Dood van een dwaze vrouw, De

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Na een hevige ruzie met zijn vrouw Grace stormt Eric Cawthorne het huis uit. De volgende dag wordt Grace dood onderaan de rotsen vlak bij hub huis gevonden. En natuurlijk wordt Erik gearresteerd zorda het duidelijk is dat Grace werd vermoord. Maar gelukkig heeft hij een paar vrienden die niet kunnen geloven dat hij een moordenaar is. Ze gaan meteen aan het werk om de 'bewijzewn' van de politie te ontzenuwen.

Bespreking

Whodunit with a twist

Eric Cawthorne goes out for a stroll after another of the frequent fights with his wife Grace. When he returns home Grace is gone, without leaving a note or any prove of where she went. The next day a neighbor finds the body of a woman at the coast, stuck between two rocks. It is, of course, the lifeless body of Grace. When the police find evidence of murder, Eric is immediately the main suspect. So it doesn't take long before Inspector Pitt arrives to arrest him. Sheila, the mistress of Eric, can't believe that he is a murderer and starts her own investigations.

Death of a Good Woman is a well written story and has everything that makes a decent detective story, with one exception: the opening sequence is wrong. There is absolutely no reason why Eric Cawthorne should be seen a suspect. There is nothing but circumstantial evidence, but nevertheless Eric is locked away for a few days. The only starting point is that nobody else has a motive, but that is in the real world no reason to commit a person to prison. A weird mistake coming from an author who has some experience with detective writing. Although Straker tries very hard, he never succeeds to make the characters believable. At a random moment in the story he changes the nature of a character without any clear reason.

But seen as a whole this book isn't that bad: it has a nice range of possible suspects; quite some red herrings and a good deal of plot twists. No Agatha Christie, but still enjoyable.