A Likeness In Stone [Hardcover]

J. Wallis Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1998

In the spellbinding tradition of Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell, author Julia Wallis Martin crafts an intelligent, atmospheric British suspense novel as engrossing as it is original.

An entire house, long submerged in the dark waters of a reservoir, unearths a starting find: the corpse of Helena Warner, an Oxford college student who disappeared twenty years earlier. For former homicide detective Bill Driver, it means the reopening of a case that, in his mind, was never really closed. And Driver thinks he knows who did it. But three of Helena's friends-her cold former lover Ian Gilmore, her jealous best friend Joan Poole, and talented but institutionalized artist Richard Wachmann-conspire to keep a decades-old, deadly secret from seeing the light of day...all the wile, a killer continues to strike again and again.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Twenty years ago, Thames Valley Chief Inspector Bill Driver was sure that Helena Warner, an undergraduate reading English at Oxford, was dead, not just missing, and that her lover Ian Gilmore had killed her. But the absence of Helena's body, presumably buried on the vast marsh surrounding the house from which she'd vanished, kept the case on hold. Now a grisly discovery has reopened it. Divers exploring the house, submerged in a reservoir since a few days after Helena's disappearance, have found her corpse shoved into a wardrobe inside, urging Driver out of retirement to join his younger colleagues in bringing Gilmore to justice. Fascinatingly, Martin shows how the past two decades have kept the rest of the principals as frozen in time as Helena. Gilmore's housemate, sculptor Richard Wachmann, has long been institutionalized for depression. Joan Poole, Helena's dull friend and her rival for Gilmore's attention, remains trapped in the body she loathes and in her hatred of Helena. Cora Bowerman, the heiress who's asked Wachmann to sculpt a likeness of her long-dead lover, has never forgiven her dead father for turning him out of the house and sending him to his death in the war. And Gilmore himself is haunted by the twin specters of vanished Helena and relentless Driver, now both unnervingly back in his life. An intense, exceptionally accomplished debut. Fans of Minette Walters's moody British puzzlers will find it irresistible. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Exceptionally accomplished...Fans of Minette Walters's moody British puzzlers will find it irresistible." --Kirkus Reviews

"[A] stylish anatomy of a murder...Intelligent and impeccably plotted, this is one of the best thrillers you'll read this year." --Cosmopolitan (UK)

"Martin superbly peels back the layers of deception...[Her] psychological thriller is a terrific example of the dark, intense character studies the British seem to produce with startling frequency." --San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (April 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312186266
• ISBN-13: 978-0312186265
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,898,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining story..., May 15, 2000

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Likeness In Stone (Hardcover)

Opting for a fair amount of character development and a solid plot, the author has created a thoroughly enjoyable book that I completed in one sitting. Avid mystery readers will probably ID the killer about half way through the book.

The supposed similarity of this book with those written by Minette Walters must be owing to plot elements such as: three suspects and a body found in water (the Breaker); or, a long dead body that brings a formerly frustrated cop back to harass the main suspects (The Ice House). However, the depth of character development found in Walters' better books is missing. And, the reader probably won't learn much from this book, unlike those by Deborah Crombie (last two), Minette Walters, or P.D. James -- or even Elizabeth George for that matter.

The book reads like a screenplay -- which should be appreciated by TV buffs. Each chapter is an act, containing a 'scene or two. The set descriptions are good, although are a bit misplaced, i.e. the setting sun as mango hanging in the sky dripping juice at the soon-to-be death scene might have worked better in the scene where Cora was thinking about her long-dead RAF lover.

The writing in "Likeness in Stone" is not as rich as text by P.D. James, however, the plot moves along at a reasonable clip to a solid ending. In some of her books, James lingers over detail at the expense of a tangled ending, although she seems to have overcome that in her last two books.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minette who? Julia Wallis Martin is incomparable. . ., March 10, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Likeness In Stone (Mass Market Paperback)

What a neat book. I was browsing through Amazon's ". . .customer's also bought. . ." portion of the book reviews and found this book. I couldn't put it down and in fact read it in one marathon sitting on a long flight. Julia Wallis Martin has managed to write a dark and compelling mystery with an ending (and I usually guess who did it) that was in hindsight sort of obvious but so well masked in ambiguity that I wasn't really sure. Now that's a mystery! On top of that I realized that none of the characters were at all likeable, (except for maybe the intrepid Detective Driver) yet I really could not stop reading or caring about the outcome. I highly recommend this book---and am looking forward to reading her next book asap.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can a debut be this good ?, October 26, 1999

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Likeness In Stone (Mass Market Paperback)

A review compared "A Likeness in Stone" to Minette Walters fantastic psychological suspense novels, so I thought I'd give it a try. The reward was more than I had hoped for.

Twenty years ago a student had gone missing. The police suspected murder but weren't able to prove anything. Now the body has surfaced and with it the old allegations and suspicions.

This is not a classical 'Whodunit'. The focus is less on finding the culprit (though that happens in the end as well) than on how the three student under suspicion at the time have dealt with the disappearance of their friend and lover and how it has influenced their live since. Joan and Ian especially were portrayed so well that their actions even if questionable became understandable.

If you like psychological suspense, I encourage you to read Julia Wallis Martin. She may be the coming star if her first novel is any indication.