Product Description

When Simone Hollingsworth fails to turn up at bell-ringing practice, her fellow campanologists are neither surprised nor concerned. Only the ever-vigilant Brockleys, the Hollingsworths' neighbors, suspect the worst. "Satisfies on every level".--"San Francisco Chronicle".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1450416 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 311 pages

Amazon.com Review
Can you name a mystery about bell ringing? Of course--The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers. How about another? Well, this book about small-town British coppers Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy might qualify: it begins when a young female campanologist in the village of Fawcett Green fails to show up for practice. Was Simone Hollingsworth kidnapped for ransom? Was her doting new husband involved? Or does her disappearance have something to do with her snooping neighbors--especially the neighbor's obsessive daughter? As she did so well in Written in Blood, Caroline Graham captures the inwardly seething inhabitants of a supposedly placid village with the skill of an expert entomologist observing an anthill. And Barnaby and Troy are once again the perfect pair: the chief inspector's calm introspection is a fine match for the younger, brasher officer's occasional outbursts and blunders. Not the least of Graham's accomplishments is keeping the subgenre of the traditional British village mystery fresh and meaningful. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly
Witty characterizations coupled with some astute reflections on life in a remote English village more than make up for a dearth of solid suspects in Graham's latest addition to the Inspector Barnaby series (Written in Blood, 1995). Pampered housewife Simone Hollingsworth vanishes. Her workaholic hubby, Alan, hides out, hits the bottle hard and subsequently dies of poisoning. Timid next-door neighbor Brenda Brockley also disappears, as does local artist Sarah Lawson, beloved of Gray Patterson, a financially ruined software designer and onetime business partner of Alan Hollingsworth. Since Alan once ripped poor Gray off to buy a fancy piece of jewelry for the vapid, if decorous Simone, Gray's looking more than a wee bit guilty. Eventually, a ransom message is delivered for Simone, and Brenda is revealed to have been involved in a secret romance. Series copper Barnaby is an unobtrusive detective who plods for the most part and is aided by surly subordinate Sergeant Troy, a ladies' man and chronic snob. What distinguishes this series from run-of-the-mill English country fare is Graham's dry wit, which is especially smooth when turned on the banality of English middle-class repression: "Now, as she slid the little aluminum tray from its temptingly illustrated sleeve, she thought how very reassuring frozen comestibles were. Constrained beneath a glittery crust of sterile crystals, they did not leak or smell or ask to be in any way humanly dealt with."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Inspector Barnaby (Written in Blood, LJ 3/1/95) arrives in Fawcett Green looking for clues to the disappearance of a bell-ringer and the subsequent murder of her husband. Great stuff for British procedural fans.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

It's a doozy, not a cozy
Despite the cover artwork (inspired no doubt by the success of the Rosamunde Pilcher Bookshelf series) this is an excellent mystery on many levels--but cozy this little village kidnapping?suicide?murder most foul? is not. First, Caroline Graham is an intelligent and graceful writer (P.D. James readers take note). Second, she's plotted an unexpected, but not unfair solution (no deux ex machina, thank you). And third, she's made the off-duty Inspector Barnaby an ambitious and imaginative cook (though it must have been the fault of spell check--where are copy editors when you need them--that he tossed "garlicky croissants," not croutons, in a salad) as well as an intuitive detective who somehow is able to overlook his aide's rampantly lascivious and asocial nature. Fourth, it's perceptive and funny. Even the minor characters, who could so easily be stereotypical stick figures, are sharply individuated, from the village bobby to the aged coquette. Thanks, Amazon for flagging this one as of interest. "Faithful Unto Death" was so satisfying in every way that I plan to reread instead of donating to the library.

A Most Wonderful Depiction!
Caroline Graham is often referred to as a modern-day Agatha Christie. Certainly her characters, humour and carefully crafted mystery story lines are reminiscent of the great Christie. But her books are also quite different. We don't see the detail in Christie's books that we see in Graham's. This particular book is funny and complex. It is also one of the best descriptions of a psycopathic personality that I have ever read. And it's done with so much class! Barnaby seems to have finally met his match with this villain, and you will have to read it to find out how.

Incisive portrait of English life wrapped around mystery
Caroline Graham's England consists of close-packed villages surrounded by miles and miles of nothing worth seeing, of hard-working city businessmen and urban coppers looking down their slim trim noses at country people and their insular ways, of village bobbies who know the villagers and the cycles of the seasons but naught about investigative work, and of quaint self-assured English eccentrics and villagers whose lives rarely extend beyond the boundary line. I don't know if they exist in Cool Britannica today, but in Graham's world, their constricted lives, hidden passions and occasionally murderous impulses make fascinating reading.