A Coat of Varnish: A Mystery

by C.P. Snow

A brutal murder shakes the tranquility of Aylestone Square, an upperclass section of London

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, British Literature, Novels

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Known British scientist Charles Percy Snow, baron Snow of Leicester, wrote especially his 11-volume series Strangers and Brothers (1940-1970).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow

Reviews

[Olga · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slowly unfolding procedural is not a typical crime story. It is rather the author's study of the life of the upper class (the inhabitants of Belgravia in London) in Britain in the 1970s of the 20th century. And soon enough you stop following the investigation and start following the main characters' lives and their relationships.

[Gerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel rather guilty in giving a book by such an exalted writer as C P Snow just two stars but this supposed detective novel was just so dull and the characters so unmemorable that it took great effort to finish it. And as for a detective novel, it does have a murder but it lacks any definite conclusion as there is no murderer mentioned, thus no arrest. 'A Coat of Varnish' is more a novel of society and manners set in London's Belgravia than a mystery novel. It could be said that the main mystery is the title but within the sometimes turgid and rather boring text one finds, 'Civilisation is hideously fragile, you know that. There's not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just about a coat of varnish, wouldn't you say?' So there it is!

It is rather stylishly written, this being the reason it is elevated to two stars rather than the one star that I at first considered. Set in the gloriously hot summer of 1976 the life and activity in a fashionable London square is well described, much more so than the mostly insipid characters of whom Humphrey Leigh and Tom Briers are the primary ones. The former is a retired police officer and the latter a serving one and their endless, and often boring, chats about practically anything, and occasionally about the murder of Lady Ashbrook, form a large portion of the novel. There is a mild suggestion that one of the characters had an unhealthy relationship with Lady Ashbrook that could have led to murder but here was not enough proof to do anything about it.

The other characters flit in and out without making much of an impression to such a degree that it was a chore to carry on reading it and it did take me an inordinate amount of time to get through the book. It did strike me as I ploughed my way through it that it could have matched Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' with either of the two sub-titles that adorned that book: 'Vanity Fair' began life as a serial publication with 'Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society' as a sub-title and then when the novel came out in book form that sub-title had changed to 'A Novel without a Hero'; either would have suited 'A Coat of Varnish'.

I must return to something by C P Snow that I can enjoy, perhaps his biography of Anthony Trollope in the hope that it is better than this offering.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very unusual mystery. Yes, a whodunnit question lingers for much of the novel but that isn't its most important aspect. In response to a murder, a collaboration develops between two investigators, one retired and one well established, but certainly more junior. The intricacies of their multi-layered relationship occupy much of their novel. Through the dominant narrator (Snow disturbingly and briefly switches narrative voice at different points), we obtain an intimate view of the emotional and thought processes that enter the solving of a mystery. The investigators are not magicians. They are flawed men with doubts and intense feelings that disrupt their own work. Yet, these pieces of humanity co-exist with other more transcendent elements, and therein lies the conflict that keeps the novel marching on. Read this book not for plot, but for character.

[Sten Maulsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this in my forties. I have finished it fort he third time in my mid-sixties. It grows with each reading. The picture of reality, largely shown through the balance and comparison of the characters and their perspectives (is this really the truth or just my reaction this time around?) grows more textured and detailed as I pay attention to characters I hadn't remembered. I think seeing through the perspectives of some of the women this time, Kate and Celia and Betty, whom we meet only twice in the story, enriched my reading.

[Trent · Rating 3 out of 5]

A serious literary novel disguised as a murder mystery.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprise read! Never heard of this author but might look for more by him. Very British. Very good. Complexity of British class, tight lipped language, understated behavior well understood by those who are attuned to the nuances of British culture.
A mystery that remains one. But it shouldn’t be approached as a typical one. It’s all about the characters.

[Colette Coen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Think this suffered from a change in reading fashion. I really struggled to get through the prose and distinguish the characters. Took ages to read a fairly short book. Didn't much enjoy it, and disappointed by the ending.

[Douglas Bridger · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unusual whodunnit but a typical CP Snow. Very slow moving particularly at the beginning but his usual amazing insight into how clever people think and react. Probably a bit disappointing because it is close to real life.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just endless and not much of a payoff. Humphrey is an occasionally interesting character but the others start to blend after a while. More of a portrait of Grosvenor Square society than a murder mystery.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a frustrated reader at the end, because I knew that all the details to solve the crime were revealed, but I couldn't put them all together. Well written.

