Do You like book A Place Of Safety (2001)?
Basis of BBC-TV Midsomer Murders, pattern unfolds similarly, following Inspector Barnaby's family life, here silver wedding anniversary celebrated with his daughter Cully and her actor husband. Relationship chains have optimistic endings - men, family, animals, yield and usurp power. Vacation feel from Brit slang and expressions like "dot carry one" for limping/ lame, and "Anglepoise" for a swivel arm task lamp (banned by a BBC head who thought small lights bred dark subversive thoughts - is that why a miners' strike crippled the country?). Readers meet local eccentrics, pampered pets, experience minutiae of village life, look inside heads - unappreciated Sergeant, relieved widow, too-caring sister, spoiled canine. What starts as a bully's typical nightly dog walk degenerates into disaster. A girl disappears into a river, blackmail ensues, then murder, almost-murder, accidental murder provoked by icky perverted obsession and a hint of child abuse from a questionable source, the last two not general prime-time fare. "All my life. Off and on." is a deceptive reply, unfair to a reader trying to sort out the loving connection between young girl and boy. Surprises, twists, bad people mean no place is safe, even a victim can become a criminal. (view spoiler)[ Infatuated pansy grapples dominant partner at fatal height. (hide spoiler)]
—An Odd1
Caroline Graham has one of her characters describe Inspector Barnaby as, "a man unclouded by sentiment but not without kindness." I think her writing could be described the same way. We see the characters and get to know them. We may like them or not. We may have sympathy for them or want to see the perpetrators apprehended but either way the author does not beat us over the head with a certain point of view. We are left to form our own opinions. I particularly enjoyed this book because I hadn't seen the movie. I'm not even sure this one was done as a movie, if so I missed it. I think this allowed me to form my own ideas about the characters and where things were headed. Some things here I got right away but others eluded me to the end. As in any really great mystery even the things I didn't get I could go back and see that the information was all there if I had only been able to put it together in the right way. This was one of my favorite Inspector Barnaby mysteries.
—Sharla
A couple of summers ago I got hooked on an English tv mystery series loosely based on the character of Chief Inspector Barnaby created by Carolyn Graham. I decided to read a couple of her books because I enjoyed the bbc series so much. There are several novels with inspector Barnaby as the lead character, the plots are somewhat predictable but fun to read, particularly if you like the mystery genre...which I do. I thought that the T.V. script writers did a good of a job with refining and fleshing out the char acts, plots and setting that ms. Graham initiated, so I know that this is goodreads, but Midsomer Murders headed up by Inspector Barnaby is a goodwatch if you are in need of a marathon tv series to recuperate from surgery or life.
—Cindy
