Bridesmaids Revisited – Dorothy Cannell

Ellie Haskell is at something of a loose end – her lovely husband, chef Ben, has taken their three children to an old-fashioned holiday camp for a week, where they’ll live as though it’s still the 1940’s, and Ellie has only their eccentric helpmeet, Roxie Malloy, for company. When Ellie receives a letter from Rosemary Maywood it comes completely out of the blue – Ellie hasn’t though of Rosemary, or her friends Thora and Jane, in years. Companions of her maternal grandmother, Ellie’s mother always referred to them collectively as ‘the bridesmaids.’ According to Rosemary, Ellie’s maternal grandmother Sophia wants to speak with her. The only problem is that Sophia, like Ellie’s own mother, died while her daughter was still a child.
The heroine of several other cosy mysteries, Ellie is an engaging character with a ready wit and amusing outlook. Cannell paints deft word pictures – her use of deft dialogue to convey character is very good:

Gwen pressed her hand to her brow and I watched her grow skinnier and more wan with every breath she drew. “The whole thing has me stressed to the point where I can’t put my mind to getting a three-course lunch on the table.” She swayed on her high heels. “We’ll just have to make do with a madras lamb curry and saffron rice followed by a fresh fruit salad and perhaps some of the Florentine biscuits I get at Harrods.”
“Please don’t think I came expecting lunch.” I followed her past one hideous monstrosity of furniture after another down the hall.
“Oh, that is good of you, Ellie. Because I’m just not up to
laying another place. I felt exhausted spreading the Irish linen cloth on the dining-room table.”

Cannell is clearly a lover of gothic writing – Ellie not only stays in an old house with secret passageways but reads Secrets of the Crypt, a novel (almost certainly self-published, Ellie thinks) in which “every other line contain[s] a cliché dear to the gothic-lover’s heart,” a book referenced several times both in terms of content and form.
Until recently I hadn’t read a Cannell novel for ages, and though I found Ellie (and Cannell’s voice) accessible, the plot was people with a large cast of carrying ages that I found hard to keep straight. The rare chunk of exposition actually helped a little, but I wasn’t interested in unravelling the mystery, and stayed the course primarily because of Ellie. In fairness I think some of this was due to my preoccupation, but my confusion would have been diminished with the presence of a family tree, as known by Ellie when she started out (thereby preserving any secrets integral to the plot). I’ll visit Cannell’s universe again, but not until my life simplifies enough that I can devote more attention to intricacies of plotting. - Alex