Lead Review
- Book: Murder On Mustique
- Location: Mustique
- Author: Anne Glenconner
This is our one and only (so far) novel set on Mustique, a private island, well known for its association with the rich and famous. So this novel was a must-read for TripFiction.
Mustique is a bastardisation of the French word mosquito, so the island does have its down sides. Princess Margaret often spent time there and Mick Jagger owns a house or two. Bryan Ferry is a keen visitor, Daphne Guinness was a regular. It is small, merely 2.2 square miles and has a regular population of around 500 people. Apart from fabulous villas, there is the Cotton House which gets a good mention in the novel and legendary Basil’s Bar, a landmark destination for cocktails. The setting is ripe for a grisly murder or two.
In the opening pages, Amanda Fortini, heiress to a coffee dynasty, is swimming in the clear waters when it seems she is mown down by a speedboat. She disappears and her friend Lily is beside herself. Lily’s godmother Lady Veronica (Lady Vee to friends, staff and neighbours) is due to arrive on the island from London anyway because a surprise party for Lily is on the horizon and needs her final touches. (When Lily’s mother died, Lady Vee took over the parenting and thus the two have a strong bond).
It is mooted that Lily’s jilted boyfriend, Tommy Rothmore (only a few letters removed from Rothermere or Rothschild, I note) might be in the frame – he is similarly a young man of considerable wealth. As more bodies turn up, Lady Vee, the self styled “tropical Miss Marple“, is in her element alongside DS Solomon Nile. ‘Calling cards’ of coral are left at the various scenes, etched with Obeah symbols (Obeah is a system of spiritual healing and justice-making practices developed among enslaved West Africans in the West Indies). Lily is working to preserve the coral, so there MUST be a link.
The book is set in September 2002. Princess Margaret was buried earlier in the year and Lady Vee, just like the author, was her actual Lady-in-Waiting. Here’s the thing: the author has imbued parts of her character with herself, and consequently the author doesn’t give herself the luxury of licence and distance to create a character who is unique and separate from herself. This makes her character’s persona feel at times stilted, unsure of who she is meant to be. There are several mentions of Princess Margaret in the text which just didn’t really add anything apart from acting as a reminder that this is an island of glamour and famous names (in fact the author’s husband owns/owned the island).
I first came across the author on The Graham Norton Show (honestly, it’s worth a watch!). She explains how her husband – on her honeymoon in Paris – didn’t have the words to initiate her into marital relations, so he did the ‘obvious’ thing (really?) and, rather than take her out to dinner at The Ritz, took her to a brothel where a couple demonstrated the intricacies for her, inviting her to join in. The author is clearly a woman of pluck, fortitude, resilience (you would need that, I imagine, if you were married to old Etonian Colin Tennant) and humour, and these attributes just didn’t really translate into the book. The responses to scary and traumatic events are rather measured (emotionally stunted might be another way of putting it) – for example, a house is on fire and Vee and the policeman rush up: “My sister could be in there” mutters Wesley. Mutters? MUTTERS? Where’s screaming? Shouting? Exclaiming, even! Multiple ghastly events just don’t seem to have normal human reactions in the book, it all feels quite reigned in. There is a mixture of first person and third person narrative and the transitions between the two can be a little unclear.
As the book comes to its conclusion and the perpetrator is – or perpetrators are – revealed, the pathos is revved up by the arrival of Storm Cristobel and there is a crashing crescendo of waves and wind to serenade the denouement.
I think overall this is a novel that somehow needs tightening, as it can ramble and repeat. It does, of course, have a wonderful setting and it is probably the nearest most of will get to experience the playground of the elite.
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