Passing Strange [Paperback]

Catherin Aird (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1982

The very best in British mystery, Passing Strange starts at the annual Horticultural Society Flower Show in the village of Almstone.

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Thus edition (1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055323384X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553233841
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,158,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death at the flower show, April 27, 2002

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passing Strange (Paperback)

My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it...
- _Othello, The Moor of Venice_ by William Shakespeare, Act I, Scene 3

Like Desdemona, Joyce Cooper was strangled, but the similarity appears to end there. Far from being the beautiful victim of a jealous rage, District Nurse Cooper was a homely middle-aged spinster who lived for her work; her only hobby was her post as Almstone's church organist. (All the chapters are named for organ stops.) So it was that she asked for the fortuneteller's tent at the flower show on the Priory grounds, since she didn't have time for fancy cooking or gardening, and liked being useful. But when the tents were struck at the end of the show, Joyce Cooper was found dead just the same.

Inspector Sloan has a murder that's out of the ordinary run of stranglings, where the greatest controversy of the show up to that point was why Ken Walls' tomatoes didn't take first prize. Almstone itself is a quiet village going through a growth spurt, where developers like Maurice Esdaile can make a lot of money if the new owner of the Priory will sell off some land. But who is the new owner? Richanda Mellows, daughter of the famous anthropologist killed in South America, is the heir - but she was brought up among the people her father studied, and her identification was stolen.

Did someone kill the local midwife because she could identify Richanda - or because she couldn't?

Lots of well-drawn characters and subplots here; as usual, Aird has given us a good book as well as a good mystery. Fred Pearson and his friend Ken Walls' tomato grievance is itself a small mystery, pursued by the Flower Show secretary. (Walls' pursuit of the perfect tomato, incidentally, is his way of living with a bad marriage.) One of Calleshire's recurring-character law firms, this time Terlingham, Terlingham, and Owlet, puts in an appearance as the executors of the Mellows estate. Aird also has fun with the Almstone attitude to newcomers and development, especially some of the wealthy newcomer farmers and the Preservation Society.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mistress of the British Mystery, June 3, 2010

By 

drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passing Strange (Audio CD)

Inspector Sloan is, no doubt, less well known than other British Inspectors who have had the benefit of long running television series; nonetheless, he is a member in good standing of the witty, character-rich British Mystery Books with law-enforcement officesr possessing rock-solid integrity and a bit of a twinkle in the eye. In this audio version of her book, Sloan's author, Catherine Aird, is very well served by the reader, Bruce Montague, who not only portrays Sloan and his sidekick, Crosby, admirably, but gives distinctive voices to the assortment of villagers who have attended the Fair at which the District Nurse has been foully done to death. What possible motive can have moved the evil-doer to murder the well-beloved spinster, devoted as she was to her patients. Can it have something to do with the stranger whose hired red car had blocked the local farmer from carrying out his chore of milking his cows, when the cows most certainly had to be milked. With Sloan on the job we can be sure that the knotty problems will be solved with a keen mind and firm but benign interaction with all with whom he is involved.
Not for those who need a good dose of violence amidst the harsh urban realities. Very much for the person who likes to listen to a puzzle in which the people are more interesting than the sound of falling furniture and crashing cars, and in which decent people act decently or foolishly in the way of common folk.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Passing Strange by Catherine Aird, July 13, 2009

By 

jjmachshev "jj" (Grovetown, GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Passing Strange (Paperback)

Another cozy British mystery from Catherine Aird. "Passing Strange" is a story from her Inspector C.D. Sloane series about the bucolic English countryside and the murders that occur for a host of unusual reasons. This time, Inspector Sloane tackles the murder of the county nurse at a Horticultural Society Flower Show in the village of Almstone. Clues include a possible inheritance, a question of identification, a drunk cup of tea, and flower-arranging wire.

Aird's stories always conjure up images from my sojourn in England--small villages, insular societies, fabulous accents, and all. Those who don't understand British humor or slang may find her stories a bit heavy going, and be sure to bone up on your Bible, French, and Latin since she always includes quotes from at least one, if not all, the previous.