Product Description

A Commander John Coffin Mystery.

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

Sometimes the door to the past opens gently -- other times, with a terrible bang, and for John Coffin, it is the latter when a package marked with his initials is opened to reveal a woman's severed arms and legs. Coffin's own dark suspicion is that the limbs belong to someone with whom he had a brief affair during a rocky time in his marriage.

Past ghosts or not, Coffin doggedly pursues the investigation even as an ominous specter comes back to haunt him. When a second woman is found shot to death in her car, Coffin begins to suspect those closest to his wife, Stella Pinero, a famous actress who still manages to keep her own husband guessing at her secrets. As the Second City police force works to identify the first victim and make a connection to the second, unexpected events lead Coffin to the stunning unraveling of this bizarre crime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1602862 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
From the capable pen of Gwendoline Butler (A Dark Coffin) comes Coffin's Ghost, starring John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City of London's Police. When a package marked with Coffin's initials and full of dismembered limbs turns up outside of a battered women's shelter, Coffin doggedly pursues the investigation even as his buried past comes back to haunt him.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
". . . a very good police procedural." -- Deadly Pleasures

". . . this outing will be heartily welcomed by Coffin's legion of admirers." -- Kirkus Reviews

About the Author
Gwendoline Butler lives in Surrey, England and has written nearly 30 mysteries featuring Commander John Coffin. She has received many awards for her writing, including the Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger

Customer Reviews

I Thought Wrong...
"Coffin's Ghost" is supposed to be a mystery/thriller novel, but unfortunately, there is neither in this book. I was so excited to read this book and it took forever for me to find a place to order it from. I recieved the book and was utterly disappointed. There is no mystery or suspense in this novel whatsoever. This book came from England and it is extremely hard to follow, the book skips around like a rabbit in a field. You never know why something happens and you are always left hanging there. The characters are introduced randomly and they are speaking in "short-hand" making it hard to follow and understand. After reading this book I still have no idea what it was about. This novel has no plot or theme. Not reccommended.

Very English but unsympathetic
Newly out of the hospital, commander John Coffin of London's mythical Second City police is confronted with a woman's severed arms and legs outside his former home. His thoughts turn to long abandoned affair--could the limbs belong to the woman? When a second women is murdered, Coffin begins to suspect his wife's friends. Yet with all of the police force at his disposal, no one seems to be able to find a real clue, or discover any reason why these attacks are happening now.

Author Gwendoline Butler does a fine job setting the scene in the 'second city' of London--a city of abandoned warehouses, crime, and poverty, with just the beginning of gentrification brought on by the theater. American readers may find Butler's Englishisms occasionally difficult to follow (although occasionally amusing--I especially enjoyed the police secretary with the pot plant (perhaps potted plant) on her desk).

With multiple murders, a dismembered woman and a decapitated cat, COFFIN'S GHOST should have been a fast-moving adventure. Instead, Butler's writing moves at a ponderous pace, leaving the reader both confused about where the plot is going and lethargic to find out. Coffin's regret over his affair seems more based on his fear of his wife's reaction to it than any realization that he made a mistake, and his treatment of the abandoned mistress is difficult to view sympathetically.