Catherine Aird is someone I've known and admired for a long time, both as a writer and as a delightful companion. In the course of her exceptionally long writing career she has won the Gold Handcuffs award (a forerunner of the Dagger in the Library) and the Diamond Dagger, and she has entertained her readers royally. I've collected signed and inscribed copies of her books over the years and acquired a number of her older titles recently. These included a signed copy of Parting Breath, published in 1977, which I hadn't read previously.
The story is set in the University of Calleshire and since I was a student myself in 1977, I was greatly amused by Catherine's portrayal of academic and student politics - a sit-in plays an important part in the story. One of the features of her writing is its sheer cunning. Yet this is far from obvious, because the style is so low-key and agreeable. She lures you in with her comfortable and amusing descriptions and dialogue and you tend not to realise that she's also supplying you with information vital to the solution of the puzzle.
The title Parting Breath (which turns out to be taken from the work of Robert Burns) is a crafty reference to the fact that this story features our old friend The Dying Message Clue. And it's a cryptic one. The relevant phrase uttered by the first murder victim is 'twenty six minutes'. I confess that I didn't manage to figure out its relevance to the story.
As usual, the detection is undertaken by Sloan and Crosby, an amusingly contrasted pair of sleuths. There are some fascinating literary references, with a plot strand concerning literary detection; the mystery is one I wasn't familiar with (it concerns Jane Austen) but I found it interesting. All in all, this is a good example of Catherine Aird's quietly accomplished crime writing.
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