The Pew Group by Anthony Oliver
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
This genial whodunit was the 1980 debut novel of an art historian who was an expert in pottery. Oliver literally wrote the book on The Victorian Staffordshire Figure. Before his early death in the late Eighties, he wrote four mysteries, in which he used his knowledge of the business and obsession of collecting antique pottery.
More lust and bawdy couplings than is usual in a cozy mystery do lead to lapses in taste. However, far outweighing this quibble is that this is a genuinely British comic mystery. That is, it features eccentric characters in the English village of Flaxfield, an irrepressible Welshwoman, and a scamp of an Irish tinker. Other funny characters in the Dickensy tradition include a vicar that does spend awful lot of time in conservations with the Creator; a randy spinster; a widow who got that way through murder; gay partners in an antique shop, one of whom is nicknamed “Betsey” Trotwood; and an American millionaire who’s mad about a fabulously valuable Staffordshire figurine called The Pew Group.
The Pew Group goes missing during a wake, which in my English is the feasting and drinking held after the funeral and burial, not the vigil held at the bedside of somebody who has died. Inspector Webber, born in Flaxfield, has returned there for a rest cure and a vacation from a shaky marriage. He teams up with Mrs. Thomas, the incorrigible woman from Cardiff, to identify the thief.
In the first quarter or so of the book the tone is more tetchy and acerbic than I like. The waspishness brought to my mind Robert Barnard, whom I don’t read anymore because his parodies of the conventions of the cozy mystery seem mean-spirited. However, to my relief, Oliver’s tone got more amiable as the book went on. It’s more in the English spirit to be nice, as this reader is totally down with Big Bang Theory Bernadette’s motto, “Being mean is lame, what’s cool is being nice!”
Oliver is a clever, imaginative, and first-rate storyteller. I highly recommend this literate mystery.
