To Davy Jones Below: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery [Hardcover]

Daisy and her policeman fiance, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, have barely tied the knot, when Alec is informed that he will be sailing to America as soon as their brief honeymmon is over, in order to advise the Americans on how to organise and clean up their Invesgation Bureau of the Justice Department. Of course Alec will have to take Daisy with him -- it is the very prospect of six weeks without Daisy getting herself involved with any police investigations, that sells the Assisstant Commissionor on the idea of doing without him for a while! It has even been arranged for Daisy to do a series of articles on her trip to America. It all seems a little too good to be true -- a trip to America abroad the S.S. Talavera, accompanied by their good friends Philip and Gloria Petrie, and Gloria's millionaire father, Caleb P. Arbuckle! And that's what it proves to be. The first sign that things will not be smooth sailing is the news that Arbuckle's friend, Jethro Gotobed (another millionaire), has married his chorus-girl girlfriend. Arbuckle had hoped to wean Gotobed of the glorious Wanda's charms by inviting him to America. However Gotobed confounds Arbuckle's good intentions by rushing Wanda off her feet and marrying her. Everyone is appalled with this marriage, and even Daisy's rather proletariat leanings are challenged by Wanda's vulgarity.

Daisy and Alec however are firmly resolved to enjoy their extended honeymoon, but their plans suffer a setback as well when a passenger falls overboard, and another passenger, the giddy Lady Brenda, swears that she saw someone push the unfortunate Mr. Denton, into the sea. Upon learning that Alec is a police officer, the harassed ship captain, inveigles him to look into the matter. However Alec is by now suffering from a bout of sea sickness. This leaves Daisy to act as his deputy, and to discreetly interrogate the witnesses. The investigation seems to be going nowhere when another passenger (Mr. Pertwee) falls overboard. This time however Mr. Gotobed cries foul by claiming that Pertwee was shot before he fell overboard. Is there a maniac aboard, bent on throwing unsuspecting passengers into the sea? Or are the two 'accidents' connected? And if so how? Daisy and Alec are determined to get to the bottom of things before another passenger falls into the sea.

This entire series makes for highly enjoyable and entertaining light reading. The violence is minimal in the sense that Dunn does not go in for graphic and horrific detail, and her prose style is crisp and witty, ably capturing the spirit of the 1920s. Indeed there was quite a P. G. Woodehouse air about this particular mystery! And Carola Dunn has created a wonderfully engaging and charming investigative heroine in Daisy: it is Daisy's zest and keeness to help others, a tendency that frequently lands her in the middle of Alec's cases, that is the central force of this series and what makes it so compelling and engaging. "To Davy Jones Below" is a wonderfully cozy read, and great fun.

When the newlyweds board the Talevera, they expect an extension of their glorious honeymoon. However, that dream changes when someone is swept overboard and Lady Brenda insists he was pushed. The man is rescued, but two more individuals are pushed into the sea in what are deliberate murder attempts. Reluctantly, Alec leads the investigation with Daisy "assisting" him in her unorthodox manner.

TO DAVY JONES BELOW is an exciting mystery with enough romance so that the novel contains cross-genre appeal. All the key characters seem three- dimensional and the ship's population serves as a floating contained neighborhood. Carola Dunn paints a charming picture of life between the World Wars. It also provides the audience with a detailed glimpse into a bygone era that even then was slowly fading.

Harriet Klausner