The to a conversation overheard Helen Carson agrees to marry Lewis Ottway to save her father from possible prosecution for financial fraud. But events result in death.
The story is divided three parts, and I found Part 2 particularly boring, though the other two parts were an enjoyable read
( )

This entry in the Dr. Thorndyke series is told completely from the point of view of Helen Vardon. While the mystery is good, I missed seeing Dr. Thorndyke at work -- the various observations he makes and the deductions and inferences he draws. In this book, the reader only gets a very small dose of these at the very end. ( )

Helen Vardon overhears part of a conversation between her father and Lewis Otway, a neighbour, in which the latter accuses the former of misappropriation of funds and threatens him with prison - then offers to save him in exchange for Helen's hand in marriage. Although Vardon angrily turns Otway from his house, defying him to do his worst, Helen's terror for her father leads her to offer herself to Otway in exchange for an undertaking that there will be no danger of imprisonment. On this basis, a marriage is secretly solemnised. However, no sooner have the newlyweds returned to Otway's house than a furious Vardon arrives. Helen hears first a violent quarrel - and then the sound of a heavy body falling. She enters the room to find her father lying dead, a trickle of blood at one temple, and Otway standing over him, Vardon's own silver-headed stick clutched in one hand. A terrified Otway gasps that Vardon collapsed in the middle of their quarrel and struck his head in falling; a doctor later confirms that the cause of death was heart failure. Nevertheless, Helen avers that she will never live with Otway - and when Otway makes her silence on the circumstances of Vardon's death the price of a legal separation, she reluctantly agrees. After the funeral, Helen leaves for London, intending to use her jewellery-making skills to support herself, and hoping that she has seen the last of her husband. However, it is not long before Otway contacts her - a frightened, panicky Otway, who has received a anonymous letter speaking ominously of the silver-headed stick, and of suppression of evidence...

After a break of eight years, including those of World War I, R. Austin Freeman resumed his series-writing in 1922, with a work that entertains as a novel, but may disappoint as a mystery; particularly as a Dr John Thorndyke mystery. Helen Vardon's Confession differs in both structure and content from the earlier series entries. Set in 1908, it is told in the first person, and follows Helen Vardon not only through her involvement in the story's mystery - which is not the death of her father - but also through her move to London, her efforts to support herself, the new friendships she makes, and her resumption of a brief, early relationship with law-student-turned-architect, Jasper Davenant. The rapid development of the latter poses a serious problem for both Helen and Jasper, to whom she has explained the circumstances of her marriage and her inability to secure an annulment. After an abortive attempt to separate, the two seriously contemplate living together - "marrying", as Jasper insists upon calling it, even if society calls it by another name - and they are about to take the decisive step when they learn that Lewis Otway has been found dead, hanged, an apparent suicide; an act committed, it seems, only minutes after Helen's visit to his rooms where, finding him in ill-health and obsessing over the numerous suicides in his family, she could not help reflecting how simple a solution that would be...

When Helen first arrives in London, she moves into a boarding-house run for the benefit of young women who earn their living by various skilled trades - as designers, artists, pottery-makers and woodworkers. One of Helen's new housemates is interested in the occult, and among various attempts to involve Helen in her hobby, teaches her about "the power of suggestion". Helen is initially a sceptic, but when Lewis Otway is found dead exactly as she envisaged it, a terrible sense of guilt envelopes her - one so great that she comes to believe herself responsible for her husband's death. With the coroner's inquest, however, the question of Helen's guilt becomes a far more concrete matter. Incriminating circumstance after incriminating circumstance is revealed: the truth of the Otway marriage; the blackmailing letters, and Helen's suppression of evidence; the disappearance of a parcel of jewels, known to be in Otway's room before Helen's visit; the discovery of the missing silver-headed stick, blood smeared upon its end; and Helen's knowledge of her husband's suicide fixation... When Helen learns that Dr John Thorndyke, the famous medical jurist, has been asked by the Home Office to inquire into the deaths of both Vardon and Otway, it seems to her that she is as good as convicted...

The main problem with Helen Vardon's Confession is that, in a series where the painstaking scientific methods of its detective are the chief attraction, the reader never once gets to see Thorndyke in action, but only hears the results of his investigations after the event. Nevertheless, various unexpected features in this novel help to compensate for this shortcoming - including Helen's belief that she has "willed" her husband's death; a macabre touch that would make this novel an interesting companion-piece to An American Tragedy - how far is the wish sufficient for guilt? Also surprising is the text's lack of condemnation of Helen and Jasper when they decide that the circumstances of Helen's marriage justifies them in what they refuse to think of as "living in sin". Overall, the novel's attitude to women is strangely contradictory; something we've seen before in Freeman. We get the usual negative generalisations: women are over-emotional, woman are illogical, women are incapable of rational thought...yet at the same time we are given a vivid and heartening portrait of a group of intelligent, determined, independent young women supporting themselves by their own labours - as was the case with the heroine of The Eye Of Osiris. It's as if Freeman was ashamed of his preference for women who are not weak and helpless. However---whatever we make of its attitude to women, there's another attitude in this book that is unmistakeable: its anti-Semitism, common enough in English novels of this period, though thankfully absent in this series to this point, is ugly and ubiquitous, and leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

I'm a fan of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, but I really didn't like this one. Freeman uses a first-person female narrator to express his anti-feminist opinions, a trick that annoys me. It's also pretty anti-Semitic, which I found surprising compared with, for example, Mr. Polton Explains, which I enjoyed for its positive Jewish characters. Aside from these problems, I didn't think it was much of a mystery: the actual murder occurs late in the book, and I thought the identity of the criminal was pretty easy to guess. I did like the descriptions of craft and artistry, always given careful attention in Freeman books, and the group of women living together and supporting each others' work. I finished the book despite not liking much of it, a tribute to Freeman's writing ability. ( )

Not counting the short story collections, this is actually #6 (rather than 7) in the Dr. Thorndyke series, according to http://.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/r-austin-freeman/.

Helen Vardon's Confession begins when she accidentally overhears her farther speaking with one Mr. Otway, an older gentleman, dealer in precious stones who may have other occupations as well. It seems that Helen's father is an attorney and is holding money in trust for another party. The money is needed now, but Vardon is unable to produce it. Otway blackmails Vardon, and tells him that if he can't produce the money he'll have to go to the police and there will most definitely be a fraud case pending. However, if Vardon will let Otway marry Vardon's young daughter Helen, then he (Otway) will hand over the money and the whole incident will be hushed up. Helen panics and decides that she would rather marry Mr. Otway than to see her father the object of a scandal or worse. After the wedding (which has taken place without her father's knowledge), Otway is visited by Vardon, and again Helen overhears their conversation -- but at the end of that visit, her father is dead. Helen separates from her husband and moves to London -- where she meets Dr. Thorndyke, who listens to her tale of woe and inevitably ends up involved in the case. Good thing, too...because after another death, Helen finds herself a number one suspect.

This was just so-so, told all in the first person by Helen Vardon. There's a lot of rambling and side stories that could have feasibly been a bit shortened, but as I've said somewhere else, the golden-age mysteries do tend to go on whereas a writer penning his or her work for modern readers tends to keep things a bit more concise. So, if you don't like long-winded mystery stories, I'd give it a pass. It's not the usual Thorndyke fare, really, if you're familiar with this character, but overall, not a bad read considering it was was first written in 1922.

Readers of Freeman's work, or readers of golden-age mysteries will probably enjoy this book, although the mystery is a bit tame in the long run.

Overall, not a bad read; I wouldn't put it in the great category, but it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours. ( )