Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: A Murder for Miss Hortense: A Mystery by Mel Penner

A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Penner (Pantheon, June 2025) is the first mystery in what apparently will be a series that features Jamaican immigrant Miss Hortense. Penner is an award-winning playwright who was born in London, where she was raised by an extended family which included her Jamaican grandparents who moved to England in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation. The Windrush generation refers to individuals who migrated to the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971, invited by the Commonwealth to help rebuild Britain after World War II. It’s clear that much of the story’s authenticity comes from her grandparents’ immigrant experience.

The story starts a few days after the death of Constance Brown, a social antagonist of Miss Hortense. A dead man is found in her house weeks later, a stranger in the close-knit Jamaican community of Bigglesworth. Flashbacks slowly reveal the history of the community, how they collectively defended themselves against the long-term residents who resented the immigrants. One very sore point was banking, as traditional banks denied them access to services. Miss Hortense took the lead in establishing the Pardner, a group of eight members who contributed £5 each week to a communal fund, and one member took the collected money each week. Thus, every 8 weeks each member received £40 or £240 in a year. In 1965 it had the buying power of nearly $5500 in 2025.

Another function of The Pardner was to investigate crimes against their community, as the British police refused to take them seriously. Miss Hortense proved herself an able detective but during the course of one investigation, a member of the Jamaican community died. Miss Hortense was held responsible and was removed from the Pardner. Constance took her place, as she had been anxious to do.

Despite her semi-ostracization Miss Hortense continued to live in the house she saved her Pardner money to buy and to work as a nurse in a suburb of Birmingham until she retired. Upon the death of Constance and the discovery of the body in Constance’s house, Miss Hortense is pulled back into an earlier Pardner investigation because the community knows they need her more than ever.

The dialog in this book is entirely Jamaican dialect. I had a hard time understanding it in places, others I gathered the meaning from the context. The story line moves back and forth from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, disrupting the flow. The concept is original and interesting but it was a slow read.

Similar to Kia Abdullah’s thrillers which describe the treatment of Middle Eastern immigrants in England.

·         Publisher: ‎Pantheon

·         Publication date: ‎June 10, 2025

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎352 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0593701623

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0593701621

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3TMXzlL

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.