Mrs Mohr Goes Missing: 'An ingenious marriage of comedy and crime.' Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

By Maryla Szymiczkowa

‘An ingenious marriage of comedy and crime.’ Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

‘The sprightly narrative and vivid evocation of turn-of-the-century Poland make for an enjoyable tale.’ Guardian

‘It’s fun and sparky and the glimpse of turn-of-the-century Polish manners and mores is beguiling.’ Daily Mail

‘The story fuses high comedy with an evocative portrayal of the period.’ Sunday Express

For fans of The Thursday Murder Club and Frank Tallis's Vienna Blood comes the thrilling opener to a new Agatha Christie-style mystery series set in Poland

Cracow, 1893. Desperate to relieve her boredom and improve her social standing, Zofia Turbotynska decides to organise a charity raffle. In a bid to recruit the patronage of elderly aristocratic ladies, she visits Helcel House, a retirement home run by nuns.

But when two of the residents are found dead, Zofia discovers that her real talents lie in solving mysteries.

Inspired by Agatha Christie and filled with period character and zesty charm, series opener Mrs Mohr Goes Missing vividly recreates life in turn-of-the-century Poland, confronting a range of issues from class prejudice to women's rights, and proves that everyone is capable of finding their passion in life, however unlikely that passion may seem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Point Blank
• Release date: Mar 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781786075444

Maryla Szymiczkowa

MARYLA SZYMICZKOWA is a pseudonym for partners Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczyński. Dehnel is the award-winning author of numerous books, including the novels Lala and Saturn and the poetry collection Aperture. Tarczyński is a translator and historian. They live in Warsaw, and the Zofia Turbotyńska Mysteries are their first shared project.

Reviews for Mrs Mohr Goes Missing

[ozzer_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Complex plotting follows the genre to a satisfying resolution. It is probably a bit too complex to follow easily, especially with all of the unusual character and place names.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This should be entertaining enough, a detective comedy of manners set in 1893 Cracow. But it isn't. There's something about the tone that feels sneering throughout. It makes fun of Zofia almost throughout. She is married to a professor and takes every advantage of his position, she's a social climber. But that doesn't excuse the edge to this, it didn't feel as if it was affectionately taking the mick.

[charon07 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A charming little cozy mystery, and an interesting glimpse of Polish culture at the turn of the last century.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Poland is not often the country we in the US think of when we think of European countries. But it has a rich and varied history, including being partitioned by Russia, Austria, and Germany (Prussia) from 1795-1918, wiping its very existence off the map. In fact, Cracow in 1893 was very diverse in population and complicated politically and religiously, at least in part because of this partition. The authors behind the pen name Maryla Szymiczkowa have written a Golden Age inspired mystery set in this very complex time and place in Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing, the first in a new series.Zofia Turbotynska is a professor's wife. She's a busybody, a gossip, and a raging snob. And she has nothing better to do with her time than to push her unambitious husband's career forward, ingratiate herself as high up in society as she can, and hire and fire maids. She decides that she should run a charity raffle, intending to ask the nuns at the local church run retirement home for contributions from their residents and to get a countess at the home to head up the effort with her in order to give the raffle benefitting scrofulous children the social cachet it needs. But when she arrives at Helcel House to propose her plan, things are all aflutter, a resident having gone missing. Curious and intrigued, Zofia is the driving force behind finding Mrs. Mohr's body but when the little old woman's death is ruled natural causes, Zofia does not agree. And when a second resident is discovered murdered in her bed, Zofia jumps into an unofficial investigation with both feet, pursuing it personally as well as with the help of her cook Franciszka and of her wide net of social contacts giving her entre into places she should never be allowed.Zofia is not an entirely likeable character and that, combined with the slow pace of the novel, makes it hard to get fully engaged with the story. The mystery of whodunit itself is quite complex and convoluted although Zofia's strong determination, she's really a force of nature, leaves no doubt that she will be able to collect all the information she needs to prove her case dramatically in an unveiling scene worthy of the greats. Where this novel really shines is not so much the mystery though as in its examination of class in nineteenth century Cracow, the look into the political climate of the time and its recent, bloody past, the confounding complexities of proper etiquette and society, and the rich and detailed historical setting itself. Zofia is smart and deductive and always (irritatingly) convinced of her own superiority. Her keeping her sleuthing from her dear husband Ignacy is rather entertaining but humor at his expense helps make Zofia just that slightest bit more endurable. Even the other characters all seem to find her to be a pill. Zofia's character and the byzantine twists and turns of the mystery (rarely shared with the reader until Zofia's grand reveal in the end) keep this from being the unreserved pick that the fascinating historical situation of Cracow would have made it and I doubt I'll pick up any more in the series but it was a decent enough read.