Dr B. McRannoch, a savvy and tough young woman, is staying in the Bahamas with her father. However, when Sir Bart Edgecome, a British agent who has been positioned with arsenic falls ill on his way back from New York, she becomes involved in a series of events beyond her wildest imagination. Drawn into an espionage plot with multiple suspects, it is only the presence of enigmatic portrait painter Johnson Johnson on his yacht, Dolly, that saves the day. But nothing is quite as straightforward as it at first seems.
Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001) gained an international reputation as a writer of historical fiction. She moved genres and turned to crime writing with the acclaimed Dolly books, also known as the Johnson Johnson series. She was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, and a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. A leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman, Dunnett was also a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions.
My thoughts: if you’ve been around for a bit, you’ll probably know that I’m really enjoying this series and as we’re now on book 4, I don’t see that changing any time soon.
This time we’re in the Bahamas, before the recent change to a Republic, when it was still a British colony of sorts as part of the Commonwealth. So most of the white characters are wealthy and privileged beyond the native population. They travel to Nassau (the capital) to holiday, play golf, fish, swim and generally enjoy themselves.
Dr B. Donald MacRannoch works at the main hospital, she’s Scottish, but moved to the Bahamas to look after her father, The MacRannoch of Clan MacRannoch, chieftain and apparently a terrible asthmatic. She’s rather severe and remote, looking down on most people from her lofty scientific height. She needs to learn to relax and not be quite so uptight and unhappy. Her only pleasure is playing golf. I’m of the Mark Twain theory on golf – it is a long walk spoiled. I’d rather a park or jungle than the finicky water wasting greens of a golf course.
After saving a man’s life, Dr MacRannoch gets drawn into the world of espionage, the man she saved is a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as is our familiar bespectacled friend Johnson Johnson, handily in town to investigate this attempted murder, on the good ship Dolly.
He confides immediately in the Doctor and recruits her into helping him prevent Sir Bart Edgecombe from being bumped off. She’s not exactly happy about it. But after several more foiled attempts, a threat or two, someone else gets killed, and her father is planning a clan gathering (and a wedding), which means she needs to be around a bit more than usual. Which handily means she can assist Johnson in solving this mystery.
In almost every book someone tries to blow up Dolly, this is no exception. Thankfully Johnson and Spry, his loyal sidekick, are pretty good at keeping the yacht intact, otherwise they’d never be able to keep popping up all over the world, under the auspices of being a famous portrait painter. Into the mix this time are a Turkish ballet dancer, a Japanese golfer, a builder of bridges and an Army sergeant major, one of them might be the killer. And one of them might even end up married to the doctor. If they’re all alive at the end of it!
Enjoyable as always, with red herrings, plenty of suspects, eccentric characters, crazy carrying on and Johnson Johnson in the midst of it all, completely unruffled.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own
ramblingmads 