From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Henrietta Who? (Inspector Sloan #2)

Catherine Aird

Start date: April 15, 2022

Finish date: May 7, 2022

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: Second in this popular series.
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What Members Thought

Mar 25, 2022 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the second in the Inspector Sloan series, first published in 1968. It begins with the discovery of a body in the village of Larking. Mrs Grace Jenkins, found in the road by the postman and seemingly the victim of a hit and run accident on a dangerous bend in the road. Her daughter, Henrietta is asked to return from college to identify the body. However, a post mortem reveals that Mrs Jenkins has never had a child and so Henrietta is not her daughter...

Henrietta's life, and identity, is t ...more

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Apr 24, 2022 Carolien rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022, english-mystery

3.5 stars. The body of a woman is found on a lonely road early one morning, the victim of a hit-and-run accident. However, it soon turn out that the girl she has brought up as her daughter, Henrietta, is not her daughter. And so two mysteries are intertwined - who killed Mrs Jenkins and who is Henrietta? Complex plot and interesting characters.

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Sep 20, 2020 Lark of The Bookwyrm's Hoard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read, own, kindle, mystery

Henrietta Who? is the second mystery featuring Inspector Sloan and the hapless Constable Crosby, and it remains one of my favorites. Aird piles mystery upon mystery: Was Grace Jenkins’ death truly accidental? If she’s not Henrietta’s mother, how did she come to raise Henrietta on her own? What about Henrietta’s deceased father – why are his war medals not the same as the ones he’s wearing in his portrait? And when Henrietta then discovers that there is no Cyril Edgar Jenkins on the regimental mo Henrietta Who? is the second mystery featuring Inspector Sloan and the hapless Constable Crosby, and it remains one of my favorites. Aird piles mystery upon mystery: Was Grace Jenkins’ death truly accidental? If she’s not Henrietta’s mother, how did she come to raise Henrietta on her own? What about Henrietta’s deceased father – why are his war medals not the same as the ones he’s wearing in his portrait? And when Henrietta then discovers that there is no Cyril Edgar Jenkins on the regimental monument – and then sees the man from the portrait in the street – the questions only multiply. Who is the man in the portrait? Is he any relation to Henrietta? The police are on the track of a killer, but Henrietta has her own, more urgent question: Who am I?

It’s up to Sloan to find the answers to all these questions, and he does, with his usual quiet determination. Sloan isn’t a brilliant detective in the mold of a Holmes or Poirot; instead, he is a dedicated policeman. He doesn’t give up, and he’s certainly intelligent enough to put the pieces together, but he does so not through flair but through painstaking detective work: asking questions, checking alibis, looking for motive and opportunity. He’s also a keen observer of both detail and human nature, crucial skills in his line of work.

Crosby is generally of little help, but he does provide low-key comic relief. The joke on the force is that somewhere in the uniform division, there’s a man with the same name who ought to have been promoted to the plainclothes detection squad. Crosby lacks the curiosity required of a detective, but occasionally he comes up with a clue, sometimes without realizing it. He’s less observant than even Watson or Poirot’s friend Hastings, but like them, he serves as a foil for Sloan: someone to whom Sloan can explain things or think out loud, as well as someone to take on the less interesting tasks and errands (searching the records, checking the ground for clues, etc.)

The plot of this mystery is complicated even for Aird, who excels at inventive plots. And she develops it perfectly, uncovering first more questions and then, eventually, the clues that finally bring the mystery to a satisfying conclusion. The pacing is just right, and Sloan’s (and Aird’s) understated humor and occasional dry irony make Henrietta Who? a delight to read. Incidentally, it also holds up remarkably well, but you should remember that it was written and is set in the early 1960s; there are no cell phones and decidedly no Internet, which means (among other things) that records searches take much longer to accomplish.

I first read Henrietta Who? in my twenties, and I’ve been an Aird fan ever since. So I was delighted to see that Open Road is reissuing most of her early books in print and ebook format. Her mysteries are a wonderful blend of police procedural and cozy mystery, low on violence and heavy on character, plot, and above all a challenging intellectual puzzle. She’s easily as good as Christie, and stylistically, her writing is better. If you haven’t made Aird’s acquaintance yet, by all means go read Henrietta Who? or the first Inspector Sloan book, The Religious Body. And enjoy!

Review originally published at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.

FTC disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are entirely my own. ...more

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May 30, 2015 Damaskcat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A woman's body is discovered in a lonely country lane by the post man. She has been run over by a car. Her daughter, Henrietta is summoned from university and confirms she is her mother. However Dr Dabbe, the pathologist knows she isn't Henrietta's mother as the Grace Jenkins has never had any children.

Thus starts an intriguing investigation for Sloan and Crosby. What could have been a simple hit and run - tragic but nothing more than a fairly common-place event, leads to a trail of death and tw ...more

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Apr 19, 2022 Frances rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series

3.5 stars for this one, an engaging mystery centred around a hit-an-run accident, which opens up a mystery about the identity of Henrietta, the supposed daughter of the victim. Sloan and Crosby must race to discover who she is, and who would have wanted to kill her mother.

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