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Booklist review: Anthem for Doomed Youth

03/04/2011

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DCI Alec Fletcher receives a high-profile case with orders to solve it quickly and keep his wife, Daisy Dalrymple, away from the investigation. Since Daisy will be heading off to visit their daughter at her boarding school, this should not be a problem. Unfortuately, Daisy’s daughter, Belinda, and her friends encounter a body in the maze at the public garden, leaving Daisy and her friend Sakari Prasad to speculate about the murder and ponder whether it could be related to Alec’s case, which centers on the discovery of three bodies in Epping Forest. The victims all served in the same company during WWI, and their deaths may be related to wartime events. Dunn’s striking portrait of Daisy continues to remind readers that there were strong women with careers in England during the 1920s—and women who successfully balanced work and parenthood. As always, Dunn combines an entertaining story with fascinating historical material.

 — Barbara Bibel
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Reviews: Anthem for Doomed Youth

01/10/2011

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Now out in hardcover, Kindle and Nook

Kirkus: "amusing and sprightly"

Mysterious Women: "gripping and fascinating"

Publishers Weekly: Set in 1926, Dunn's enjoyable 19th Daisy Dalrymple mystery (after 2009's Sheer Folly) will please fans of traditional English whodunits. When the graves of three men turn up in Epping Forest, once a royal hunting preserve just outside London, Det. Chief Insp. Alec Fletcher, the lead investigator, is relieved that his wife, Daisy, along with her friends Melanie and Sakari, are away at their daughters' school for the weekend, so she won't be able to nose her way into the case. Later, Melanie's daughter discovers a dead teacher while lost in the medieval maze of Bridge End Garden. Leave it to clever Daisy to figure out that all the bodies are related to the Great War. The aristocratic but very modern Daisy makes a formidable amateur sleuth as she acts to stop more murders and get justice for the victims.
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This is the poem that gave me the title:

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH,
by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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Wilfred Owen was killed in action in France one week before the Armistice.
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