Masters of the House [Hardcover]

Robert Barnard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1994

After an unemployed man is incapacitated by his wife's death, his children, to avoid state care, take over the house and the housekeeping, but their charade is threatened by the discovery of the body of Dad's nosy ex-girlfriend in their own backyard.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran Barnard (A Fatal Attachment), never a formulaic plotter, delivers a moving, low-keyed story set in the English city of Leeds in the late 1970s. After Ellen Heenan, mother of four, dies with her baby in childbirth, her unemployed husband Dermot collapses and the teenagers Matthew and Annie take over, driven by a desperate fear of being split up and "taken into care." The two tend to their helpless father in his upstairs bedroom, care for the younger boys and go to school-all the while hiding Dermot's breakdown fom the outside world. Weeks later, a new problem arises with the intrusive visits of Carmen O'Keefe, whose persistence confirms Matthew's suspicions of Dermot's infidelity. Upon the discovery of Carmen's body, knifed to death, on their doorstep one night, the two handle the crisis with their newly developed cool. Their secret upstairs is soon uncovered by Carmen's visiting Irish mother-in-law, who promply takes loving charge of the family and raises the children to adulthood. Not until then, despite Matthew's fitful investigative efforts, is Carmen's killer revealed in this affecting story whose gentle tone belies its chilling solution while paying homage to its gutsy young siblings.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Novel-a-year-Barnard nonetheless keeps coming up with new departures for himself. His latest is a mystery set within the confines of an ordinary family--ordinary until the mother dies in childbirth, leaving behind a distraught husband and four children, the oldest of whom, Annie and Matthew, must in effect run the household now. These two kids pretend to the outside world that life in their house is running smoothly despite their terrible loss--what the world doesn't know is that their father has come completely unglued. Further trouble starts when a woman comes knocking on their door, suspecting things are awry, and they fear they may be taken away from their father; then Annie and Matthew find this woman murdered in their garden, bury her, and wonder who done it. Who did do it turns out to be someone much closer to them than they could have expected. Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (September 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684197286
• ISBN-13: 978-0684197289
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,644,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best, March 19, 2009

By 

P. Schumacher (atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Masters of the House (Paperback)

I have read all Robert Barnard's books, many of them more than once.

(Barnard is one of the few mystery writers who repays re-reading.)

And of them all, this remains my favorite.

It is a claustrophobic, Dickensian tale of children thrust harshly into being the "adults" of the family because the adults are gone--literally or psychologically.

(This is the ever-present theme in Dickens: the adults act like children, so the children have to act like adults.)

The scene with the little boy driving--hardly tall enough to reach the car-pedals--is the stuff of nightmares and enormous relief.

This is a brilliant book in almost every respect: brilliant novel as well as brilliant mystery.

5.0 out of 5 stars Well crafted, subtle mystery, April 19, 2010

By 

Maryland Reader "marylandreadr" (MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Masters of the House (Paperback)

Matthew and Annie, ages 13 and 11 respectively, are abruptly thrust into adulthood when their mother dies in childbirth and their father breaks down. Wanting to keep their family together, Matthew and Annie care for their two younger siblings and do their best to decipher and work the adult world toward their goal of keeping the four siblings together in their house.

Incoherent murmurings of their father lead them to believe he had been having an affair with a housewife with a reputation from their town. They become cautious when she starts nosing around the house seeking their father. When Matthew and Annie find her body in the yard, they confer and decide to bury her to prevent the inevitable attention from authorities an investigation into her murder would entail.

The whodunnit is wondering who, of the cast of adult around the kids, did the deed. Robert Barnard is a wonderful writer who is not afraid of leaving you with a few things to wonder about. This book is no longer in print, but is available as a used book and is well worth a little digging for an unusually good read.