Faithful Unto Death [Paperback]

Caroline Graham (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St. Martin's (1998)
• ASIN: B000GLRLIC
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a doozy, not a cozy, September 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Faithful Unto Death: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Novel (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Despite the cover artwork (inspired no doubt by the success of the Rosamunde Pilcher Bookshelf series) this is an excellent mystery on many levels--but cozy this little village kidnapping?suicide?murder most foul? is not. First, Caroline Graham is an intelligent and graceful writer (P.D. James readers take note). Second, she's plotted an unexpected, but not unfair solution (no deux ex machina, thank you). And third, she's made the off-duty Inspector Barnaby an ambitious and imaginative cook (though it must have been the fault of spell check--where are copy editors when you need them--that he tossed "garlicky croissants," not croutons, in a salad) as well as an intuitive detective who somehow is able to overlook his aide's rampantly lascivious and asocial nature. Fourth, it's perceptive and funny. Even the minor characters, who could so easily be stereotypical stick figures, are sharply individuated, from the village bobby to the aged coquette. Thanks, Amazon for flagging this one as of interest. "Faithful Unto Death" was so satisfying in every way that I plan to reread instead of donating to the library.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Wonderful Depiction!, February 19, 2003

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faithful Unto Death: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Novel (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Caroline Graham is often referred to as a modern-day Agatha Christie. Certainly her characters, humour and carefully crafted mystery story lines are reminiscent of the great Christie. But her books are also quite different. We don't see the detail in Christie's books that we see in Graham's. This particular book is funny and complex. It is also one of the best descriptions of a psycopathic personality that I have ever read. And it's done with so much class! Barnaby seems to have finally met his match with this villain, and you will have to read it to find out how.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Incisive portrait of English life wrapped around mystery, September 11, 1998

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faithful Unto Death (Hardcover)

Caroline Graham's England consists of close-packed villages surrounded by miles and miles of nothing worth seeing, of hard-working city businessmen and urban coppers looking down their slim trim noses at country people and their insular ways, of village bobbies who know the villagers and the cycles of the seasons but naught about investigative work, and of quaint self-assured English eccentrics and villagers whose lives rarely extend beyond the boundary line. I don't know if they exist in Cool Britannica today, but in Graham's world, their constricted lives, hidden passions and occasionally murderous impulses make fascinating reading.