Warning: this review contains spoilers.

What’s the matter with the Kewdingham household? Robert and Bertha are a mismatched couple, it seems: Robert is self-important and pathetic, with a plethora of hobbies that clutter up the house and his mind. He is also secure in the knowledge that his family will always protect one of their own. Bertha does not have the patience any more to deal with him, and she is almost universally disliked by her in-laws for her sharp tongue, but she has never had much of a fair shake from them anyway, because of her being half French in their very English family. Tensions run high, then eventually to murder.

I had initially been reluctant to read this book, because my best friend (who shares an affection for these British Library Crime Classics) had read it and didn’t like the ending. But when I found it in the ebook collection of our local library, I decided to give it a go. I ended up liking it a fair bit. The duelling poisons I found amusing in a macabre kind of way, and while the ending was a bit messy, I think it worked. Perhaps my friend just likes neater endings.

The writing is a bit more riddled with stereotypical comments about women than I would like (even allowing for the fact that this book was originally published in 1933), but the actual story is good, particularly if you like your mysteries to involve chemistry or poisons. So perhaps if you liked that angle of Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles or The Pale Horse, or even the Flavia de Luce books, you might like this one. ( )

This British Library Crime Classic was sent to me by Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. Thank you.

In his introduction to Anthony Rolls’ Family Matters, Martin Edwards likens it to Kind Hearts and Coronets, the wonderful Alec Guinness film where various members of the noble D’Ascoyne family are murdered by an heir very far down the line of succession. Each murder becomes more ridiculous than the last in the dark comedy.

And Family Matters is a dark comedy. The victim is a terrible person. Robert Kewdingham is a bully and a collector of “trash” which he insists are valuable pieces “possibly Roman.” He has boxes of beetles and butterflies which topple all over the drawing room. He is a practitioner of mysticism and has journeyed to Atlantis in his dreams where he is a very important high priest. Plus he has a medicine cabinet full of lethal concoctions with which he doses himself. If anyone needed murdering, it is Robert.

His long-suffering wife Bertha has decided that she has had enough of his belittling her, his violent temper tantrums, his crazy theories, and his reluctance to get another job after being let go from his engineering firm. The family is becoming insolvent and soon won’t be able to afford even their very modest house in a less desirable part of Shuffflecester. She also finds herself drawn to her husband’s cousin, a sympathetic successful writer who returns the attraction. And she has another admirer, Dr Wilson Bagge, her husband’s physician who has witnessed Robert’s bad behavior toward his wife.

She decides to poison her husband with small doses of lead acetate (which has a sugary taste) and can be easily procured as an ingredient for a hair-wash. At the exact same time Dr Bagge plans to create a nostrum with alum which consumed over time is lethal. So both would-be murderers execute their plans. Unfortunately, alum is the antidote for lead acetate and lead acetate is the antidote for alum poisoning! Robert, instead of dying, becomes remarkably healthy and both ill-wishers are stymied as to why he is full of energy and even more nasty than usual.

Robert, does indeed expire, but how was it accomplished? By Bertha? By Dr Bagge? By Robert himself? Murder? Suicide? Accident?

If anyone doubts the author’s firmly placed tongue-in-cheek, just look at the names of the minor characters: Professor Pulverbatch, an expert on poisons; Miss Ethel-Poundle-Quainton, a cousin; Mr. Keyes Yelford; an officer of the court; the coroner's jury including Moggerdill the butcher, the coal merchant Mr. Woolhanger, the tobacconist Mr., Bimble, Mr. Twamley, Mr. Quatt and Mr Beerhouse. If Ascoyne D’Ascoyne had lived in the town, he would undoubtedly have been on the jury! ( )