(Note: As previously indicated, the Lowndes books I have read are mostly available on Gutenberg and/or Amazon. In past reviews of early 20th century books, I have not made any effort to offer content warnings, on the assumption that anybody reading these reviews knows better than to expect present-day attitudes on certain topics from books of this timeframe. I am continuing with that assumption here.)

Alot of Agatha Christie’s novels feel like we’re on the outside of some messy domestic situation, looking in at the situation shortly before and after it turns violent. If you ever wondered what seeing the inside of those situations would be like, you’re in luck! Marie Belloc Lowndes wrote lots of those. The characterization is a mile wide and an inch deep, and the situations tend to repeat themselves, but to me, there’s something insistent and weirdly compelling about the way Lowndes shows the reader every component in these emotional powder kegs. As a bonus, you get a good look at the kind of expectations authors like Agatha Christie set out to subvert, because the whodunnit components of these mysteries tend to be pretty banal.

The Chianti Flask is the most critically acclaimed of this category of Lowndes novels; to the point where it might qualify as her third most famous work. A sympathetic POV character has just been acquitted of poisoning her nasty older husband; the only other characters who *might* have had an opportunity to dispose of him are also fairly sympathetic: a doctor who ultimately falls in love with the accused woman, and an Italian manservant who testified for the prosecution but clearly bears her no ill-will and shows compassion to her after the trial. This is the one Lowndes book above all others that you should *not* read with Agatha Christie expectations, because if you do, you’ll be expecting the POV character’s well-meaning but unpleasant busybody friend to somehow have committed the crime…aaaand nope, one of the sympathetic characters did it, and another one is going to help cover it up. As a study of someone trying to get on with her life after being the subject of a sensational murder trial, Flask is interesting, certainly better at handling that angle than Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers(1). Flask might also be a slight influence on Christie’s Sad Cypress,(2) which also has a high-strung woman accused of murder, a doctor who will do anything for her, and a do-gooding busybody whom the reader desperately wants to be the murderer but doesn’t see how it’s possible.

Love and Hatred has a banal title but a pretty entertaining plot. Studly Adventure Guy is in love with a woman who friendzones him because she’s married to Generic Soulless Husband and more importantly because she has a kid. There is additionally a Shady Widow who strung along Studly Adventure Guy briefly in the past but over the course of the book puts the moves on Generic Soulless Husband. Husband disappears mysteriously, eventually turns up dead…did Studly Adventure Guy do it, or was it his buddy and employee, Married Lady’s Wastrel Brother? Honestly, I preferred the older romantic couple(3), to the youngish people involved in this murderous soap opera, so I was only mildly disappointed to find that the endgame consisted of the Shady Widow (not a sympathetic character) managing to solve the murder and find a new sugar daddy, and the killer suiciding (ugh) to spare everyone the publicity.

The Heart of Penelope is an early work, which takes way too long to get going for even less payoff than usual with Lowndes. If you’re going to read it, pay attention to Studly Diplomat Guy’s backstory (particularly the part about him being married to an American woman who doesn’t believe in divorce) and then skim the incredibly complicated account of how his almost-lover, Penelope, is related to all the other supporting characters. Once the story gets going, we get some evocative scenery in Scotland, Penelope’s useless cousin grows a spine and falls for a nice young do-gooder Catholic friend of Penelope, and Penelope keeps almost breaking up with Studly Diplomat Guy. Eventually, an unbalanced but not unsympathetic character offs Studly Diplomat, Formerly Useless Cousin fakes it into a suicide to save everyone some hassle, and Penelope reunites with her first love, whom her family forcibly separated her from many years ago. This last bit came with a reference to the Odyssey that doesn’t really work but made me wonder if maybe some pre-Homeric version of the Odyssey didn’t have Odysseus and his wife as co-equal sexual manipulators, using their charms to survive in a position of weakness until they could reunite.

Jane Oglander is basically a better-executed remix of Penelope. The title character is a nice young woman who gets dragged into caring for an invalid friend early on, leaving her soldier boyfriend to spend way too much time with Jane’s married friend the Femme Fatale, Femme Fatale’s Husband, and Femme Fatale’s Husband’s Cousin, the cousin being an admirer of Jane’s who’s been friendzoned. The novel is very effective at walking the reader through all the steps of Femme Fatale deciding she must have her friend’s boyfriend, him gradually reciprocating, and the disgust of the two men watching this process. I found the romantic resolution unsatisfying, but the moment when one of the characters in the menage decides murder is the solution to their problems was suitably intense, and when the novel ended, I could imagine Poirot showing up and having a lot of fun solving this particular crime. Femme Fatale’s Husband is kind of in the vein of the cuckolded husband in The Scarlet Letter, or some of those other spiteful, scholarly guys invented by Nathaniel Hawthorne, so if you enjoy those guys, you might enjoy this one as well.

The Terriford Mystery is about two high-minded, idealistic boneheads being dragged through the mud during a murder trial. I grew to detest the heroine’s sanctimonious uncle before the book was through, and found the actual murderer (4) much more sympathetic than the main red herring, whose motive and opportunity were much stronger than the murderer’s. Once again, this is a novel that would benefit from making the nasty busybody(5) the actual killer. The most interesting part is the heroine going undercover as a housemaid to try and gather evidence to clear her boyfriend. She doesn’t succeed, but she does trigger a sequence of events that saves the day.

Related short stories: The Moving Finger features a young man whose tomcat ways lands him briefly in the middle of a poisoning case and shames him in the eyes of his sweet, idealistic father. Ends on a reasonably good note, but really feels like the opening of a much longer work. According to Meredith is interesting as a social document about nontraditional marriage arrangements in this period, but takes way too long to build up to a suitably nasty fate for a would-be murderer. Why They Married has no murder, but tells a story about the kind of prissy bachelor who usually doesn’t get the girl. This time, a maritime disaster gives him a chance to grow as a man and win the girl’s heart. Another one that feels like the opening of a much longer work, but if you felt sorry for the cuckold or his cousin in Jane Oglander, or if you tend to root for Henry Miles when you read End of the Affair, you might like this.

(1) Or possibly Flask is the reason Sayers feels like she doesn’t need to show that much of Harriet Vane readjusting to life outside of prison after Strong Poison.

(2) Although it’s not like the Strong Poison/Sad Cypress connection, where Christie is very obviously nodding to aspects of the earlier book.

(3) consisting of Adventure Guy’s Mom and Lord St. Amant, the ex-flame who reunites with her and who is blessed with the only somewhat memorable name in the whole novel.

(4) Whose motive and opportunity were both pretty weak.

(5) Who is unfortunately only a minor suspect at best.