I thought the book started off pretty good, but halfway through it bogged down. A man learns that he was adopted. While trying to find out about his real family, he finds that he had been abducted when he was three. The rest of the book is about him finding out how he came to his adoptive pa...
Robert Blair has settled into the law firm that was waiting for him. His cousin Nevil, is the younger partner now. Robert is sitting in his office after tea contemplating leaving for the day when his phone rings. It is Marion Sharpe - she would like him to come out to the Franchise because Scotla...
My favorite Tey so far, though it is definitely not for everyone. This is not your typical mystery by any means. The story starts at a dinner party being held to celebrate the publication of romance writer Lavinia Fitch's latest book. Inspector Alan Grant has gone to pick up his friend, Marta Hal...
I enjoyed this book very much. It is the second book in the Inspector Grant series and features the death of a very talented, popular movie star. There are few clues at the scene, since she was drowned at a secluded beach and the tide has obliterated anything of use. One suspect delivers himself ...
Caroline Fawley thinks she has the perfect set-up: a manor house, her children around her, and a great lover who only drops in on weekends and is underwriting the whole shebang. After two bad marriages, she doesn't want to marry again and is happy to give up her relatively successful career as a...
I wonder what my reaction to inheriting a grand estate would be. Would I prefer my own cozy home. That is how the unexpected 12th Earl of Ellesmere and his wife felt. Percy Spender was willing to spend a brief time in the cold drafty yet elegant almost palace, then they wanted to sell it and get ...
The book starts off on a yawningly slow note but picks up a little bit of speed once the ‘incidents’ in Bettina’s past & present take place. The author has contributed to the slow pace with the language – instead of using simple English (like he normally does), he has used colloquial words and ph...
Originally read in August, 2006. Re-read for a Robert Barnard-themed group blog effort. Excerpted from my post: I’ll confess that everything I know about British politics is cobbled together from Yes, Minister, The Thick of It, and some references on I’m Alan Partridge. (Someone from across the p...
More social commentary than mystery, this is a short, intriguing portrait of life between the wars. Sarah Causeley comes to Hallam Park to be a governess for the youngest child of an aristocratic family of pacifists. She’s enchanted by their kindness and acceptance as well as by their intellectu...
Here's enormous fun. Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs is Britain's most successful thriller writer, even though it's generally agreed his books are bloody awful. And so is he: he's vile to his family (except his gold-digging, ghastly daughter) and everyone else around him. So it's not much of a surpri...