War Damage

August 31, 2009
Like Wilson's The Twilight Hour (2007), also set in post-WWII London, this whodunit suffers from an ordinary plot and less-than-convincing characterizations. Shortly after Freddie Buckingham attends a house party thrown by writer and socialite Regine Milner, he's murdered on Hampstead Heath. The police investigation naturally leads them to Regine, her husband, Neville, and their guests. Neville uses his status as Buckingham's executor as justification for entering the dead man's rooms in advance of the authorities, where the couple discovers that some indelicate photographs are missing. Regine's withholding of information from the authorities, which parallels the actions of Dinah Wentworth, the socialite heroine of The Twilight Hour, places her in predictable difficulties. A police detective sergeant, whose over-the-top infatuation with Regine compromises him personally, adds little. The absence of a compelling puzzle isn't compensated for by any particular insights into postwar London society.