translated by Alexandra Fleming
Wuthering weather, psychological disorders, and questions of parentage bedevil the characters in two new mysteries from England and Sweden. Together, they demonstrate convincingly that what worked for the Brontës still works today, while the more methodical style of a classic 1952 whodunit set in New England shows why it’s considered the granddaddy of the present-day police procedural.
Pelting rain and howling wind greet three women in Gilly Macmillan’s The Long Weekend after they arrive at Northern England’s most depressing renovated barn, which they’ve rented for a getaway weekend with their husbands, who are due later. The King Lear–worthy tempest is a prelude to the nightmare to come, and a note propped up against a bottle of Veuve Clicquot on a kitchen table informs the women that by the time they’ve read it, the author will have killed one of their husbands.
