Review: The Witching Hour

The Witching Hour by Catriona McPherson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So here we are, fifteen books and 16 years later from the first book featuring intrepid amateur sleuth Dandy Gilver and her platonic younger neighbour Alec Osbourne. When the first book started in the early 1920s at an Armistice Ball, England is now on the brink of WW2 in late Spring 1939 and Dandy is terrified for her sons who are both eager to enlist.

Dandy and her husband Hugh are hosting a dinner party for several of his friends and their wives, Dandy’s friend Daisy (who hosted the Armistice Ball in the first book with her husband Silas) is attending alone as the party clashes with her husband’s regimental dinner, or so she thinks until one of the other guests mentions the dinner was a few weeks ago. Silas is a notorious philanderer and daisy is suitably enraged and proceeds to get paralytic drunk.

Early the next morning, the household is awoken to the news that Silas has been found dead in the small Scottish village of Dirleton, and Dandy is informed that Daisy is missing from her bed and Dandy’s car is missing from the garage. Fearing the worst, Dandy and Alec set off to find Daisy, only to discover her unconscious in a ditch. The police are convinced Daisy must have killed Silas in a fit of rage, so Dandy and Alec must travel on to Dirleton to clear Daisy’s name.

Dirleton is a strange ancient Scottish village, on arrival many of the inhabitants they run into mistake them for a pair of researchers who have booked in at the local pub, taking advantage of the confusion Alec and Dandy try to decipher why Silas would have been in the village in the first place, did he have a lover, and if so who?

Things are odd right from the start, there's very much a 'I saw something nasty in the woodshed' vibe with people acting oddly and speaking in, well not riddles precisely but incomplete sentences. I also got a whiff of Village of the Damned. None of the clues make any sense. First a witness saw a woman kill Silas, then others say it was a tall man. Initially the death was said to be at midnight, 'the witching hour' but then the villagers tell Dandy that means three o'clock in the morning. What is the significance of the church ledgers? Silas' body was found on an ancient stone, which apparently had a dark history, was his death some kind of ritual?

I think I was well ahead of Dandy and Alec on some points, but I didn't identify the murderer. As always, the historical detail feels very authentic, although I am sorry that we couldn't stay in the 1920s for longer.

Another brilliant mystery, I love this duo so much, and darling Hugh with his stiff upper lip.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.


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