I found this famous book in a local library a few days ago while attending the English Speaking Club there. Among all the controversy of recent days (Salinger suing the author of an unauthorized sequel of the book), I was naturally curious. Having read the book, I’m even more curious, and the main question I keep asking myself is, why is the book so famous and praised?
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“Harm Done” is the fourth – and so far the last – book from the Chief Inspector Wexford series that I have read. It’s also the longest, and no murder happens in it until page 350, which is the last quarter of the thick volume. But I never thought of putting the book aside.
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Miss Silver is looking forward to a bit of rest at her schoolmate’s house in a small and charming English village. But Miss Silver wouldn’t be Miss Silver if she didn’t get herself involved in the investigation of a shocking and brutal murder at once filling the whole village with gossip.
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When Chief Inspector Wexford gets sick, due to a new virus that causes people to lose their balance and fall as they walk, he visits Dr Akande – and soon goes home consoled and even miraculously cured. When Dr Akande calls him in a few days and tells him his daughter Melanie is missing, Wexford is only too willing to help, but it takes him a lot more time – nearly a month.
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Rita Mae Brown is a modern American detective story writer working in “co-authorship” with her pet tiger cat Sneaky Pie. In her novels two amateurs – Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen and Miranda Hogendobber – often help sheriff Rick Shaw and Deputy Cynthia Cooper with their investigations, but the real heroes are two charming cats – Mrs. Murphy and Pewter – and Tee Tucker the corgi. They always run their own investigations and often arrive at the truth before the humans do. The chief problem is, while the animals can understand the humans’ English perfectly, the reverse is not true. The humans – even their “Mom” Harry – assume the cats are meowing and the dog is barking to ask for food, so the animals have to resort to alternative ways of pointing out important clues: touching the important spot with their paws, pretending to get stuck in the places where the stuff is hidden and so on. Sometimes it works.
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World War II. Meade Underwood and Giles Armitage have just been engaged, but the ship, by which they are travelling from New York to England, is torpedoed. Meade returns to London believing Giles to be dead. He is not dead though, just suffering from loss of memory, and quite by chance they meet again. Will their newly acquired happiness be destroyed by an attractive, but treacherous and scheming neighbour from the flat #8 who calls herself Carola Roland?

Next day, beautiful Carola is found dead. Murdered.
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This book is one of the famous writer’s early works. The murder takes place in a theatre – doesn’t she just love killing people in theatres! Chief Inspector Alleyn is here – of course – and an English theatre on tour in New Zealand. The author has even built an imaginary city – Middleton – to stage her murder in.
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Dorothy L. Sayers is called – by right – one of the queens of the detective story genre. Lord Peter Wimsey – her own version of a sleuth who never makes mistakes – deserves no less admiration than his more famous colleagues Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, being a person of an incredibly sharp mind and high moral values. He is also an aristocrat, but not the arrogant kind: he enjoys mixing up with all kinds of common mortals and treats them – naturally and genuinely – as his equals. He can be quite stern when his investigation requires it, but most of the time he is just a gentle person anyone would love to spend some time with.
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