Customer Reviews

A Place of Safety

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Picture a rectory in a small English village, and you will probably call up associations of sanctuary, harmony, shelter and reverence. Read a few chapters of this excellent crime novel and you'll see a very different picture. The vicar, no longer holding office in the church, peoples the childless household with young offenders serving their time of rehabilitation. For his wife, who owns the house, the nightmare of living in such a loveless marriage and such a dysfunctional household seems to turn into reality when she believes she has been responsible for the death of one of the inmates. Blackmail attempts follow, then murder. The case becomes one for Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy to investigate.

Author Caroline Graham is one of the best living practitioners of detective fiction. Her books have literary merit, the characters are as well rounded as is feasible in a whodunit game, and the denouements are neither too melodramatic nor too predictable. I can always read to the end with comfort, well able to remember and distinguish all the characters. There is a particularly venomous character here, Terry Jackson, who is hard to forget. Then there is the always sharply presented depiction of the Barnaby household, to which a son-in-law has by now been added.

Caroline Graham's Midsomer Murder novels appear every two or three years. This one dates from 1999 and is one of the best.

I am delighted to discover Caroline Graham. She's a wonderful writer -- her characters become real the instant you meet them. Don't know how she does it. And Sergeant Troy is hilarious.

However -- shame on Amazon and Kindle for publishing this poorly-scanned and never-proofread Kindle edition. There are hundreds of clear scanning errors -- "die" for "the", "Arn" for "Ann", and many many more -- including dropped punctuation all over the place. It's extremely distracting to read a book that's this badly presented, and I'm hesitant to try any other of Caroline Graham's Kindle titles for fear they'll be the same.

This edition should be fixed -- and not by just running a spell-check operation on it, it needs a human being to see the errors -- or our money should be refunded. Really, it's outrageous -- no paper book could ever be published like this.

In Ferne Basset, Charlie Leathers was walking his Jack Russell when he saw Carlotta either fall or be pushed by Ann Lawrence from a parapet near the old Rectory. Charlie vanishes into the night. Charlie blackmails Ann. However, someone murders Charlie. The stunned townsfolk link the murder of Charlie to the disappearance of Carlotta, but cannot find the connecting evidence or ascertain what that could be.

Inspector Barnaby begins to investigate the death of Charlie. He soon learns that the nasty Charlie was very unpopular among the townsfolk, but no one appears to have had a strong enough motive to kill the victim. Thus, suspects abound, but none seemingly obvious. Barnaby also learns about Carlotta running away. He also finds out the prevalent theory links the two incidents, but no one can explain how. Instead, Barnaby continues his methodical inquiries into obtaining the truth behind the murder of Charlie.

A PLACE OF SAFETY is a typical English cozy that travels under the minimum speed limit yet maintains an eccentric charm about the plot. Through Barnaby,s investigation, the story line centers on an insider's look at what makes the residents of Ferne Basset tick. Caroline Graham writes a delightful and amiable stroll through an English village gossiping over an unexpected murder case.

Harriet Klausner

This book was not my favourite Graham, but a good one nevertheless. Ms. Graham's characterizations make her stories exceptional and this book is no different. This book starts with the death of an unpleasant man, and we the readers really don't care who did it, but Ms. