Exit pursued by a... Nessie?!

[cimorene]

Okay, WHAT.

After the sleuth and her sidekicks finished deducing the murderer in the Golden Age detective novel I just finished, they followed him to Scotland, where he rowed out on the loch just in time for them to watch him be eaten by the Loch Ness monster*... and that's it. The book just ended!! With the murderer being eaten by Nessie, and no particular commentary or explanation was offered, including why he suddenly decided to return to the scene of the crime right before they (without his knowledge) deduced his identity, nor urgently row out onto it in a boat!

There are some other weak and weird endings to Mrs Bradley mysteries - it's a recurring feature, or weak point - but nothing like this. It's usually more a matter of the loose ends being tied up awkwardly, or a very weird and rushed-feeling "twist" second solution tacked on after the first solution is disproven, or in addition to it. It's not that weird for the weird ending to feature the death, not always suicide, of a murderer whom the law would be unable to capture, or one who escapes trial that way; it's just... both sudden and really extreme? And also, INVOLVING NESSIE?

Another of the quirky features of the Mrs Bradley mysteries that separates them from most classic Golden Age detective stories is that there are regular, not-too-frequent hints that the supernatural is real in the fictional universe, but these don't typically affect the mysteries or their outcomes. Glimpses of ghosts or the future happen, but they don't provide information that would never have been discovered otherwise, etc. This is the first mythical creature that has had physical reality and affected events with it so far (I've read like fifty of them perhaps?). And also by far the most abrupt and dramatic ending...


*The setting is actually a possibly-fictional loch called Loch na Tannasg (which I can't find with Google), but the cryptid is clearly established to belong to the same species as Nessie.

Comments

[laurenthemself]

I got your postcard! Thank you so much!

[cimorene]

You're welcome!

[whimsyful]

*slow blink* Well, I think that tops even Christianna Brand as far as bonkers endings go.

Another of the quirky features of the Mrs Bradley mysteries that separates them from most classic Golden Age detective stories is that there are regular, not-too-frequent hints that the supernatural is real in the fictional universe, but these don't typically affect the mysteries or their outcomes. Glimpses of ghosts or the future happen, but they don't provide information that would never have been discovered otherwise, etc.
The most dramatic case of "maybe the supernatural was real after all" I've read in this genre was John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court, where both a mundane and supernatural explanation was provided for the murders, but even that one didn't involve Nessie!

[cimorene]

I put him on my DNR list after a ghost ending and a religious passage in one of his other books, though I don't remember the details anymore. I definitely practically threw the book across the room, though.

[twistedchick]

I tried looking up Tannasg in several translators and got nowhere. I suspect it's either an adaptation of something the author knows or a variant form of a Scots Gaelic word.

[cimorene]

Yes, I suspect it's an educated invention. The author has lots of Scottish knowledge to draw on. The surrounding bigger cities are real places, but the little village and environs themselves seem to be fictional (not the first time she has done that).