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Dorothy Bowers
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Postscript To Poison Paperback – January 1, 2005

by Dorothy Bowers (Author), Tom Schantz (Introduction), Enid Schantz (Introduction)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 222 ratings
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Cornelia Lackland ruled her house with an iron fist and a firm grasp on the pocketbook. Her late husband—she was his second wife—had left her in charge of his two granddaughters and his self-made fortune. John Lackland has risen from nothing to something, only to see his own children rebel against him and make bad, impulsive marital choices He was determined that his granddaughters not follow in their footsteps. Cornelia, a former stage actress whose own past was a bit colorful, was more than up to the task. Jenny and Carol lived as virtual prisoners, albeit quite comfortably, in a large house filled with servants in the old cathedral town of Minsterbridge, located just thirty miles from London.

What’s more, the two cousins couldn’t even be sure if Mrs. Lackland’s death would set them free, since the provisions of their grandfather’s will were sealed. Things came to a head one hot summer in the late 1930s when the old lady took ill, hovered at the edge of death, and then miraculously recovered. But the night before she was to meet with her solicitor to make yet one more change in her will, she was found dead, the apparent victim of a poisoner. Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate an ever-growing list of suspects.

This classic 1938 Golden Age detective novel marked the debut of Dorothy Bowers, a very talented writer in the Sayers school who might well have joined the ranks of the masters of the genre had she not died from tuberculosis at the age of 46 after completing only five novels.
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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 5
    Black Heath Classic Crime
  2. Print length
    190 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Rue Morgue
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 2005
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0915230771
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0915230778
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rue Morgue; First Edition (January 1, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 190 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0915230771
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0915230778
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 222 ratings

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Dorothy Bowers

Dorothy Bowers

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
222 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

western MA
4.0 out of 5 stars good book. I like the golden age writers often ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2014
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good book. I like the golden age writers often because they write better - more detail, better language, somehow more leisurely story-telling - than some modern, especially American, mystery writers. She died young and wasn't perfect, but the few she published are worth reading and hard to get from a library.
5 people found this helpful
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Khirul
5.0 out of 5 stars Very civilized but fast-paced detection
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2014
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Bowers is certainly among the more lady-like of mystery writers. The plot is intelligent and well worked out, the characters credible, the clues are all given honestly, and the denouement is surprising.
2 people found this helpful
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P. L. Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Book by a Good Author
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2023
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Dorothy Bowers was a wonderful Golden Age author who died too soon, leaving only a handful of mystery novels as her legacy. I have enjoyed them all except for this one. It was flat and dull. None of the characters (including Bowers' regular sleuths) developed any personality or character. Frankly, you end up not caring "who dunnit." Nor is it a surprise when you do.
While I can recommend Bowers' work, I can recommend you skip this one.
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SusanHAH
4.0 out of 5 stars Wicked step-grandmother (1938 : Bowers)
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2019
Once upon a time (the late 1930's), in the peaceful old cathedral city of Minsterbridge, only 30 miles from London, but seemingly in a different world, there lived, with her two step-granddaughters, a rich, selfish, domineering old woman named Cornelia Lackland. In her heyday (the 1880's) she had been Cornelia Crown, a famous, even infamous, beauty, adored by the public and kept in style by a succession of wealthy lovers. Approaching 40 and feeling the need for a more secure income, she had married one of them, John Lackland, successful businessman. widower. and father of three small children. The children grew up to disappoint their father, the son by by getting himself killed in a drunken brawl at Cambridge, the two daughters by choosing to elope with inappropriate, improvident young men.

The daughters also died early, each leaving a daughter of her own. Their father never forgave them, but, as guardian to his two granddaughters, determined that they should be raised under strict supervision to prevent any repetition of their mothers' sins. While the girls were still young, he too died, leaving his widow Cornelia with absolute power over their fates. They are not to seek employment or marry without her consent; it is never to be revealed to them that, after Cornelia's death, all their grandfather's wealth will be theirs. Now young women, they are virtually slaves to Cornelia's every whim; with little else to do, Cornelia amuses herself by making them as miserable as she possibly can. All this power has turned her into a monster.

