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Part for a Poisoner takes a while to get started. The setting is familar: old rich Uncle James Marchment disturbs the family's expectations and his housekeeper's peace of mind when he gets engaged to his nurse, the frosty redhead Jean Dellaton. Mrs Cobbin, the new char, identifies Dellaton with Nurse Blunt, who was involved in a mysterious death some years before: so when Uncle James pops off, the family is ready to make accusations. Genteel Chief Inspector Macdonald pops over from the Yard with his cheerful Cockney offsider Inspector Jenkins, and eventually sorts the matter out.

It's all quite readable and the mystery of Mrs Cobbin adds a little extra depth, but the late entry of the murderer and the slow progress in the investigation eventually got on this reader's nerves. Macdonald is a little too upper-class and his method of waiting for inspiration puts him into the intuitive superman class along with Superintendent Gently and the very similar Roderick Alleyn. The solution is clear from about the three-quarter mark, but that doesn't make it any less incredible. For once the stereotypical wicked nurse is depicted with sympathy, but that doesn't compensate for the static plot.

A fair attempt but a long way from being a classic.

Jon.

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