period between the wars.
Snailwood was the gathering place of the great and the good in the years between the wars, until at one houseparty, the last house party, a terrible crime was commited, a crime that haunts all those present and that will not lie quiet in the past, despite the disappearance of the main players. In this case, detailing the crime provides too many spoilers, but let's say that The Last House Party encompasses a crumbling manor house with a priceless life-size clock, more than one unreliable narrator and mysteries of identity both figurative and literal. Unlike other Dickinson books, the moral ambiguity remains after the mystery is solved. Dickinson's works can often be mistaken for high-class cozies, taking place close to home and without the involvement of police or detectives except tangentially. This book is no cozy. Complex, dark, psychologically astute, disturbing and readable.
Again, this book and further exploration of Peter Dickinson's work is recommended to anglophiles and fans of the English mystery.
Snailwood was the gathering place of the great and the good in the years between the wars, until at one houseparty, the last house party, a terrible crime was commited, a crime that haunts all those present and that will not lie quiet in the past, despite the disappearance of the main players. In this case, detailing the crime provides too many spoilers, but let's say that The Last House Party encompasses a crumbling manor house with a priceless life-size clock, more than one unreliable narrator and mysteries of identity both figurative and literal. Unlike other Dickinson books, the moral ambiguity remains after the mystery is solved. Dickinson's works can often be mistaken for high-class cozies, taking place close to home and without the involvement of police or detectives except tangentially. This book is no cozy. Complex, dark, psychologically astute, disturbing and readable.
Again, this book and further exploration of Peter Dickinson's work is recommended to anglophiles and fans of the English mystery.
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