The British Library Crime Classics are popular books at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, with the introductions by Martin Edwards. They’re published by Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press. This week, Dana Stabenow reviews Mary Kelly’s The Spoilt Kill, which is available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3BuXBcx
Mary Kelly’s The Spoilt Kill beat out John le Carre’s Call for the Dead for the Gold Dagger Award in 1961, and now I know why. This book is exquisitely written, with a totally character-driven plot in a fully realized workplace setting (a commercial pottery). The detective is undercover on a case of industrial espionage and the pottery’s accountant is found murdered by, well, let’s just say by clay.
But this is one of those books that is about far more than its mystery. I’ll excerpt one sample for you.
“…But you heard what Dart said. “You have to have these things.” Have to. Obligation. England the great mercantile nation, rolling in prosperity, measures poverty against a new list of basic possessions. And it’s no longer a pity to be poor, a misfortune, it’s a disgrace, a stigma, a reflection on your character, a condition you daren’t permit to be seen, like syphilis. Perhaps I exaggerate.”
No, he doesn’t. Who says we need that enormous TV, that flashy car, that McMansion? That is a passage that could have been written today and be just as relevant now as it was then. The sheer pettiness of the motive for the espionage rings horribly true.
Be aware, this is not a light-hearted read and there is no HEA, but on a level of craft it reads as well as le Carre himself ever did. I especially recommend it to my writing friends.
N.B.: I will say this and no more in criticism [SPOILER]:
Nicholson is meant to have been disappointed in love at the end, but my feeling is he really dodged a bullet there.