[Kay Bowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, if you like Snow, which I do, but not quite satisfying as a mystery because there's no satisfying solution.

[Franziska Self Fisken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow, rather boring, not gripping. Did not like any of the characters either.

[Cara M · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Civilization is hideously fragile, you know that. There's not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just about a coat of varnish, wouldn't you say?"

[Vel Veeter]

This is the final novel by the well-known British writer CP Snow. In the early days of the Booker Prize, when there was a clear tension between the older world of British writers in the 20th century (like Graham Greene and John Fowles, Paul Scott, and CP Snow) and newer writers (like JG Farrell, Beryl Bainbridge and the like) CP Snow ended up getting a few nods. The bulk of his writing was done previous to the 1970s and especially in the eleven novels of his series called Brothers and Strangers sharing some similarities to Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time.

A scientist by training, CP Snow is also clearly interested in human motivation, human passions, and in this novel, crime.

We find a quaint (well-off) London neighborhood. In one house we meet Humphrey, a former British intelligence officer getting along with his neighbors, considering an affair, and mostly just living his life. His wife is awaiting the results of a cancer screening, and when she receives the news that she seems to be in the clear, this is a relief. But then she’s murdered.

The next long section of the novel brings in the police and the investigative team, and the same kind of dry but analytical breakdown of their process, their characters, bits of their lives, and other elements that the early section of the novel analyzed the neighborhood occurs here as well. From there on, from the middle out, the novel splits its time between the lead investigator and the surviving characters of the neighborhood as the crime is investigated and solved.

Maybe it’s a good thing this is the first CP Snow novel I read. He comes highly recommended and I am interested in his longer series. It’s good I read this one first, but it’s better that I was already interested in the others, because I don’t really think this novel is particularly good. It’s curious and you can feel a lot going on and it’s competently told, but that’s where the qualities kind of end for.

[Brian Robbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

On hold. I made the mistake of getting Clair Tomalin's "Thomas Hardy: the Time-Torn Man" from the library. Snow will just have to wait.

26-8-11 Finished. Hybrid of a book, combining his usual political novel style with the whodunnit format. The first section, his usual careful build up of characters and interplay between them, but without the background professional happenings I did wonder a couple of times why I was carrying on with it.

Then the murder and the movement between the faster paced police investigation chapters, interspersed with the chapters that built up the interplay between the characters - especially the non-police lot. This gave a change of pace from one chapter to the next with Humphrey as the linking bridge between them.

Strangely the inconclusive ending, with no Christie like unmasking of the fiendish villain, the unresolved situation between Kate and Humphrey and her husband, the continuing situation within the Thirkell & Loseby entourage was the most satisfying aspect of the book.

Snow opted for the inconclusive conclusion - "To life, to life - Lokieim!". No final surrender to the classic whodunnit format - HURRAH!!

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am normally a great fan of CP Snow, but this book was a bit of a disappointment. The story is a simple whodunnit, but the plot tends to wind a bit too much, without a great deal of focus, and can be over-complicated at times. I have to admit that it didn't help that I didn't have a great deal of sympathy with the characters. I didn't much warm to Humphrey Leigh and I found the character of Frank Briers a bit shallow. The book didn't really finish the way that I felt that it should. It is a detective story without a conclusion, without an arrest, and without actually stating who committed the murder.

I did find the book well written. It is worth reading just for that alone. There was one memorable phrase in the book:

"Civilisation is hideously fragile, you know that. There's not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just about a coat of varnish, wouldn't you say?"

I really liked that phrase.

On the whole, this isn't one of CP Snow's better works, in my opinion. I think that the story could have been presented in much tighter prose, and the narrative could be a little less complicated and a little more explicit.

[Bruce Beckham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an ‘upper class’ English murder mystery, set in the scorching summer of 1976 in London’s Belgravia district.

The date of publication was 1979; CP Snow died the following year at the age of 75. I have not read any of his other novels, but I suspect his powers were failing.

That said, I was always pleased to return to the book, albeit in small bite-sized chunks. The text is turgid and complex at times, but mercifully the chapters are short (about 7 sides each, on average).

For me the subject matter proved the main attraction: the private world (beneath the ‘coat of varnish’) of the upper classes and their Whitehall connections – of which CP Snow writes from experience.

The police investigation aspects of the narrative I found rather fogged, with a surfeit of officers not well differentiated. In tandem, the potential motives of the main ‘suspect’ characters were arguably underexplored. Perhaps the whodunit was not CP Snow’s forte.

