Behold a Fair Woman by Francis Duncan Series: Mordecai Tremaine #5
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark on January 1, 2019 (first published 1954)
Source: Purchased
Genres: Vintage Mystery
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
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Beware murder in paradise
Mordecai Tremaine's hobby of choice -crime detection- has left him in need of a holiday. A break away from that gruesome business of murder will be just the ticket, and the picturesque island of Moulin d'Or seems to be just the destination.
Amid the sunshine and the sea air, Mordecai falls in with a band of fellow holidaymakers and tries to forget that such a thing as foul play exists. Before too long, however, villainy rears its ugly head and a dead body is discovered.
With a killer stalking the sand dunes, it falls to Mordecai to piece together the truth about just who has smuggled murder onto the island idyll...
Behold a Fair Woman is the last in the Mordecai Tremaine series and I’m a bit sad to be finished with it. I like Mordecai. He’s unassuming, observant, solves crimes and reads romance stories. The books are typical for the era, in a good way.
Mordecai is on vacation, staying with friends. He meets several of the residents and guests on the island before the inevitable murder occurs. There are several suspects. The dead man was not as well-loved as he wanted everyone to believe. And the people on the island are not all as care-free as they would seem. Mordecai has a well-known reputation for solving mysteries and is invited immediately by the local police to sit in on interviews and is encouraged to find out what he can on his own and report back.
The plot is a little convoluted and we never actually meet one of the main players. The characters were fine, but I just don’t think this was the best of the series.
About Francis Duncan
Francis Duncan (1918-1988) is the pseudonym for William Underhill. Underhill lived virtually all his life in Bristol. Writing was always important to him and very early on he published articles in newspapers and magazines. His first detective story was published in 1936.
Although a conscientious objector, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War II, landing in France shortly after D-Day. After the war he trained as a teacher and spent the rest of his life in education, first as a primary school teacher and then as a lecturer in a college of further education.
Throughout much of this time he continued to write detective fiction from ‘sheer inner necessity’, but also to supplement a modest income.
I’ve not read anything in this series. Thanks for the review.
I enjoy them. There’s only 5 in the series.