Customer Reviews

A Meeting of Minds: A Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mystery

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Beattie Weyman was very excited about her new undertaking. Using her recent inheritance, Beattie has bought once elegant now almost falling apart Ashbourne House in order to convert (and renovate) the building into 6 luxurious flats which she would then rent to people she had specially vetted. Her dream, however, soon becomes a nightmare, when roughly 9 weeks after all the tenants had moved in, one of them, Sheila Winters, is found murdered in a pub parking lot. But even as Beattie and her other tenants struggle to absorb the fact that quiet, nondescript Sheila has become a fatality in a brutal crime, they little realise that Sheila's murder is only the beginning in a string of strange and savage attacks that seem to dog these new tenants...

"A Meeting of Minds" is a quiet, intelligent and compelling British police procedural that is bound to intrigue. Clare Curzon does a wonderful job of sketching out the characters (both primary and secondary) involved in this particular mystery, inviting our interest and making us care about them and the mystery at hand. I'll admit, however, to feeling slightly frustrated that the clues were far and between, thus not allowing the reader to solve the case along with the police officers. However, "A Meeting of Minds" was a well written mystery novel and a compelling one too, so that niggles aside, I'd vote it as a good 3 star read.

Just back from a family vacation in warm Madeira, Detective Superintendent Mike Yeadings realizes the cold is inside his bones proving he has not adjusted to winter, which remains a month away. At least the naked corpse except for the fur coat was not found in the river, but instead in a pub yard in Henley on Thames. Mike and his team arrive on site to determine whether a crime was committed or a sad natural death occurred.

Detective Sergeant Rosemary "Z" Zycynski immediately identifies the dead person as her Ashbourne House neighbor, Sheila Winter. Z explains to Mike that elderly Beattie Weyman recently bought Ashbourne House and converted it into luxury apartments. She also says that the victim owned a garden centre and shared her flat with her mother. As far as Z knew Sheila had nothing else in her life. Concluding murder occurred Mike and his Thames Valley team investigates the neighbors to uncover what happened to Sheila.

The Thames Valley CID mysteries are excellent British police procedurals with this entry being the usual superb investigative tale. The brisk story line takes off once the freezing Mike arrives at the crime scene and never decelerates until the case is solved. Mike is a terrific protagonist, but Z plays the centrist role as the victim was her neighbor and she more or less knows the other residents of Ashbourne House. An intriguing sidebar is the motive behind why Beattie converted the house as this lonely senior with the victim brings a message that everyone needs companionship. Ms. Curzon's latest tour of the Thames is a winner.

Harriet Klausner