The Seventh Sinner (1972)



Jake Kirby #1
Jean Suttman holds a prestigious fellowship in the vaguely named but clearly important Institute in Rome, with a handful of promising other young scholars. They laughingly call themselves the 'Seven Sinners', a name that suddenly no longer seems like a laughing matter when a fellow scholar turns up dead in an ancient temple they're touring.  Luckily, Jacqueline 'Jake' Kirby, an acid-tongued librarian no longer on holiday, has a watchful eye on Jean when the killer's attention turns to her...

 Spoilers Below




Our main voice in this mystery is ingenue Jean Suttman, so technically our heroine is still youthfully nubile, as readership seemed to chiefly demand. But we have a first here: for the first time, our heroine is not just a bystander or hanger-on to the academic world, but an active participant. Jean has an academic fellowship at a prestigious Institute, and her life is shaped by her studies. It's a little exhilarating. Even Kate More in Prince had retired from her scholarly pursuits, and Carol Farley of Rabbits was only a college senior. And Jean is sweet--she's smart and kind and reasonably attractive. 

However, Jake Kirby steals the stage as soon as she steps on it. While her age is never revealed, she seems to be vaguely forty-ish here, with two half-grown children at home, a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards motherhood, a cynical eye cocked at humanity, and the kind of adult sex appeal that proves romance is not just the purview of the young. Jake is one of my favorite characters to ever come out of MPM's brain. She's all Ruth Bennett's worldly wisdom (from Ammie), but with spark--Jake could never be described as 'meek.' Agatha Christie once described her Harley Quinn short stories as the best of her mystery writing--for the 'epicure'. I think Jake is very much for the Epicurean consumer of MPM works.

If the books MPM wrote during and immediately after her divorce reflect a disenchantment with men and romance in general, Jake shows her coming out of it and back into the world swinging. Jake might be a forty-ish single mother whose former husband (?) never merits so much as a mention (like MPM herself), but she defies contemporary conventions by being beautiful, eccentric and brilliant. From here on out, MPM's women will be independent, clever, often academic, and not prone to being saved. While earlier women characters might have moaned at convention, they will now openly and stubbornly flout it. It is glorious

MPM has finally, finally come into her own.

I will say this, however. The end of Sinner (which is, I will hastily add, an entertaining little mystery with a good cast and a lovely atmosphere) refuses to reward Jean and Jake with a pair of neatly wrapped romances. Jake might spin off for a casual romantic affair with a dashing police officer, but her interest in the long-term is clearly and firmly negated. And Jean...well, Jean's love interest is unveiled as the murderer, made mentally unstable by the pressures of an academic family.

Love is not the answer to life's questions, or its problems.

Favorite Line: "Money corrupts. I wish somebody would try to corrupt me. I could learn to like living this way."

Rating: ****

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