REVIEW: Misery Hates Company by Elizabeth Hobbs
A young woman is invited to a mysterious relative’s estate and winds up entangled in a murder investigation in this witty historical mystery that pits the gothic eeriness of Crimson Peak against the comic absurdities of Knives Out.
Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity would: she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate.
Marigold arrives at Hatchet Farm, a moldering, gothic pile of a house inhabited by relatives so mired in the sins of the past, they have no future. She sets out to modernize the recluses with a brisk, ruthless efficiency, but her well-intentioned plans to manage their lives lead to malice—and murder. Marigold spies a body floating in the stormy waters surrounding the island, and her suspicions immediately turn to her hostile, weapon-wielding relatives when one of the local girls turns up missing. And she might not be the only one.
When another dead body is found in the garden of the estate, Marigold finds herself accused. She must enlist the help of an eccentric, colorful cast of friends and found family to save herself—and everything she holds dear. As secrets are uncovered and lies exposed, the question of “who done it?” turns into “who didn’t do it?” and Marigold must face a truth that shatters her steely poise and shakes her very sense of self.
Dear Ms. Hobbs,
I think I need to mention something straight away. When I read and decided to request an arc for this book, the first sentence read “A young woman is invited to a mysterious relative’s estate and winds up entangled in a murder investigation in this witty historical mystery that pits the gothic eeriness of Crimson Peak against the comic absurdities of Cold Comfort Farm.” It was the bit about “Cold Comfort Farm” that reeled me in. Now I see that someone has decided to change that to “Knives Out” which, fair enough but the book really is much more like CCF. I’ve never watched Crimson Peak but after reading a plot synopsis, the use of this title in the blurb seems reasonable.
Miss Marigold Manners is a scion of an old Boston society family. She is also an orphan due to the sudden deaths of her parents from influenza. Expecting to inherit a tidy sum given the supposed wealth of the family, Marigold is informed by the lawyers that due to her profligate parents, there is nothing left. A dear friend invites Marigold to live with her but Marigold is a New Woman and loath to take the easy path. I admired Marigold for not wanting to leech off her wealthy friend. One year short of finishing her degree at Wellesley, Marigold has dreamed of becoming an archeologist and planned on taking part in a dig in Greece. Marigold will put her skills in looking at evidence and deducing “who, what, when, where, and why” from it, to use.
As in CCF, Marigold is invited to stay with relations whom she has never met but whom she is told, via a letter, “owe” her because of a wrong done to her mother. Marigold arrives on gloomy Great Misery Island and is, frankly, appalled at almost everything there. The family is clearly as odd and bizarre as the people in the small town across the Sound think them to be and the fact that the homestead is still standing is something of a miracle. Or maybe due to a lot of spit and baling wire.
How readers take to Marigold will depend on how much they like managing characters. She is clearly taken from the mold of Sophia Stanton-Lacy and Flora Poste. She is modern for her time, intelligent, well educated, and quickly sees beneath the outward camouflage of what people present to her. Or thinks she does. The inhabitants of Great Misery are just as astonished at Marigold as she is with them. But few are initially happy she came and not all of them are eventually happy at her interventions.
Marigold is adept at putting two and two together and realizing what is causing her relations to act as they do as well as devising solutions that will give them what they want. Her Boston friend (and would be swain) Cab (Jonathan Cabot Cox) mutters to her about her interference but Marigold shoots back that she is just facilitating things and giving her family the choice. After weeks there though, she still hasn’t learned what “great wrong” was done to her mother.
All along, there have been bits and pieces dropped about a missing woman, who turns up dead, and the possibility that there are more dead girls. The creepy atmosphere on the island gets creepier and finally a dead body appears. The list of people who wanted this person dead is wide but of course Marigold, with her interfering ways, is initially fingered for the crime. This is where the plot gets much, much darker. All the truly creepy elements are brought together to determine the murderer, the reasons for this murder, and what was done to the missing girls. Marigold finally (!) learns what the wrong done to her family is and it’s convoluted, sad, and one that truly reaches across generations.
Marigold learns not only things about her family’s past but more about herself. To say that all this shocks her is an understatement. And yet there she also remains true to a core element of herself. I was both pleased as well as frustrated about this. Most of the characters will probably alternately entertain and annoy readers. The book took awhile to fully engage me but once I was, I zipped through it to learn its secrets. Note though that this is more a historical fiction mystery despite the hints of romance. B
~Jayne
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On a slight tangent, I loved the movie of Cold Comfort Farm when I first saw it, but recently I watched it again and it no longer worked for me. I wonder if the book might, though.
@Janine: Do you mean this book or “Cold Comfort Farm?” Jennie did a review of it a while ago.
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/a-minus-reviews/review-cold-comfort-farm-by-stella-gibbons/
I meant Cold Comfort Farm, the novel (as opposed to the movie adaptation). Thanks for the link.