Jill Paton Walsh, Debts of Dishonor

Jill Paton Walsh, Debts of Dishonor
Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press
© 2006 Jill Paton Walsh
ISBN 0312-35536-X

Walsh’s third mystery featuring Imogen Quy, resident nurse at St. Agatha’s College (Cambridge University).  Sir Julian Farran, who (barely) graduation from St. Agatha’s around 40 years ago, and who is now chairman of and the driving force behind the Farran Group (sort of a cross between an investment banking firm and a corporate raider, buying whole firms to flip or dismember for profit), has been invited to dine at the High Table.  The invitation was urged by Peter Weatherby, recently appointed Bursar (chief financial officer) at St. Agatha’s (he’s also on the board of the Farran Group).  And Andrew Duncombe, formerly a Fellow (in economics) at the college and (for a while) Quy’s lover, will be with him.  He works for Farran and is a member of the board.

The dinner goes reasonably well, but two leftish members (Carl Janner and Clive Horrocks) of the college (a sociologist and another whose discipline is not specified) launch a pointed interrogation of Farran, dissecting his business career.  The evening ends with Farran falling on his way out the door and being treated by Quy.

But Quy has made an impression on Farran; he invites her to come to London to lunch with the board of directors (and o offer the position of HR director.  (This was my first problem with the book—Quy is an excellent nurse.  But why anyone would want to hire her as a company’s HR director is beyond plausible.  One thing HR directors must know well is labor law, and Britain’s labor laws are relatively strict—compared with the U.S.)

Farran then takes a short leave, checking into a small medical facility that specializes in treating substance abuse issues.  The clinic in on the coast; patients ate discouraged from wandering around on their own; alcohol is prohibited.  It should come as no surprise that Farran is found, quite dead (and well bashed up) at the bottom of the cliff.  Given the state of the corpse, some formal identification is required, and it’s provided by his wife (now widow) and the doctor running the clinic.

Duncombe (remember him?) finds it hard to accept the verdict, believing that the second in command at the Farran Group, Max Holwood, has murdered Farran in order to take control of the company.  He persuades Quy to accompany him on fishing expedition.  It’s worth noting that Holwood is married to Farran’s daughter Rowena, for whom Duncombe has developed some affection.

This is, broadly, the setting.  At this point (and, indeed, to the end), the one weakness of the book is its treatment of the business issues that really are at the heart of the story.  At one point, Weatherby (St. Agatha’s Bursar) disappears—having not asked for leave, having not only told no one where he was going, but telling no one that he was going.  If I were the Master of the college, I would have almost immediately called in auditors and reported the disappearance to the police.  (This is not second-guessing; as soon as he disappeared, I was mentally shouting “Call in the auditors!  Call in the police!”) 

And then Holwood is also murdered, after having had something of an altercation with Duncombe. 

And then the share prices of the Farran Group collapse—Farran is dead; Holwood is dead.  An initial examination of the books is not positive.  For the college—Weatherby had invested most of the college’s funds in a single bond issue (a truly stupid thing to do, especially for someone who should certainly have known better—and he is still missing. 

Oddly enough, it’s at about this point that the book, for me, came together.  Quy’s gentle probing of the people involved is very much in character, and she realizes something that was easy to miss.  While major parts of the ending can hardly be called “happy,” it all seems at least to work.  And, if everyone has to make some ethical compromises to get there, at least they recognize what they are doing. 

The first two book in this series (The Wyndham Case and A Piece of Justice) have more coherent plots and are more tightly written.  But Debts of Dishonor is by no means a disappointment.  Well worth the trouble of finding a copy and well worth the time you spend with it.