Behold, Here’s Poison is a good example of how difficult it must have been to investigate back in the 1920s. There were no CCTVs, camera phones, voice recognition, or DNA analysis. Even fingerprinting really just started in 1901. All the police had: post-mortem (never as sophisticated as forensics today), witnesses (mostly unreliable), and criminal psychology (quite dodgy). There’s also a certain disdain towards police among the upper classes, which makes it difficult to make honest inquiries.
That’s why Inspector Hannasyde and his very-chatty Sergeant Hemingway are in a bit of a pickle. Old Mr. Matthews has been poisoned by nicotine overdose, and his entire remaining family is suspect. Then his sister dies, also by nicotine poisoning, and the police none the wiser. The Inspector knows that Randall, the extremely snarky dandy heir to Matthews, is hiding something. But Randall just won’t spill the beans.
This is Heyer, so we get a few trademark character sketches, such as:
The house help are also given the standard Heyer-ish snapshots. There’s bickering, both the snide-but-affectionate kind, and the subtle-but-insidious kind – and that’s obviously the key highlight of any Heyer mystery.
Heyer’s mysteries seem to follow a pattern. The police doesn’t have much to support by way of “evidence” because it’s the 1920s. But they do have an insider in the family who can give them some insight on motives – and who will generally solve the case sooner than the Inspector. But the Inspector doesn’t mind all that much, he’s just happy that it gets solved in the end.
The twist at the end was totally surprising. I would have liked the culprit to be caught red-handed or at least in a direct conflict – but here, Randall just finds out and tells the police afterwards. So, while I liked the whodunit, I wasn’t impressed with how it all came about.
Rating: 6.5 of 10
This book contributes to:
Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge 2021 – Book 2
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2021 – Book 3
15 replies on “Behold, Here’s Poison by Georgette Heyer”
This sounds quite good apart from falling flat a little at the end.
Lynn 😀
Well summarized! Entertaining but flat at the end. It’s a pity, I really like Heyer generally
I have never read any by her, even though I usually love classic mysteries. Should I give it a try, or not bother?
If you want to start off with Heyer, I’d recommend her non-mystery Regency books instead — particularly Frederica, Devil’s Cub or Cotillion. But if you’re interested in her mysteries, I’d recommend Envious Casca instead. This one, I think you can skip
My mum had a whole heap of Georgette Heyer’s on her book shelf when I was younger, I wish I’d actually read them but the covers were a bit twee so I never bothered.
Haha, I know what you mean about the covers. The latest ones though, now those look awesome, with just the right amount of vintage effect!
I love all things Heyer. I’ve read some of her mysteries but not this one yet, so I’ll have to add it to the pile.
I’ve only read one of Heyer’s mysteries. I should pick this one up.
Have you tried Envious Casca by Heyer? You might like that one more than Behold, Here’s Poison.
I read this one and another of her mysteries that was re-issued around the same time. I actually had to go back on my blog to see what I wrote about it! So seems like I enjoyed it but I cannot remember a thing about it! So true what you say about crime solving before all the new information we have now on science and technology to help.
Yes! Heyer describes how the police struggle to find leads, and I kept thinking to myself: this is the 1920s. They don’t have much to go with. Imagine how many people could have gotten away with stuff, but I guess in those days, the crime rates were also lower. Now I want to find a non-fiction book that could explain the history of detection!
I haven’t read Heyer before, but she is an author I would really like to try. It is too bad the ending of this one wasn’t better, although it sound like this was a worthwhile read otherwise.
If you want to try out Heyer’s mysteries, start with Envious Casca. That one is a lot of fun, a locked-room mystery
Nice review and I love the art! I own most of the mysteries but can never remember which I have read.
Your non-mystery favorites are mine too, although The Grand Sophy might be in my top three. I led a discussion of Frederica on the Heyer listserv last year which was fun.
Haha, I spent a lot of time making that art, not quite the way I wanted it to turn out. In any event, I don’t much like Heyer’s mysteries, the characters all seem to be repetitive. Frederica, now that’s probably my No.1 favorite. But I had no idea there’s a Heyer “listserv”, I seem to be living under a rock. Must check that out!