Recently confined to her bed by a long and serious illness, Cornelia makes a remarkable recovery. She is eagerly awaiting permission from her doctor (and closest confidant) to come downstairs again, where she can exercise more control. It has come to her notice that, in her absence, one of the granddaughters has invited a young man (even worse, an actor) to dinner. One of her favorite games has to do with changing her will: she has led the girls to believe she can punish them, if she wishes, by leaving them penniless. But she never makes it downstairs again; she is poisoned in her bed the night before.

Its story may have ancient roots (remember Snow White and Cinderella), but this novel is well written, cleverly plotted, credible, and suspenseful. The cathedral town setting is effective: the religious, law-abiding citizens, a little embarrassed at the necessity of having a police force at all; the fine old house that has become the scene of so much bitterness; the hot, humid summer days making the stifling atmosphere even more unbearable, culminating in a fatal storm. The Minsterbridge police are themselves uneasy around murder, especially within a wealthy family, so call for assistance from Scotland Yard in the person of thorough, efficient Chief Inspector Pardoe. Still, even he can't prevent a second murder.
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Leyla Sheehan-gruarin
5.0 out of 5 stars SHAME SHE ONLY WROTE 5 BOOKS
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2013
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Wonderful page turner!! I really didn't know who did it until the last few pages!! Bowers would be as famous as Christie had she lived longer. Highly recommended Golden Age mystery!
2 people found this helpful
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hola
3.0 out of 5 stars An average 1930s mystery
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2019
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I love Dorothy Sayers & other authors of the so-called golden age of mysteries, so when I read about this author, I immediately ordered all 4 of her books: she is not anything like Sayers - nor most of the others,in this group - & her mysteries are average at best. She plays fair, so fair I figured out the who well before she defined the why, and her plot is somewhat torturous. The dectective is okay, he does what he's supposed to. My main problem with all these books is they have almost exactly the same plots, only different ways to kill, different motives & obviously different killers/victims. She does write clearly & the ambience is accurate to the period. I doubt I could have guessed the author would basically repeat the same plot 4 times without buying all 4 books, so there is that. However, knowing what I know now, I would have bought one, just because I love the period & the wonderful mysteries that came out.
One person found this helpful
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M. Poller
5.0 out of 5 stars golden age
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2006
Written in the fairplay school of detection with characters fully delineated. It was a joy to read because it was written just before WW2 and certainly has all the flavor from that period. I'm just sorry this author died so young before she had a chance to write more as she certainly had a gift for it.
14 people found this helpful
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B
3.0 out of 5 stars Postscript to Poison
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2013
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This book was recommended by a Cozy Book site. I could not obtain it via the library system so ordered it from Amazon. It came timely and was easy to read.
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ceric7
4.0 out of 5 stars Better than many by the Queens of Crime
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2019
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Dorothy Bowers is a new author to me, and, on the strength of reading this, I am regretful that her life was ended by tuberculosis after she wrote only five novels, now republished by Black Heath.

The set-up seemed "Golden-Age-conventional", with an unpleasant step-grandmother, a huge fortune tied up in a restrictive will, two potential heiresses, a strange companion, a handsome doctor, a glamorous film actor, and murder in a country town. However, the writing is excellent and the characterisation vivid, although some of the descriptive passages verge on the pretentious and sometimes slow down the plot.

I enjoyed this mystery tremendously, despite spotting the perpetrator(s) early on. Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe is interesting, and very good at his job. It is here, in the proper use of professional policemen and in the superiority of her prose, that Bowers outdoes some of the more widely-known Queens of Crime.

Highly recommended.

4.5 stars
2 people found this helpful
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RTB
3.0 out of 5 stars Conventional but superior puzzle mystery, in a pleasing style, marred by some poor drama at the end
Reviewed in Australia on December 17, 2020
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Bowers wrote only five novels before her death from TB in 1948. This was her first, published in 1938. It is a fair play puzzler on a very conventional design: a domineering matriarch, given to fiddling, or threatening to fiddle, with her will is murdered by poisoning. The police, primarily in the form of Inspector Pardoe and his foil, Sergeant Salt, investigate.