Though on balance I enjoyed the reading experience, I could not recommend this novel – but to say why would, I think, be a spoiler.

[Yacoob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na tuhle knížku jsem se těšil hodně, ale nakonec jsem ji odkládal trochu zklamaný. Asi nejvíc mi vadil celý koncept morálky jako "krycí barvy" (což je dle mého soudu poněkud nešťastný překlad), který už je dnes z dobrých důvodů zhusta pokládaný za neodpovídající. Co se týče stylu, je to docela zajímavá kombinace klasické anglické detektivky hozené do současnosti (neustále mě překvapovalo, jak často se mezi banálními, skoro viktoriánskými dialogy, objevovaly sexuální narážky a scény). Popis postav je bohužel ovlivněn zmíněnou teorií morálky jako "krycí barvy" a i bez ní vyznívá značně schematicky. Detektivní zápletka je pak vesměs očekávaná (až na rozuzlení), a to včetně postavy vraha. Ten je představen (pozor, spoiler pro všechny vaše budoucí detektivky) jako obvykle mezi prvními třemi vystupujícími charaktery a zůstane hlavním podezřelým od začátku až do konce.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

. A Coat of Varnish
C.P. Snow
A detective story, but a rather odd one, lacking a detective, or rather what passes for the detective is oddly lethargic. A mystery with, on the one hand, an excess of mystery, and on the other very little. Embedded in this book is a deep critique of how our obsession with facts and knowledge distorts our understanding of what is truly important, ideas not unexpected from the man who started the two cultures argument. Written in Snow’s limpid style, utterly readable. He did write another detective story in the early 30s, Death Under Sail, which is clever, but primitive in comparison to this one.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not a whodunnit! I'm not sure it really counts as a murder mystery either; it's a literary novel about how the violent death of an old lady impacts some of her acquaintances. Living near the area concerned heightened my interest, as did my memories of the hot summer of 1976 - but some aspects show what a long time ago that was! I am glad that I have read it but I will be returning it to the Oxfam bookshop and it has not left me with any great desire to seek out more novels by C. P. Snow.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

sent me by a friend with whom I went to London during the heat wave described in this mystery - summer of 1976. Well written, interesting story. I didn't much like most of the characters. Very British.

[Bev · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as good as Death Under Sail. Some interesting character analysis...but WAY too much detail in very boring cross-examinations by the police. Especially at the end. And speaking of the end...the grand finale really wasn't. Pretty anti-climatic.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good on social mores of mid seventies UK. Bad as a detective novel. Read it along side Maggie O'Farrell's Heatwave - set in the same period (1976) but different demographic.

[Kerry Hullett · Rating 3 out of 5]

No neat solutions

[Karla Huebner]

It appears that I began this years ago and abandoned it relatively quickly, judging by the bookmark. That in itself is not a mark against it; I leave books unfinished for countless reasons. This time around I read the whole thing, but I am unlikely to read it again despite ecstatic jacket copy from all sorts of people (Gore Vidal included).
It's supposed to be both a mystery and a literary novel about the decline of British society in the 1970s. While it does focus on the mystery of who killed an elderly woman of the upper class, and while it emphasizes character relationships more than action, I don't know that I'd say it is particularly successful within either of its genres. It drags, it is constantly having one or another character (usually either Humphrey Leigh or his police ex-protege) come to conclusions that another character is not directly told but somehow divines, while the reader either wonders what was concluded or knows but wonders why. For example, it seemed quite opaque why the detectives finally fasten on one specific person as the killer and gave up on the other suspects.
It's somewhat possible that the author intended all this opacity to be part of his critique of British life--the ending suggests that--but I don't think that works very well. Also, while British readers in 1980 may have found the book tremendously pointed in its social critique, to me in 2018 it merely depicts some not very lively, not very well-off members of the privileged class dealing with normal relationship problems (and being of interest to the police) while several livelier and differently privileged people confuse the police due to their politics and/or sexually liberated habits. All sorts of things that come to my own mind when thinking about England circa 1976 (people on the dole, the emergence of punk rock) just don't come in, presumably because at the time the author was elderly and I was not. However, I did find it rather eerie when near the end Humphrey is offered a job in anti-terrorism on the grounds that terrorism was expected to increase in the years to come.
Anyhow, not a bad book but one that doesn't really live up to its potential.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Lady Ashbrook fears cancer. She gets the all-clear but ten days later, she gets murdered.