A Case to Answer [Hardcover]

Margaret Yorke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2002

The day Jerry Hunt meets Charlotte Frost is the day he decides to abandon his rebellious, criminal ways. Despite the fact that Jerry's been to prison and has vowed never to return, he continues to run a successful scam with his friend Pete in which Jerry sweet-talks a homeowner at the front door, while Pete breaks in at the back. But the day Jerry enters Charlotte's house, he sees something in her smile that makes him determined to stay clean.

In many ways, Charlotte, too, would like to leave her past behind and start over. Widowed after two years of marriage to Rupert, she is faced with the distrust and suspicions of her departed husband's family. But when Rupert's troubled granddaughter, Imogen, needs a place to stay, Charlotte agrees to take her in. Jerry soon befriends Imogen, and with her help he persuades Charlotte to let him renovate her garden. As their lives become more and more entangled, lies and deceits from both their pasts begin to surface, and on a night none of them will ever forget, Charlotte disappears.

A novel of subtle suspense and creeping tension, A Case to Answer is effortlessly crafted crime fiction, in which human weakness and vulnerability lead to secrets, lies and tragedy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In another finely crafted psychological thriller from British author Yorke (The Price of Guilt, etc.), recently widowed Charlotte Frost has been unceremoniously plucked by her stepson, Felix, from the family estate of White Lodge and ensconced in a lesser property at Number Five, Vicarage Fields. As Felix's marriage nears collapse along with his business interests, Felix's daughter Imogen leaves school and announces herself pregnant. Twin brother Nicholas assumes Imogen's only supporting role, while plans are made to saddle poor Charlotte with caring for the contentious teen. After Charlotte brings Imogen into Vicarage Fields, they both meet Captain Smythe, a charming elderly Navy retiree, who has recently nabbed a burglar in his home. By one of the seemingly incidental actions of Nicholas and Imogen, the burglar's former partner, Jerry, is soon employed by Charlotte and admired by Imogen. Then Imogen disappears from her room one night, and Charlotte foolishly decides to go looking for her alone and on foot. What happens to Charlotte sets the scene for the remainder of the story, in which the policemen of CID exhibit some distinctly odd attitudes. Although a very light mystery, the book is well weighted with superb plotting and in-depth personalities. This is a work of impressive quality in the genteel English tradition, though one would never know it from the murky jacket art of a teenage boy wielding a shovel. (Dec. 28)Association Cartier Diamond Dagger award.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Young petty thief Jerry changes his ways after going to work for recently widowed grandmother Charlotte. Caught up in a stepfamily crisis, Charlotte goes missing and dies suspiciously. Jerry subsequently comes under suspicion himself. A highly appealing tale of psychological suspense from the 1999 British Crime Writers' Association Carter Diamond Dagger Award winner.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (January 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312284306
• ISBN-13: 978-0312284305
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,268,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow-burn suspense from a British master, April 6, 2004

By 

R. Decker "bobdecker" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Case to Answer (Library Binding)

This is the fourth or fifth book I've read by Yorke, who is an absolute master at creating suspenseful situations out of the most unlikely materials -- for example, out of the rather low-key, ex-schoolteacher widow Charlotte Frost, who lives in a rather low-key bedroom community an hour out of London. Yorke's genius is in imagining the inner life of her rather commonplace heroines, and when this is done very well the outwardly dull person becomes quite interesting indeed. And unlike certain of her peers, Yorke doesn't try to make her heroines 100% loveable. A recurring theme in her work, and one that is the basis for this story, is the unintended consequences that any banal human act (or failure to act) can bring about. Hardly a new idea, but one which Yorke succeeds in bringing home without any of the glamorous trappings that a lesser author might use to lure her readers in. For this reason, she's closer to Balzac than to Crichton and the attention-deficited reader may not get the point. But Yorke proves nonetheless that suspense doesn't require the imminent end of the world to be effective; in the right hands, the most mundane events can become the material for a real page-turner.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unknown Treasure - Yorke is an accomplished writer., February 20, 2002

By 

Mark D Burgh "Music, Writing, Art, Film, Hist... (Fort Smith, AR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Case to Answer (Hardcover)

Margaret Yorke writes a specific sort of mystery; contemporary, multi-voiced and always English, her writing is clear and painstaking, giving real life and sympathy to all her characters, not merely heroic or evil ones. This books is typical Yorke, in that she presents a family in disarray, a feckless criminal, and older people whose lives are not used up, but are disregarded in the modern rush.

I find that Margaret Yorke is one of the outstanding prose stylists working today; she is the utter antithesis of poetic writers who have nothing to write about. Yorke's books are not mysteries, but novels of contemporary English life which offer much to the reader.

She ought to be better known and more widely read.

3.0 out of 5 stars Understated, August 7, 2011

By 

Clarice - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Case to Answer (Hardcover)

I have always liked Margaret Yorke's books, even though I haven't liked them all equally. When she's good, she's great; when she's not so good, she's about average. I would put this one in her "second tier," in that it's not one of her best, but it's also not one of her worst.

A CASE TO ANSWER is more "novel" than it is mystery, suspense, or thriller, and that's primarily because the plot is not intense. A young troubled woman comes to stay with her step-grandmother and meets up with a local teenager who's been on the wrong side of the law but is trying to clean up his act. As always, Yorke sets up the family dynamic well (yes, it seems that English families are just as dysfunctional as families everywhere else) and also chooses one or two characters to really explore. In this case, one of them is Charlotte Frost, who remarried after 20 years as a widow, only to find her husband dying after two years of marriage. Despite Charlotte's happy marriage and general aggreeableness, her late husband's children treat her as a burden and see her as standing in the way of their full inheritance.

There's a plot twist halfway through that won't surprise Yorke readers, as we know her tricks by now!

In a lot of ways, this book reminded me of P.D. James' INNOCENT BLOOD. It's an intense and absorbing read, but mostly "internal," without a lot of external action to drive the plot. So if you are looking for a crime novel set in the English countryside, with strong characters and strong, no-nonsense writing, I can recommend it. If you want a book with a stronger plot and more twists and turns, I'd try FALSE PRETENSES instead.

A word of warning: If you are new to Yorke, be sure to read up on some of the reviews on Amazon and other places to make sure you're getting one of her good ones. If you start with a less-good one (such as SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, which really is not good at all), you probably won't read more Yorke, and that would be a shame.