My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
A nice cozy mystery for those looking for pure entertainment.
The authors are an American and an Englishman, both are used to writing for cinema and TV and we see it here, in fact, both the plot and the dialogues, and the scenes are typical of brilliant detective comedies, where action, humor and great feeling between 2 partners mix in a well balanced way.
Harry and Kat, spouses very much in love and with a past as spies during the First World War, are traveling on the Train Blue that will take them on a mission-holiday on the French Riviera, the renowned Côte d'Azur.
Once they arrive, Harry's aunt asks them to help an old friend of her who is involved in a nasty and indecorous case of blackmail.
We are in the 30s and of course, as in the best Hollywood couple films of those years, here too we have a husband and wife who are handsome, rich highly intelligent, and smarter than any other villain or operative agent. Of course they are madly in love and practically perfect as a couple.
The compliment of a partner in love and the funny joke (classics of the infallible protagonists) are served with regular cadence without being too many and too few.
So if you have ever seen The Thin Man movies ( starring William Powell and Myrna Loy ) and you were a fan ( and the movies were far better than the books ), you'll be not disappointed by this series ( Mydworth Mysteries).
If you are younger and have never seen the old black and white movies, perhaps you might have seen the '80s TV series " Hart to Hart " where the protagonists are equally 2 handsome, rich and very much in love spouses, naturally smart and intelligent ... this is to give you an idea of the protagonists of this book.
The book is not as long as a novel, but not as short as novellas usually are, therefore it is readable in a short time, but it is more enjoyable than a short story.
The writing is smooth, the atmosphere light and fully describes the sparkling air that reigns in the luxurious vacation spots of the 1930s.
If everything is so perfect, then why have I only gave 3.5 ( necessarily rounded to 4 )?
1)__ Because it's "everything too perfect" and if I liked this as a young girl, now in adulthood this bothers me.
I've probably lost my ability to dream of perfection, which clearly doesn't exist.
2)__ Also the book picks up on the usual clichés and while the first 'obvious suspect' was found to be only half guilty, the second 'obvious suspect' was the real villain behind the blackmail.
---> Recommended for fans of cozy mysteries and for those seeking leisure, light reading with pure entertainment, without strong emotions or important historical references.
( Warning : English is not my mother tongue, I hope you have managed to understand the meaning of what I wanted to express, sorry for form or grammatical errors.)
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