A Fête Worse Than Death
by
Dolores Gordon-Smith
Jack Haldean,
former RAF pilot and now a promising crime writer, is staying with
his cousins, the Rivers, at their stately home in Sussex . Attending
a fête on a glorious summer day, he reflects how he dreamed
of this sort during the war, but surely his idyll did not include
a murdered man in the fortuneteller's tent? Nor another body in
the local inn? Jack has tried his hand helping Scotland Yard before
and had some success – can he solve the murders and prevent any
more happening?
Old
sins cast some long shadows in this highly promising debut. The
early years of the Roaring Twenties are sketched lightly in, instantly
bringing the era to life without overdoing too much extraneous detail.
It is a rattling good plot too, with plenty of plot-appropriate
period detail, the necessary red herrings and constant action of
some sort or another. It is a remarkably polished work for a first
novel, and I look forward to reading more in the series. Perhaps
inevitably Jack is not a terribly interesting protagonist, but he
is amiable and makes a decent detective who manages not to make
the obvious mistakes that mar many books of this type. All in all,
highly recommended and the best crime series debut of this year
to date.
|
The
Book |
Constable & Robinson |
28 June 2007 |
Hardback |
13: 9781845295950 |
Historical Crime - 1922, Sussex , England |
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at Amazon.com |
Excerpt |
NOTE: |
The
Reviewer |
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewed
2007 |
NOTE: |
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