Unravelled Knots: The Teahouse Detective by Emmuska OrczyMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
DNF at 35%.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my favourite novels so when I saw a book by Baroness Orczy available on NetGalley for request I immediately clicked the button.
This is very different to The Scarlet Pimpernel, set in the post World War One era this is a series of short stories featuring 'The Man in the Corner' who sits fidgeting with a piece of string in a teashop in Fleet Street, London and expounds his theories on various unsolvable mysteries of the day including thefts of a valuable painting, locked-room murders, stolen jewels and murdered Russian Princes. In the strain of Hercules Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, the teahouse detective can solve mysteries that baffle the Police.
I read the first five short stories (of 13) but I found the teahouse detective's solutions to be no more plausible than others, particularly in The Mystery of the Russian Prince, and the casual racism of the era was distasteful to read, eg referring to a Jewish woman having 'the mistrust of her race for everything that is frivolous and thriftless'.
Overall, I wasn't engaged by the character, the plots or the writing, I much prefer Dorothy L Sayers or even Georgette Heyer for 1920s/1930s detective mysteries, and I gave up after five short stories.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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