
Vintage Golden Age Mystery
Just the Facts Category: Who — Actor/Actress
TBR #112 (69e, 43p)
Date Finished: October 18, 2019
The third published adventure of Drury Lane, retired actor, starts off with much more focus on Inspector Thumm’s daughter Patience, recently returned from being educated in Europe. Her detecting skills get her, her father, and Drury Lane involved with defending a convict accused of murdering a powerful state senator. After they fail and he is imprisoned again, the convict escapes and again is implicated in the death of the senator’s politically connected brother.
The early parts of the story showcasing Patience’s observations and deductions works best, but once Drury Lane takes over the investigation midway through the book, her abilities seem to dwindle and she exhibits more stereotyped feminine characteristics. The story also lacks the cleverness of other Queen works, with the solution somewhat obvious. The characters, other than Patience, are only slightly developed, and Drury Lane seems to have forgotten that he is deaf.
