Customer Reviews

Fifth Son: An Inspector Green Mystery

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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Barbara Fradkin is a Ph.D. child psychologist and is a product of Montreal. She attended McGill University and the University of Toronto. She has been a full time child psychologist, but has recently left full-time work to pursue writing. She has written many short stories, which have been published in several magazines. She is sort of a combination of Sherlock Holmes' and Doctor Watson's feminine side.

Michael Green, Ottawa Inspector and father of both a brooding teenager and a fairly new baby, is an intelligent Jewish sleuth who is both persistent and caring about both his job and his growing family. While his psychologist wife, Sharon, deals with Bob, a carpenter of dubious work patterns, their dog, baby and his rebellious daughter Hannah, Green rides along with Brian Sullivan, who has called him to a town by the name of Ashford Landing. A body has been found at the base of an ancient bell tower in an abandoned church, and it turns out to be one of the Pettigrews. But, who is it? The remaining family member, Robbie, was the youngest, and the family's history of tragedy drove him away from any contact with his brothers:

"Colour began to return to Robbie's face. 'I haven't seen my brothers in many years. Ohmigod, let me think.' He stood abruptly and carried the photo over to the light. While they waited, Green absorbed impressions about the room. It was neat and uncluttered, but the furniture was heavy, dark and worn, the carpet on the floor stained and threadbare. There were no pictures of family, or smiling children, or even his father."

Dr. Fradkin has created a dysfunctional family which is pure Alfred Hitchcook in this dark and intelligent mystery. Inspector Green, operating in a tumultuous time for both his personal life and his professional standing as a police officer, is forced to single-handedly prove that not only did a murder occur, but then to sort through the myriad of motives caused by an event that took place twenty years in the past. This is a character-driven psychological thriller of a mystery that is a page turner from page one. Bravo!

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

This is the second Inspector Green mystery I have read. I read the first, Do or Die, just recently. After reading this fourth in the series I'll definitely have to go back and read the other two. I eagerly await the fifth.
The plot and character development in this novel are exceptional. What appears at first to be an accidental death or at most a suicide as a man falls or is pushed from an abandoned church balcony in the small Ottawa Valley town of ashford Landing turns out to be murder. But who has been murdered and who the murderer is are not immediately apparent. Tenacious Inspector Green pursues scanty leads to uncover a secret that a family has kept hidden for twenty years but at great cost to siblings and parents. Great reading!

Inspector Michael Green decides to go for a ride along with Sergeant Brian Sullivan to Ashford Landing where a man has been found dead at the bottom of a church tower. The death is a suspected suicide, but Green isn't so certain. The body is, at first, unidentified but later believed to be one of the Pettigrew boys, a strange, dysfunctional family who used to live on a farm in the town. Figuring out which Pettigrew he is and why he dies proves harder than anyone imagined.

This is not my favorite of Fradkin's books. There were a lot of characters and very little character development. I felt you'd have had to read previous books even to understand the protagonists. The plot was convoluted, overly complicated and relied heavily on a couple of coincidences. The dialogue was fine but very little sense of place was conveyed. It wasn't a terrible read. I did get through it in a day, but that is the sense of it I had--simply getting through it.

A man falls to his death from a bell tower of an old church. Was it suicide or something more sinister? Inspector Michael Green investigates but finds more questions than answers.

This latest in the Michael Green series is the best yet. The story was well written and had me guessing right up until the end. The characters were colourful, interesting and easy to care about.

A man falls to his death from a bell tower of an old church. Was it suicide or something more sinister? Inspector Michael Green investigates but finds more questions than answers.

This latest in the Michael Green series is the best yet. The story was well written and had me guessing right up until the end. The characters were colourful, interesting and easy to care about.