Bleeding Hooks

By Harriet Rutland

They grabbed their fishing bags, and made a dive for their rods which were standing, ready for use, outside the front door.'Well, tight lines!' they called over their shoulders.'Bleeding hooks!' grinned the Major.Gladys ‘Ruby’ Mumsby was more interested in fishermen than fish. When her corpse is discovered near a Welsh sporting lodge that is hosting a group of fly fishing enthusiasts, it seems one of them has taken an interest in her too - of the murderous kind. For impaled in the palm of her hand is a salmon fishing fly, so deep that the barb is completely covered. Her face is blue. It is thought at first she died of natural causes, but the detective Mr. Winkley, of Scotland Yard, almost immediately suspects otherwise. And what happened to the would-be magician’s monkey that disappeared so soon after Mrs. Mumsby’s death? Bleeding Hooks was the second of Harriet Rutland’s sparkling mystery novels to feature the detective Mr Winkley. First published in 1940, this new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.‘Once again a top-ranking yarn, in a story where the author introduces murder into a fishing paradise in Wales. Lots of rod and line marginalia add to incisive characterization and well hidden crime for a superior story.’ Kirkus Reviews'Murder method interesting, characters well drawn and likeable, sleuth unobtrusively slick and finish dramatic.' Saturday Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dean Street Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910570838

Reviews for Bleeding Hooks

[brokentune · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well, this was very middle of the road and the weakest of Rutland's three books. However, the ending - if you can call it that - made me laugh. I had issues with this book from very early on, which started with the description of Mrs Mumsby: while she was a deeply unpleasant and greedy a.f. character, this was very often described in terms of her being fond of food and fat. So, much so that it seemed like a necessary correlation. Of course, I'm reading this in a different time and can say that - on behalf of those of us who are fond of food and fat - corpulence does not mean that a character is a horrible person. There was also the use of the "Chinaman" or person with "foreign" looks as the exotic, but I glanced over this as this was a Golden Age mystery and it was not actually used (that I noticed) as a derogatory feature. What I did like about the story was that it was unusual in telling of a father who single-handedly raised his son from 6 months of age. That's not something that happens often in a GA mystery, especially in that it even mentions that he resisted the recommendations of giving the boy into care. I liked that. What really made me laugh and annoyed me in both measures, however, was the ending. Was this really an ending? I won't say more about it but it turned a 2* read into a 3* read for me. Overall, tho, it is very sad that Rutland never wrote any more books and we only get to see her wicked sense of humour in the three books that are left to us and that, thankfully, Dean Street Press have taken the trouble to bring back into print.