Customer Reviews

Dead and Buried (Charnwood Large Print)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The last Skinner book was arrant nonsense, but this one is back on form. Following directly after the events of the previous book, this inserts a slight dose of reality into all that silliness.

The real strength of the Skinner series has always been the breadth of the cast of characters, rather than just Skinner himself. The whole cast of supporting characters have lives and personalities and grow along with the main characters as the series progresses. It is especially fun in this book to see Proud Jimmy out from behind his desk and investigating a mystery of his own.

"Dead and Buried" is the first book in the series I have read, and so I lack the background of the other reviewers.

I did not like this book. It was agonizingly slow-paced and full of administrative detail (personnel shifts at headquarters, yawwwwwn) and deadly-boring office politics. Bob Skinner seems much wrapped up in one daughter, the one borne of his first wife, and little mention is made of the children with his second wife, for whom he is about to become a full-time parent during the school year due to their impending divorce.

That eldest daughter, Alex, does something so remarkably stupid during a criminal crisis (tossing a major piece of evidence into the river and not telling the cops) that it is simply impossible to believe she's from a law enforcement family at all. Jardine also uses Alex as a deus ex machina to resolve a completely separate mystery, and I doubt any reader, no matter how loyal, can attain the suspension of disbelief necessary to find her role in resolving that mystery a credible coincidence.

I enjoyed the third mystery thread in the book with Sir James Proud (Proud Jimmy) and thought it was resolved really very well; very satisfying. There was also a gruesome mutilation murder which had a unique solution, but the solution was reached very clumsily -- no chance for a reader to suss it out.

Other than those 1.5 storylines, the rest of the book was a painful drag, and the surfeit of references to the prior book was just annoying. And for heaven's sake, the mission *this* book is supposed to be about is not revealed until page 128!! It was a chore to get that far, and truly hard labor to wade through the end.

However, there's one more thing I liked, midst all the things I didn't: Jardine used his own surname for one of the characters. It was intriguing; I'd like to know why he did that. Primrose Jardine -- surely there's a story there. :)

Although Jardine writes well, but lately his fulsome praises of Skinner being tough, invincible, and a man of great integrity just do not ring true. In the earlier books, he is a great family man with a fierce love for his family. Now the family is splitting up and there seems to be nary a regret for the departure of his children and wife.

Jardine seems to be going back on what he said in earlier novels regarding Skinner's great love for his wife. Now he is suggesting that it was almost just convenience and was not really great love at all, and that he spent all those years dreaming of his dead wife Myra, and didnt really love Sarah that way at all!

Come on Quintin, you can't rewrite the history of your characters - there are plenty of others in the books who can and do have affairs in the stories. The sudden reversal in Skinner's character is at odds with his supposed integrity and strength as a man of his word.

Other than Skinner's private life & affair with Aileen, the book has a good plot and interesting characters. It's worth a read anyhway!