Bowers was a technically accomplished writer. She had a particular flair, or at least a bent, for scenic description, and she gives this full rein here. To take an example …
‘Day melded reluctantly into a night almost as warm, which with the generous luminosity of high summer, folded Minsterbridge in a veil that could scarcely be called deeper than dusk. Creeping vapours from the river promised again a sun-steeped world tomorrow. Sound gradually declined to the long hush that is never soundless. Now and again from the pastures came the desolate cry of a sheep, emphasizing the silence, it broke like the ripples of a flung stone which shatters the mirror of a pond.
‘In St Michael’s square the shadows welled and melted into one shadow. A thin breeze rose …’

And so it goes for a further couple of hundred words. Whatever one may think of this kind of thing, and arguably there is nothing inherently wrong with it that the excision of the odd adjective and adverb would not cure, one must question its relevance in a detective mystery. But it is not a major drawback. The reader unable to accept these passages as interludes can skim over them relatively painlessly while losing nothing.

Bowers puts her literary powers to more fitting use in her descriptions of the mannerisms and attitudes of her characters. As is to be expected where there are lots of suspects and a murder puzzle to assemble and solve in a couple of hundred pages, there is not much time for character development. Nevertheless the characters as drawn have a solidity and individuality, a presence, not often to be found in the work of golden age writers. This is a cut above the affectations and shop window tableaux and theatrical poses that pass for characterization in Sayers and Christie, and a long way removed from the cardboard cutouts that Crofts and others shuffle about.

Nor do Bowers’ descriptions necessarily tend to the ornate. For instance, the discovery of the body of the second victim is described with a surprising economy and directness, but is nonetheless genuinely affecting.

Occasionally readers may find themselves having to re-read a sentence to ascertain that they have correctly understood its meaning. But, despite what some may think, it is no bad thing to have to concentrate on what one is reading.

There is thorough-going fair play. At all times the reader has exactly the same information as Pardoe. And the puzzle is good. Almost everyone is suspect. It is possible to make an informed guess at the murderer, but it will be an astute reader who manages to assemble the clues to establish their guilt, motive, and the details of the commission of the crime.

There are criticisms that can be made of things other than Bowers’ tendency to lapse into nature writing. Most are minor. For example, the premise on which the plot partly rests, that the beneficiaries of a reversionary interest under a will can be kept in ignorance of their status as beneficiaries until the holder of the life interest dies, is false. Wills (once proven) are public documents. (There are such things as secret trusts that might obviate this, but no such device is employed here.) Similarly, the literary quotations that head each chapter do not add anything, and are not even particularly to the point. They are cheap ornaments.

A more serious defect is that the climax of the story is a contrived, unconvincing, and thin piece of melodrama that is not only unnecessary for the plot but also bears little demonstrative relationship to it. It occupies the last half of the penultimate chapter (before the obligatory ending where Pardoe explains the solution) and it could have been (and should have been) quite simply excised from the book. As it stands, it is lazy work that spoils what is otherwise a fine example of a puzzle mystery.
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Adsl
3.0 out of 5 stars Pour les fans de Sayers et de Golden Age
Reviewed in France on January 8, 2015
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Comme je le dit dans le titre, si vous n'êtres pas ces deux genres, réflechissez bien avant d'acheter. Attention, n'achetez pas si votre niveau d'anglais est médiocre, car les mots que l'auteur a utilisé sont un peu durs.
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Mr. A.J. PENDLEBURY
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful reissue. High quality writing here.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2019
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After Black Heath Classic Crime did reissues of Donald Henderson last year ,I felt that they had moved their list to a higher level and with this series they have strengthened that position . Although this may seem like another simple case of murder and nasty families ,the strength in the writing and the characterisations puts it on a much better plane.

There are no silly amateurs ...the highly professional CID officers have no irritating mannerisms. There are no lengthy and repetitive descriptions of endless coffee making . There are some nasty people in this book and the prose makes sure one is aware of all their faults . The clueing is totally fair and I really think some of this writing puts to shame some of the " bigger name " writers.

In some respects I am reminded that Bowers was in a similar place as the equally wonderful Harriet Rutland ( 3 books ) and Elizabeth Gill ( 3 books ) . It's quality not necessarily quantity. Finally this is all available at a bargain price.
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SaggyBaggyGrumpy
3.0 out of 5 stars Ok for a rainy day
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2019
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Fairly enjoyable read although the prose is on the purple side. I assumed the obvious clues as to the identity of the killer were red herrings. They weren't. Passed the time though.
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