Dying Flames
Robert Barnard
Scribner, 2005
Hardcover, first U.S. edition
ISBN 0-7432-7219-6
256 pages; $24.00

I look forward to a new Robert Barnard mystery every year. They are exquisite British miniatures, perfect examples of finely crafted English mysteries. The mysteries themselves are not unusually complex, particularly timely, or in any way sensational. They are simply solid, strongly written, excellent examples of the craft. Barnard has won the Cartier Diamond Dagger, Nero Wolfe, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards, and has been nominated for an Edgar eight times. This is a writer who can be counted on to produce a reliable few hours of entertainment to the dedicated mystery reader every year without fail.

Dying Flames is no exception to the Barnard rule. His protagonist, Graham Broadbent, is a well-known author who decides to attend a reunion of the boys’ school he attended. While he is in town a knock comes at his hotel room door, and an attractive nineteen-year-old woman, Christa, enters and declares that he is her father. This is news to him, though he does recall – quite vividly, in fact – having had a hurried affair with Christa’s mother, Peggy, a girl known for her exquisite acting in George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan. (Even an all-boys school had to bring in the occasional girl for some degree of verisimilitude.) Graham is able to eliminate himself from the fatherhood sweepstakes with some swift arithmetical calculations, but his curiosity is piqued.

As luck would have it, Graham’s former sweetheart, who did in fact become pregnant at just about the time of their assignation, has discovered her long-lost son, whom she gave up for adoption. Peggy has concluded, with no evidence but timing and an apparent hope that some of Graham’s rather minimal celebrity will rub off, that Graham must be the father. She arranges a celebratory dinner at which she makes the grand announcement of Graham’s paternity to her adult son – who, to everyone’s surprise, rejects it vehemently and with a great deal of genuine anger. The children Peggy has brought up inside a couple of failed marriages are also at least a bit non-plussed; though they are pretty much used to her fabulations after many years of dramatics, the son she has raised from birth is at least a bit put-out over the fuss made over this “long-lost” fellow.

No one is particularly surprised when Peggy goes missing immediately after this disastrous dinner, especially when she leaves behind a note indicating that she’s gone off with some bloke. Apparently this isn’t an unusual event. As the days go by and no one hears from her, however, it appears that something more sinister has occurred. Graham basically takes over as surrogate father to Peggy’s younger children, surprising himself with the depth of his affection for them. But things cannot glide along forever this way, and Peggy’s disappearance must be solved. Many things could have gone wrong – as many as the people who wished Peggy ill. In the true manner of an English mystery, things gently and reasonably unravel themselves, with the clues piling up until a conclusion is inescapable.

This is at least Barnard’s 39th book, and I’ve read them all. With every new one, I fear that it’s the last, and he will decide to rest on his laurels. Here’s hoping that there will be many more to follow in the wake of Dying Flames; if all future books give as much pleasure as this one, we all have many fine hours of reading ahead of us.