Josephine Pullein-Thompson (1924-2014) was the daughter of author Joanna Cannan and the sister of playwright Denis Cannan and authors Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson. Cannan and her three daughters were mostly known for their books about ponies and pony clubs. While pony clubs seem to be more common in the United Kingdom, the United States Pony Club is an active organization with some 600 clubs and riding centers across the nation. I don’t find the equivalent of pony books here in the U.S., though. Perhaps the closest might be an older series by Walter Farley about a black stallion tamed by a teenager named Alec Ramsey. In 1979 Francis Ford Coppola produced a striking film by the same name based on the first Farley book.
Naturally enough when her attention turned to writing mysteries, Pullein-Thompson still set them around horses. Murder Strikes Pink (Hammond, Hammond, 1963), her third book about Detective Chief Inspector James Flecker of Scotland Yard, is set on the showjumping circuit.
Wealthy and malevolent Theodora Thistleton adored horses but she made the lives of everyone around her miserable. She tormented her secretaries, she badgered the equestrienne she hired to ride her horses, and she did all she could to ruin her younger cousin’s life. Perhaps not surprisingly, shortly before the story opens, her entire staff of butler, grooms, chauffeur, and the housemaids walked out en masse. She made a clean sweep when, after the seventh show without a single win, T. T. dismissed her professional rider in a public diatribe that ensured most of the local equine community heard it.
When the brash youthful rider T. T. hired to take over also failed to win any of the events at the next show, T. T. was livid. She grew progressively more disagreeable, running her secretaries hither and yon. Her last order was for a drink that had been prepared at home and brought to the show in a thermos. A single deep swallow was enough to make her collapse. She died at the hospital a half hour or so later.
After the local police were diverted by a series of fires, courtesy of a budding arsonist, the Chief Constable had no choice but to call in Scotland Yard, thus the arrival of DCI Flecker and Sergeant Browning.
While the cousin who inherited the sizable estate was the logical suspect, there was not enough evidence to arrest him or his wife, even though their motive was all too clear. The deeper Flecker looked, the more people he found who believed their lives would be improved without T. T.
The ending was neatly plotted with a culprit I did not suspect, but there were not enough clues for the reader to have reached the right conclusion. Fans of fair play mysteries will be disappointed. I don’t mind a little corner cutting, so I admired the trickery.
I most enjoyed the vignettes of the horse jumping events and the people who participated in them. After reading about Pullein’s hardscrabble childhood, I wondered if the Pratt family were thinly disguised descriptions of her and her sisters.
A pleasant police procedural, more cozy than hardcore, and an insider’s look at the world of show jumping.
Also reviewed by the Clothes in Books, https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2017/08/murder-strikes-pink-by-josephine.html, and Cross Examining Crime, https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2021/09/25/murder-strikes-pink-1963-by-josephine-pullein-thompson/.
See also Pullein-Thompson’s obituary and an appreciation of her work, both in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/22/josephine-pullein-thompson