{"id":19728,"date":"2022-01-29T20:47:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T01:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=19728"},"modified":"2025-07-02T16:21:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T20:21:56","slug":"death-and-the-joyful-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/19728","title":{"rendered":"Death and the Joyful Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death and the Joyful Woman<\/a><\/em> (1961) Ellis Peters<\/a> (The Felse Investigations)<\/p>\n

\"Death<\/a><\/p>\n

(T)hat was the sign \u2013 The Joyful Woman. Lovely, isn\u2019t it? Goes right back to about 1600.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Detective-Sergeant George Felse of the county CID is called back to the pub whose opening he’d attended just hours earlier, when the owner–businessman Alfred Armiger–is found dead, with his head bashed in.<\/p>\n

But the case becomes complicated when Felse’s son Dominic becomes involved, having fallen in love the way only a 16-year-old boy can, with the young heiress who might be suspected of the murder.<\/p>\n

This was published in 1961, and there are so very many things that were normal at the time but are almost surreal now.<\/p>\n

She set an open box of cigarettes and a heavy glass ash-tray on the edge of the desk midway between them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there’s this, which in a way is even odder.<\/p>\n

George had already observed that no telephone wires approached the house, and that there was a telephone box only fifty yards away at the corner of the road.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How many people do I know who no longer have a telephone line coming into their house? So very many. <\/p>\n

Also, they can test for blood type but not get a complete match, which is so strange to think about, although sixty years before that, they wouldn’t have been able to test for certain that it was blood.<\/p>\n

Also, towards the end of the story one of the characters suffers a blow to the head \/ concussion, and fascinatingly, they keep the person in bed for a couple of days. <\/p>\n

I didn’t love this quite as much as the Brother Cadfael books, but it’s a police procedural, and things were very different then.<\/p>\n

Joe was well known in the seedier outer districts of Comerbourne, where he made regular rounds with his pony-cart, collecting rags and scrap, and a good many residents automatically saved their cast-off clothes for him. It was worth making regular use of him, because he would take away for you all kinds of awkward and unmarketable rubbish on which the Cleansing Department tended to frown if it was put out for their attentions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, I already have the next book ready to read.<\/p>\n

Publisher: MysteriousPress.com\/Open Road
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death and the Joyful Woman (1961) Ellis Peters (The Felse Investigations) (T)hat was the sign \u2013 The Joyful Woman. Lovely, isn\u2019t it? Goes right back to about 1600. Detective-Sergeant George Felse of the county CID is called back to the pub whose opening he’d attended just hours earlier, when the owner–businessman Alfred Armiger–is found dead, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,190,292,33,8,41,26],"tags":[732,630,119,571,549,877,878],"class_list":["post-19728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british","category-cozy","category-ebook","category-historical","category-mystery","category-reread","category-romance","tag-1960s","tag-cold-war-era","tag-ellis-peters","tag-felse-investigations","tag-high-middle-ages","tag-medieval","tag-the-anarchy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-58c","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6173,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6173","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":0},"title":"The Holy Thief","author":"Michelle","date":"November 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Holy Thief (1992) Ellis Peters Set in England in 1144. Two very different groups have stopped by the Benedictine abbey: a troubadour and his entourage, and a brother and a novice from Ramsey--seeing funds and help to rebuild the abbey and the city there, destroyed by Geoffrey de Mandeville,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"holy_thief","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Holy_Thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24069,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24069","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":1},"title":"The Rose Rent","author":"Michelle","date":"November 10, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Rose Rent (1986) Ellis Peters (The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #13) Set in Shrewsbury in 1142 He had been in the cloister since he was three years old, and knew nothing outside it. Unacquainted with sin, he was all the more haunted by it, as by some unknown monster,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Rose Rent","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Rose-Rent-e1511012757268.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11023,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11023","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":2},"title":"The Sanctuary Sparrow","author":"Michelle","date":"August 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sanctuary Sparrow (1983) Ellis Peters Set in England in 1140 A young man is chased to the church by a mob howling for his blood, claiming he murdered the goldsmith at his son's wedding. \u201cIf the law itself were here, there is no power can now take away this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/The-Sanctuary-Sparrow.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23839,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/23839","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":3},"title":"The Virgin in the Ice","author":"Michelle","date":"August 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Virgin in the Ice (1982) Ellis Peters (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #6) Set in Worcestershire, England in 1139 There had been other women, before her and after. He remembered them with gratitude, and with no guilt at all. He had given and received pleasure and kindness. None had ever\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Virgin in the Ice","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Virgin-in-the-Ice-e1511011406473.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6113,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6113","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":4},"title":"Monk’s Hood","author":"Michelle","date":"October 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Monk's Hood (1980) Ellis Peters","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11992,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11992","url_meta":{"origin":19728,"position":5},"title":"The Holy Thief","author":"Michelle","date":"July 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Holy Thief (1992) Ellis Peters Set in England in 1144. The 19th Brother Cadfael book. Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, is dead. The war rages on, but the Abbot of Ramsey was able to return and assess to damage to his abbey. He then sent out members to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Holy Thief","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Holy_Thief-e1511015456229.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}