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Title:
The
Case of the Canterfell Codicil
Series:
Anty Boisjoly
#1
Author:
Phillip
Fitzsimmons
Rating:
3.5
of 5 Stars
Genre:
Mystery
Pages:
164
Words:
56K
Publish:
2020
Two
years ago Swords and Spectres reviewed a book called “The
Case of the Canterfell Codicil” and I thought it sounded
interesting. Which brings us to today, where I review said book and
let you know if I give it the Yay of Approval or the Nay of Vile
Disrepute. Long time readers of the blog, along with the more
astute, will have figured out that I put the overall rating in the
title, so there’s not really much of a mystery about which way I
decided to go. There’s a reason why I don’t write mystery novels
for a living ;-)
This is very much in the writing style of PG Wodehouse and takes place in Great Britain in the 1920’s’ish, so the setting will be familiar to all that author’s loyal fans. Anty is no Jeeves but he’s also no Bertie Wooster. I’d say Anty is the misbegotten spawn of the forbidden love child of Miss Marple and Bertie Wooster. So he’s smart as a whip but hides it behind a facade of idiotness. It works well and is quite amusing. However, Fitzsimmons is no Wodehouse and in this book, the humor hits the runway, but it’s a bouncy, uneven landing with a bit of skidding here and there before the plane stops. I dinged a half star for that. That might seem harsh, but if an author is going to try to emulate Wodehouse, he knows what he’s getting into and he’d better stick the landing. Fitzsimmons doesn’t. It’s very close and I still enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I would have enjoyed Wodehouse himself.
This was very Golden Age Mystery just as it also wanted to be Wodehousian. I am not a Golden Age Mystery fan so I can’t even begin to say if Fitzsimmons nails the vibe or not.
And believe or not, there is an actual goat in the story. Not my usual “Dictator Xi Jinping humps” kind of imaginary goat, but a real life fake literary goat. Imagine that! I suspect Dictator Xi has written several fanfictions on AO3 about him and this goat though. But enough about Jinping and his imaginary goat harem.
Anty is a pretty easy name to pronounce. It is a nickname for Anthony and I understand that. But how in the would do you pronounce Boisjoly? This is supposed to be an Englishman, not a Frenchie. Thankfully, Anty addresses that early on and even gives us Americans a phonetic pronunciation guide. Boo-juh-lay. How you go from Boisjoly to Boojuhlay is beyond me, but I don’t make the rules. That being said, I still had to focus on saying Boojuhlay in my mind for about the first half of the book before it “stuck”. I wonder if I’ll have forgotten by the time I get to the second book, hahaahhaa.
Speaking of the next book. There are 11 books, so far, in the series and I think I’ll stick with them. So be prepared for the further adventures of Anty Boisjoly!
★★★✬☆
From Bookstoogepedia
Anty Boisjoly is known for solving problems. So when Anty’s old college chum, Fiddles, sees his uncle murdered (defenestrated you know), he calls upon good old Anty to solve the problem of who killed his uncle. Anty meets the police inspector in charge of the case on the train and goes off on the police, very 21st century like. This sets the tone between the two solvers of crime and of course Anty proves the smarter sleuth.
It was the son of the murdered man. But he’s not just content with offing his old dad but throws in his granddad as a treat. He has hired an American gun for hire, who happens to be a blindingly beautiful woman and who Fiddles falls in love with. Throw in a vast fortune, a forbidden love affair between Granddad and Mummy, some royalty and the fact that Anty just wants get back to London, well, you have this book.
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