Product Description

Following a terrorist bombing, the battered corpse of a woman is found in a house on Percy Street in London. Her fingertips have been removed and her face made unrecognizable by a sadistic killer. The only clue to her identity is a handbag, and the owner of the handbag is Stella Pinero, the beloved actress wife of Chief Commander John Coffin.

Several things complicate the investigation into the murder. Coffin refuses to believe that the remains could be Stella's. In addition, Coffin does not welcome the uncomfortable questions posed by Chief Superintendent Archie Young about the tempestuous Stella's personal life. And all the while the secretive Inspector Lodge of the Terrorist Squad harbors suspicions of his own.

When a second body is discovered, Coffin finds himself drawn into a nightmarish game. He is forced to confront death and treachery in his very own back yard. And the answers he finds could destroy his peaceful life as he knows it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #991700 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In the latest entertaining addition in Butler's long-running series of English police procedurals (A Double Coffin, etc.), Chief Comdr. John Coffin confronts a deadly conspiracy intended to destroy everything he holds most dear. Shortly after two terrorist bombs go off in London, the police are called in to examine a dead body. Its face has been mutilated beyond recognition, but evidence at the scene suggests that the corpse could be Stella Pinero, the famous actress and Coffin's wife. Stella's blue Chanel handbag is found next to the body; inside, there is a photograph of her eating a human arm. Even after the coroner proves the corpse was that of a man dressed up to look like Stella, many questions remain to be answered. Who is trying to implicate Stella in such a horrific crime? Could the dead man be a missing undercover policeman? Where has the real Stella disappeared to? As further murders occur, Coffin and Stella's personal and professional lives are threatened, but the savvy protagonist and his team eventually arrive at the truth. Butler paints a credible relationship between Stella and Coffin, two driven professionals who are fiercely independent yet dedicated to each other. Though her writing can be flat, her serpentine plotting is strong enough to provide a satisfying puzzler.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Stella Pinero, actress, theater owner, and wife of London's Second City police commander, John Coffin, has gone missing. Not only that, but a body disguised as hers is found at the scene of a terrorist bombing that Coffin is investigating. Though the body is not Stella's, and she finally turns up, Coffin and his cohorts suspect that she has some connection to the terrorists. As the police move too close to the truth, several other murders occur, also implicating Stella. Needless to say, there is some tension between husband and wife, thankfully resolved as the story ensues. Nevertheless, despite her usual interesting protagonists, Butler's plot gets murkier as it progresses, motivation is slim and mostly unexplained, and loose ends abound. Not her best effort, but perhaps fans will want it.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Butler has built her considerable reputation on superbly crafted psychological thrillers that examine the bleaker aspects of human nature. Her hero, Scotland Yard Commander John Coffin, is just as enigmatic and complex in his twenty-seventh outing as he was in his first. In Coffin's latest outing, his odd but seemingly unshakeable relationship with his glamorous actress wife, Stella Pinero, is put to the test as Stella is kidnapped by a gang of terrorists. Their plan is to use secrets from Stella's past to blackmail her into spying on her husband and passing on police intelligence. When Stella resists, the gang frames her for a series of gruesome murders. Even the normally stoic Coffin is shaken by the mounting evidence against his wife, her refusal to reveal the truth, and the pressure from his colleagues and the press to solve the case. But Coffin is a consummate professional, and even as his personal life crumbles, he mounts an intensive hunt for the answers he needs. A fine crime novel. Emily Melton

Customer Reviews

A Good Writer but Not the Best of Her Work
This latest installment in Gwendoline Butler's Coffin series was a disappointment. The plot was a convoluted mess of kidnapping, misplaced loyalties, a number of secrets, the usual deviants, detectives looking over their shoulders, a group of terrorists, and Chief Commander Coffin who knows all but tells nothing.

Stella Pinero goes on a short R&R to calm her inner demons, the ones that seem to wake her in the middle of a performance and ask, "What are you doing and why are you doing it?" She leaves shortly after two explosions (presumably placed by terrorists) occur in one day in the Second City. Stella disappears for several days, but her purse turns up at the scene of a murder, along with her clothing on the body of the deceased. There is also a disturbing photograph of Stella chewing on a human arm. Even the Chief Commander admits:

"It's like a Victorian melodrama ... The heroine's handkerchief turns up to incriminate her."

Of course, when Stella shows up, she acts as if nothing has happened. Oh, those actresses and their pesky secrets!

The investigation continues, along with much agonizing on everyone's part for having to suspect the Chief Commander's wife. Archie Young tries to get along with Inspector Lodge, a specialist in terrorism brought in to help out with the bombings. Phoebe Astley is as competent as ever, but her boss is worried about who she's sleeping with. But these have little to do with the overall plot and don't really do much to advance the story.

Coffin's "game" turns out to be little more than an investigation technique of walking the witness through familiar places. He turns it into a game of trust between him and his wife, trying to determine whether she will trust him with the truth, and it plays out rather like the melodrama Coffin alludes to earlier as he uncovers once of Stella's secrets from the past.

Butler's focus on her main character is overwhelmingly ponderous throughout the book. Coffin never seems to grow out of his staid isolationism. The seconary characters -- even the criminals -- are more interesting. While it's admirable that the author focuses on people to tell the story rather than the plot alone, it's obvious she didn't give enough attention to the plot in this police procedural. Her die-hard fans will find only a small growth in the relationship between John Coffin and Stella Pinero, but little else of interest.

The game is to find your way out of this book...
I've read most of the other books in this series, and I've liked them a lot. John Coffin is a curious creature--silent, stalwart, and at the same time romantic and soft. He's an ace detective with a white lap dog. His wife, Stella, is beautiful and talented, and driven to succeed as an actress. She carries designer handbags and tells lies to those she loves, including John.

So, what we have are two enigmatic main characters and a fluff of a dog, several murders, and the usual display of Gwendoline Butler's flakes and perverts. The plot is filled with twists and turns, some of which lead to undisclosed past events and some of which are a result of the characters' own dark secrets.

Do we have a good book? Not exactly. Things do get logically put together in the end, and the motives are sex, money, and revenge. But somehow, there's an integration lacking here--too much of the plot and the characterization seems to be decorations which are not integrated with function. Like lace doilies on the arm of a flowered chintz sofa, there's too much "stuff" to be anything but a distraction.