Dorothy Bowers' second novel fully lives up to the promise of her first, to which it is a sequel only in the sense that it employs the same cool, reasonable Inspector Pardoe. But the murder that he has to investigate in Shadows Before is a sequel; it was because Matthew Weir was accused (though acquitted) of his sister-in-law's murder that he moved to the Cotswold country that his wife's mental state grew peculiar enough to lead to the engagement of a companion for her. It was a natural sequel too that, when Mrs Weir died of arsenic, Scotland Yard was instantly called in; and it was natural to find the shadows of the past lying across the characters involved by the second crime.
There are other shadows too. Though this is not one of those chess-board problems that set all the pieces on the board from the start, there is plenty of material evidence to occupy the reader's attention; indeed, the reader is more generously treated than Pardoe. But the author (fairly enough, and principally by the high quality of her writing) diverts the attention to the realm of character, and so successfully that the absence of adequate motive for Mrs Weir's murder (and for others that follow) seems a negligible factor. But when the truth is revealed, the motive is unquestionable; and for all the melodrama we have a picture of a dreadful but far from incredible killer.
At certain points the construction is deliberately obscure: I think this is a mistake, but not so serious a one as to detract from the book's outstanding merit.
-- Milward Kennedy * The Sunday Times *
It is often said that not a first book but the second that is the true test of a young author's ability. If this is so the test is one Miss Dorothy Bowers passes with distinction in Shadows Before, which improves even upon the promise of her earlier effort. The story tells of the death by poisoning of the wife of Matthew Weir, already tried and acquitted of the murder of his sister-in-law. The investigation is in the hands of Chief Inspector Pardoe, and even after he has begun his inquiry the murderer strikes again and again. Then, too, a friend of the dead woman has mysteriously disappeared, and there is an heiress to a great fortune of whom nothing can be heard. Characterisation and writing are both excellent, though possibly the narrative might be more effective if Miss Bowers were a trifle less addicted to the oblique approach. It is often an impressive and successful method, but one Miss Bowers is inclined to overwork.
-- E.R. Punshon * The Manchester Guardian *
Miss Dorothy Bowers is going to be a good writer of detective stories. She can tell her story, make her people real, cast her Shadows Before, so that her readers feel intheir bones that something terrible is going to happen.
-- William Blunt * The Observer *
