Customer Reviews

The Lone Traveller (A Gregory Summers Mystery)

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In Hungerford, Thames Valley Police Superintendent Gregory Summers has no time to rest on his laurels after successfully handling a dangerous hostage situation. Six year old Jordan Abbot is missing with the only clue being a good Samaritan stating he saw the lass heading towards the nearby Gypsy camp. The police soon find the corpse of the little girl.

Pictures surface showing Jordan with a Gypsy boy Lashlo. However, instead of being able to fully investigate the murder, Gregory and his subordinates struggle to keep the locals from lynching Lashlo. Still Gregory manages to make some inquiries among the Gypsies, the locals, and an encampment of New Agers. As more deaths occur and the victim's mother encouraged by the media blames the police for not finding the killer, Gregory continues to search for the truth.

The first Summers police procedural is an interesting tale not so much for its investigation, but for its relationships. The story line is filled with dysfunctional pairings that make for a more difficult case. Gregory is a superb character who learns life's basic lesson not to star with a precocious child because invariably the kid owns the book. Susan Kelly's adroit ability to make her charcaters seem real through their problematic associations, which will send readers searching for her previous novels (see the author's "Hope" books).

Harriet Klausner

While this is definitely a mystery novel, having a British inspector seeking to identify a killer in an English town, it is very different from an Agatha Christie whodunit. Don't read this book expecting it to follow Dame Christie's rules. For one thing, we first encounter our hero, Gregory Summers, having an incestuous affair with his deceased son's widow. If you can accept this, you will probably find him one of the more likable sleuths. Still, it has little to do with the actual mystery.
That has a family of gypsies, New Age hippies, good and bad cops, a gay photographer, some typical middle-class suburbanites and the lone traveller of the title. All of these people are well-drawn and none is as predictable as they seem.
Except for locale, this book has more in common with Georges Simenon's Maigret stories than the typical British cozy. A good undemanding read.