Heron Carvic - Picture Miss Seeton

The first book in the Miss Seeton series, published March 1, 1968.
Genre: cozy mystery
Cover: awful, but it is a very old book.



When Miss Seeton walks out of a performance of Carmen and witnesses a stabbing, all she can recall is a shadowy figure. But how could even she have guessed that her latest drawing is a perfect portrait of the killer? Now, she is a sitting duck in Plummergen!


I have bought this series of books in the early '90's and have read them a few times, enjoying them each time. But I have to say, it is difficult to review a book in English, when I have read it in Dutch. It was one of my first encounters with cozy mysteries, branded as "Detective" here in Holland.

Miss Seeton is an elderly art teacher, who always tries to do the proper thing. So when she thinks she sees a man hurting a woman, she pokes him in the back with her umbrella. Not knowing she is interrupting a murder in progress. When the man tries to hurt her as well, some passers by save her. She is sure it is all a big understanding, but all the same, the girl is dead. When Scotland Yard's Inspector Delphick interviews her, he doesn't know what to make of her. Is she really this innocent and naïve? But when with a quick few strokes of a pencil, she draws a cartoon like picture of and old acquaintance of them, the very volatile and dangerous César.
Miss Seeton has just inherited a small cottage from her late godmother, and the village Plummergen, Kent, and she is planning on staying there for a few weeks, to see if she might live there instead of in London, full time. She really hopes she can afford it.

The book is also an introduction of all the strange and fun characters living in Plummergen, and Miss Seeton soon becomes entangled in the romantic entanglements of the young Nigel Colveden, whose old friend has gotten in with the wrong crowd. And when her aunt's notary tries to give her some pills for her headache, things become dangerous fast.


It is a fun series, and I really like reading about this prim and proper old and so very English lady, who does her best to help and doesn't understand what is really happening, but in her subconscious she knows, and she draws that. Inspector Delphick quickly realizes he needs her drawings, as they are the clues to what is really happening.
But can he keep her safe, when so many people want her dead?
It is also fun, to see how Delphick's enormous young Sargeant falls in love with Miss Anne Knight, who acts as nurse for her father, the local doctor.
The book has a strange kind of open ending, so you can imagine yourself what happens in the end.


A good series, and beware, many more reviews coming. I don't think you can buy the books anymore though, or you have to pay the ridiculous prices on Amazon.

8 stars.

© 2016 Reviews by Aurian