Sheila RadleyReviews

A far-fetched premise... and once the reader accepts it, the story just gets more absurd because of the lies, necessary to the story but really difficult to accept. And an unsatisfying ending that is, for this reader, too open-ended.

The parts that were most interesting to me were the death of the daughter who had Down Syndrome and the breast cancer experience of the wife--I have a sister (still living) with Down Syndrome and had breast cancer 10 years ago. The rest was "meh" for me.

"A terrible series of gales drives through the village of Byland near England's eastern coast. Eventually the storms pass, but they leave behind destruction and fear. An old couple Gladys and Zygmunt Crackjaw, have disappeared. Gladys hasn't been seen in the village in a long time, but the elderly Ziggy bicycled into town every week to buy food and pick up their pensions. The sub-postmistress, Janet Thacker, saw him on Thursday, but no one's seen him since. Now the door to the Crackjaw's house is locked, the pension receipt booklets are on the mantle, and there are some gray hairs and a smear of blood near the fireplace, whee one of the old people may have fallen. The Crackjaws are nowhere to be found.

"With no bodies and no clue to where the Crackjaws might be, Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill and Sergeant Hilary Lloyd face a virtually unsolvable case. Neither the villagers nor the couple's grown children will admit to knowing anything. And nobody seems to care very much. Quantrill and Lloyd will keep probing until they find some answers -- if only Quantrill and Lloyd can tell fact from fiction.

"In this superbly crafted, heartfelt novel, Radley uses a dual narrative technique to transcend the boundaries of the traditional crime novel, producing a story of poignant, universal appeal."
~~front & back flaps

An excellent plot -- a story within a story that still leaves the reader guessing until the last pages. Beautifully crafted and excellently written, as always. It's a shame Ms. Radley wasn't as prolific as Agatha Christie!

"They're back again -- that terrific twosome from Death in the Morning -- Chief Inspector Quantrill, the old-fashioned country police officer, and Martin Tait, the clever, ambitious sergeant with a eye for the ladies.

"When Quantrill's daughter, Alison, returns to her quiet village house after an unhappy love affair in London, she finds a job as secretay to Jasmine Woods, a best-selling author of romantic novels. But one morning Alison finds Jasmine brutally raped and murdered, her valuable collection of jade and netsuke stolen. Quantrill and Tait, who'd warned Jasmine about her collection after an aborted break-in -- and had been attfacted to her -- soon find there is no shortage of suspects. Thee is Rodney Gifford, her cousin, an avant-garde playwright who's had nothing produced in over ten years; her brother-in-law Paul Pardoe, who, with five kids and one of the way, could use the money his wife will inherit; Jonathan Elliott, an intellectual novelist and TV critic, and his wife, Roz, a dedicated feminist; and Gilbert Smith, Jasmine's friend and live-in gardener, a poet and pot smoker who disasspears after the murder, leaving behind some bloodstained clothing. Some people disliked Jasmine's books -- even Quantrill resented the fact that his wife was more roused by Jasmine's fictional heroes than by him -- some envied her money, several had motives, and all of them had the opportunity to ki8ll her.

"Unraveling the strands of the mystery, Quantrill and Tait, who's becoming increasingly interested in Alison, are caught in a tense situation involving their personal and professional obligations. Then Alison, still in shock over Jasmine's death, runs away before giving evidence to Quantrill.

"In a dramatic climax, Alison provides the surprising solution to the murder -- along with a surprising revelation about herself.

"Once again, Sheila Radley has written a totally absorbing story of mystery, love, and death in a small town."
~~front & back covers

I think I'd read this book before, although I didn't remember the plot or characters; I did however remember the author's name and that I had thoroughly enjoyed her books. And I did again,. enough that I'm getting the rest of the series from the library to read them again.

This is an excellent series, this one now from Felony and Mayhem.

two unconnected murders. a totally unrealistic crime. men behaving badly.

i got very tired of the actual chief inspector's daughter and i have no idea why she had to run away but the story was pretty good.

A riveting mystery. I loved it.

This book is about the disappearance and possible death of an elderly couple. Or at least that is what the dust jacket says. For the most part the book doesn't even cover the actual crime or lack there of. The book mainly covers the life of a woman named Janet Thacker. I was disappointed and felt the book was misrepresented as a mystery. The story told wasn't that bad, but it was certainly not what I expected. I gave it two and half stars for the story, but I think it should be re-categorized as just fiction.½

This is a mystery series opener, introducing Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill who lives in a small village in Suffolk called Breckham Market. His right-hand man is DS Tait, who got his job by way of "graduate entry..., special police training and ... accelerated promotion," (8) and who feels he must prove himself to his fellow policemen. Quantrill has been working on the case of a young girl who went missing some months back, but his attention is turned to the disappearance of young Mary Gedge, who was soon to be going off to Cambridge. By all accounts, she hadn't run away, had a good family life, etc. etc., so wasn't the type to likely end up in any trouble. While Quantrill and Tait are questioning the locals for info on Mary, she is found dead in a pond, laying there like Ophelia in all of her death glory. A missing person case now becomes a suspicious death, and it is up to Quantrill to find the killer.

The core mystery here is good but even though there are plenty of suspects and a few red herrings, it's a bit predictable and easy to figure out. Normally this sounds the death knell for me as far as continuing the series, but what saves this is Radley's writing. Quantrill is an interesting person as well. Police work is in his blood, and comes before family (much to his wife's dismay), yet Radley makes him into a human being. Hopefully he becomes a bit more fleshed out as the series progresses. And then there's Tait -- one of those eager and ambitious souls who wants to prove himself and continue his quick rise up the ladder -- he's a character to watch in the next few books.

Overall, this was an okay read. It's not quite a cozy, and not so much a dyed-in-the-wool police procedural, so it's a bit hard to define genre-wise. Readers who enjoy their murders set in the shadow of the quiet English village will like this one. It moves slow and there's not a lot of action, but it's well written.