Down Among the Dead Men [Hardcover]

Geraldine Evans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1994

Believing that a copycat killer is responsible for a popular young woman's death, Inspector Rafferty enlists the help of Sergeant Llewellyn in the investigation of the murdered woman's family and its many reasons for wanting her out of the way.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following Dead Before Morning, the second Inspector Rafferty/Sergeant Llewellyn mystery successfully brings the English duo together again when a woman is found suffocated in an Essex field. Barbara Longman, tireless worker for ecological causes and a good mother, is not your average murder victim. So, at first, Rafferty links her death to unsolved serial killings in a neighboring district. But then clues begin to point towards one of her family-or at least someone with intimate details about her personal life. Rafferty, nicknamed the British Columbo, and his more educated sidekick Llewellyn closely question the prominent family with which Longman lived. Interspersed with Rafferty's keen musings and tentative deductions about the case is the growing connection between him and his sergeant as Llewellyn begins to get serious about Rafferty's cousin, whom he is dating.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Yorkshire Inspector Joe Rafferty's original hope that Barbara Longman was smothered among the wildflowers in Tiffey Meadow by whoever has already killed two women across the river in Suffolk--somebody he won't have the primary responsibility for catching--is dashed when the Suffolk police get two confessions, but not three, from their suspect, confirming Rafferty's suspicion that his murder is the work of a copycat. Who lured the ecology-minded victim out to the meadow with a phony call warning that neighboring farmer Cyril Thomson was threatening to plow up the wildflowers? Rafferty and his obtrusively well read sergeant, David Llewellyn, can't believe that Barbara's ineffectual husband, Henry Longman, has the gumption for murder. But how about the other, more substantial members of her family circle: Henry's acid-tongued first wife Anne, who saw Barbara as an obstacle to her getting custody of her son Maxie away from Henry? Anne's younger brother Charles Shore, inheritor of the family business, whom Barbara first accused of dumping pollutants into the river and then started an affair with? Charles's well-kept wife, Hilary, a faded actress who'd just told meek Henry that his wife was sleeping with his boss? Competent and colorless, with the emphasis on the he-said/she- said of the suspects' alibis, until the denouement, when the grisly absurdity of the killer's motive gives the book a perverse distinction that sets it quite apart from Dead Before Morning (1993). -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (December 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312114516
• ISBN-13: 978-0312114510
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,843,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi, Welcome!

I've had eighteen novels published - sixteen crime, one historical and one romance. I've been plucked from slush piles twice: once by Robert Hale, and once by Macmillan, who took my very first mystery novel, Dead Before Morning, and published it in 1993. They sold it in turn to St Martin's Press in the US and thence on to Worldwide for softcover publication. Not bad for a writer who had endured six long years of rejections for her first six novels. Admittedly, they had been romances: clearly not my metier!

My eighteenth novel, Deadly Reunion, came out in the UK in February 2011, it'll be out on 1st June in the States. In this one, Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty is barely back from his honeymoon before he has two unpleasant surprises. Not only has he another murder investigation - a poisoning courtesy of a school reunion, he also has four new lodgers, courtesy of his Ma, Kitty Rafferty. Ma is organising her own reunion and since getting on the internet, the number of Rafferty and Kelly family attendees has grown, like Topsy. In his murder investigation, Rafferty has to go back in time to learn of all the likely motives of the victim's fellow reunees. But it is only when he is reconciled to his unwanted lodgers, that Rafferty finds the answers to his most important questions. Deadly Reunion is the fourteenth in my Rafferty & Llewellyn humorous crime series.

I've also a new ebook out, Death Line, the third ebook,in my Rafferty series, available from amaxon's kindle, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, nook, kobo, android, and God knows where else. Price 99c for a limited period only. In this one, Jasper Moon, internationally renowned 'seer to the stars', had signally failed to foresee his own future. He is found dead on his consulting-room floor, his skull crushed with a crystal ball and, all, around him, his office in chaos.

Meanwhile, Ma Rafferty goes in for a bit of star gazing herself. She sees a good Catholic girl with child-bearing hips in Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty's future. Rafferty hopes a cunning plan will help him avoid her machinations. During their murder investigations, Inspector Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn gradually discover connections between Moon and others in the small Essex town of Elmhurst. But why is it that all of Rafferty's suspects have seemingly unbreakable alibis?

I've just started to prepare The Hanging Tree, the fourth in my Rafferty series, for epublication. I hope to have it available in the usual places by the middle of April.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great British Police Procedural, December 30, 2010

By 

Kae "writer reads" (NW USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Down Among the Dead Men (Second in the critically acclaimed Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series) (Kindle Edition)

I downloaded the eBook edition of Down Among the Dead Men after reading a post by author, Geraldine Evans on KindleBoards. I like Police Procedural mysteries, and this one was spot on (couldn't help myself, since this is set in England)!

In this second of the Rafferty & Llewellyn crime novels, the team investigates Barbara Longman's murder. Her body is found in a deserted field of wild flowers, and the woman is related to an influential family in the Essex community. Multiple suspects from within the family keep our two detectives taking interviews in Essex and London, and piecing together what could have happened.

Told from Rafferty's point of view (third person), we see the crime investigation and also get Rafferty's take on the family, his partner, and life in general. It's sometimes whimsical, and always presents a great picture of the characters. Rafferty knows he's considered the "Columbo" of his precinct, and he constantly chafes under Llewellyn's garrulous erudition about anything and everything.

I was quite take with the language and writing in this book, such as, "... swallowing statements whole generally caused investigatory indigestion. He chewed over what Henry had said..." Great phrasing throughout, which shows the thoughtful writing of this book. This type of writing doesn't occur with a dashed-off story.

The series originally was published more than a decade ago in hardback editions from Severn House. I hope more of Evans' titles end up on Kindle, and I will look for older editions at my Public Library.