A cast to die for
Curse of the Savoy: A Priscilla Tempest Mystery, Book 4
by Ron Base and Prudence Emery
Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2025
$19.95 / 9781771624381
Reviewed by Ron Verzuh
*
By the time they get to the end of Chapter 1 of this mystery set in swinging London, readers have met Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Cary Grant, and Christine Keeler (whose affairs with high-level diplomats and a cabinet minister helped bring down the British Conservative government in the early 1960s). Keeler will play a large role in this star-studded whodunit
It’s a busy day at the famed Savoy Hotel and made even busier by the appearance of American novelist Norman Mailer, playwright Noel Coward, Lord Mountbatten and a seedy newspaper mogul known as the Jackal, who’s there with his wife. Think Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel, a fine addition to any gathering of wealthy scoundrels and parasites. There’s also a cat named Kaspar.
Co-author Ron Base, a former Toronto newspaperman and movie critic, may have known Black when he was scooping up newspapers in Canada in the 1980s. Base’s co-author Prudence Emery, a film publicist, is the BC connection and inspiration for the lead character. She worked as the Savoy’s PR person so knew the intricacies of the grand old dame of London hostelries. Emery died in Victoria last April.
As the title makes clear, there is a curse. If you’re not too exhausted from meeting all the big stars gathered at the Savoy’ Pinafore Room for a lavish dinner hosted by Welles, let’s move on to the first blood-curdling scream. Keeler has stabbed the Jackal with a letter opener. Fear not. It is merely a warm-up act. The Jackal isn’t dead yet.
Next, and the story moves along at a fast, easy-reading pace, amateur sleuth Priscilla Tempest, “a Canadian kid from a middle-class family,” discovers the body of Lady Anne Harley, a socialite. She quickly sets out to inform her Conservative diplomat son James Harley who she finds on the eve of his departure to Moscow. He’s also dead. Did the Russians do it? Enter Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector Robert “Charger” Lightfoot.
About 10 chapters in we find the champagne-swilling Priscilla purloining a set of compromising photographs from one of the murder scenes. One is of Keeler naked in bed with the Jackal. Another is of Lord Mountbatten in a seemingly sexual dalliance with a young man. A reason to kill? Perhaps.
Mountbatten was known for his affairs with attractive young people, including American actress Shirley MacLaine in the 1960s. There were also allegations that he abused a young man in the 1970s. He was assassinated in 1979 in Ireland, as noted in the book’s Epilogue.
Enter Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Johh Gielgud, who interrupt their theatrical banter to consider whether Kaspar might be at fault. The aging thespians put their faith in Priscilla to solve the mystery and advise her to find out who financed the extravagant Welles dinner. Meanwhile, Cary Grant is waiting to pounce on young Priscilla. Is the debonair Grant a suspect?
Enlarging the cast even further is Johnny Edgecombe, owner of the Flamingo jazz club. Priscilla somehow rescues him from a pair of thugs and drives him to Mariella, who claims to be a former lover of the Kennedy brothers. “I have experience with good sex because of them,” she confides.
At the half-way mark, Lord Mountbatten appears, fearful that his royal reputation as dear Uncle Dickie will be sullied by a blackmail scheme. Priscilla has stumbled into a hornet’s nest. “Dammit,” he scolds his guardian Col. Geoffrey Wolfe. “Take care of this women. Do it quickly.”
Priscilla then witnesses another murder when American blackmailer Kirk Strong shoots a woman and is about to shoot Priscilla. Somehow she escapes to Highgate Cemetery. “Karl Marx was buried there,” advises one copper chattily. Unbeknownst to her, the Jackal has also been found dead there. Bodies are starting to stack up as regularly as in Midsomer Murders. Soon Detective Lightfoot is back on the scene.
Speaking of bodies, so far Priscilla, a young Torontonian who has fallen for Cary Grant, has had no sex of any kind. There is a hint of it with a young detective but readers are spared the details. No sooner has she powdered her nose than she learns Queen Elizabeth has invited her to tea at Buckingham Palace. Is that everyone?
At the Queen’s suggestion, Priscilla, against her better judgment, calls in a medium, Mrs. Whitedove, to conduct a séance about the curse. The result is a cryptic message from the other world that predicts Priscilla’s death. Somewhat later our heroine is chloroformed and kidnapped. She lands in the hands of bad guy Kirk Strong. The blackmailing plot thickens.
Does Priscilla survive and what happens to Kaspar the cat? Let’s leave all that for readers to find out. They’ll have plenty of fun doing so. Curse is a lighthearted chase through the streets of London in the Agatha Christie mould of Tuppence Beresford.
The streaming networks are full of Priscilla types, attractive young women turned detective who solve dastardly murders. I’m sure Priscilla will find her place among them. She’s smart, fearless, ambitious, Canadian, and she shows up in unlikely places to meet famous people. Netflix, what are you waiting for?
*
Ron Verzuh is a writer and historian. [Editor’s note: Ron has recently reviewed books by Geoff Mynett, John Moore, Tom Langford, Ron Thompson, John Ibbitson (ed.), Bob McDonald, and Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, and Tim Bray (eds.) for BCR.]
*
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Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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