She was so good! I expected the mystery dinner theater actors to be my favorite part of the book, but in fact I loved the elderly mom even more.

I think what misled me really is all the time I've spent reading Gothics, which much more about this sense that NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED, NO ONE IS WHAT THEY SEEM. Whereas in this Dick Francis, at least, if people aren't what they seem, it's just because they are smarter/kinder/have more of a heart of gold than first impressions would perhaps imply, and the people who already seem smart/kind/competent are indeed so.

(genarti and I spent some time running through Mary Stewart novels, which are maybe a bit more Romantic Suspense than Gothic, but almost all of them still do have the sympathetic decoy love interest who turns out to be evil.)