Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion

I really enjoyed the Heron Carvic Miss Seeton series, [[ASIN:0425113078 Odds on Miss Seeton]], when it first came out. I sometimes laughed until I cried over some of her exploits. For some reason she reminded me of my mother, who was also an artist and more than a little eccentric herself. The manor of the elderly lady's getting herself thoroughly in danger while totally unaware of the threats posed by the villains was remarkable and her escape from their attempts on her life through shear accident were very enjoyable.

When Charles Hampton, [[ASIN:0425121003 Miss Seeton by Appointment (Heron Carvic's Miss Seeton)]], took over the series, much of the joy of the thing seemed to disappear. Most especially many of the villagers in Plummergen seemed nasty and spiteful, which I didn't like. Narrow minded, gossipy, and thoroughly mistaken, they perhaps might be but not really mean spirited.

Under Hamilton Crane's pen--the pseudonym of Sarah J. Mason who also writes under her own name, [[ASIN:042515310X Sew Easy to Kill]]--the Plummergen society has again taken on more of its old spirit. The villagers all have their short comings, as do we all, which makes them more human, but they are also interesting people with strong as well as weak points. Many of the family interactions are charming, with the daily lives of the Colvedens, the Treeves, and the Bloomers making the reader feel like spending more time among them. Like the Barsetshire novels of Angel Thirkell,[[ASIN:1559213051 High Rising (Angela Thirkell Barsetshire Series)]], we like to keep up with our "neighbors" in Plummergen, too.

The plot was well crafted. There were certainly well placed clues throughout. I had already decided upon the culprit early on and was found to be right; so it is indeed solvable. I was disappointed, however, in the fact that the author had Miss Seeton tell us what had happened to her rather than letting us see with our own "eyes." It was Carvic's skillful handling of the discomfiture of the culprit(s) as they attempted in vain to knock off a completely naive Miss Seeton that made the earlier novels so very amusing. Their every attempt rebounded on them, as it seems to have done here, but in the earlier novels the reader is witness to the events. Here we are merely told of them which is not quite as much fun.

Still overall a return to the nature of Carvic's Miss Seeton.

Another Hamilton Crane entry. Heron Carvic and Hampton Charles are better reads, but still worth it.