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Cargando... The Cabinda Affair (1949)por Matthew Head
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Slight on "detecting" in the conventional sense; the narrator relays information to Dr Mary Finney and she draws conclusions which she mostly keeps to herself until the time is ripe for a plot twisting revelation or surprise move. But the setting is exotic and taken from author Canaday's wartime experience, the characters are fully drawn, and the eye of the art critic is always in evidence. A psychological study for which a crime is a pretext, but still a satisfying read for mystery connoisseurs. Second in the series about medical missionary detective Mary Finney and Hoop Taliaferro, in this one a minor US government bureaucrat working for the (Head's note says) imaginary War Claims Settlement Commission --basically paying off U.S,. government purchase left over from World War 2. As in Murder at the Flea Club (rereading which led me to buy this) much of the first part of the story is Hoop just telling Mary the circumstances leading up to a murder. In this case, he has gone to the (real, but according to Head's note slightly adjusted for the story) tiny Portuguese enclave of Cabinda (next to then Belgian Congo) to pay an incredibly high price ($4 million when that really was $4 million) for a load of mahogany which was going to be made into a projected airplane that got scrapped.. On the way, he meets a dubious English expat type named Pete Biggs who shows up murdered in Cabinda.
Distinciones
Combines a strong sense of locale, compelling tension, psychological probing, and mordant wit. Mr. Head deserves a front rank among modern mystery writers - New York Times World War II is over but Hooper Taliafero is still in Africa, tying up Uncle Sam's loose ends. The latest end is in Cabinda, a tiny Portuguese colony with gaily painted buildings and a history of slave-trading. Hoop should have a pleasant stay at the home of the local administrator - the beer, after all, is cold, and the women beautiful - but the other guests are an unpleasant mix of hangers-on, including a shady lawyer and an overly chummy Brit on constant look-out for a loan. When one of them is murdered, Hoop calls in Dr. Mary Finney, the Miss Marple of the tropics. As usual, Hoop is a bit fuzzy on the details, but the formidable Dr. Finney has both stellar sleuthing skills and a .45 in her necessaries bag. Both will come in handy if she's to sort through the tangled threads of the Cabinda Affair... No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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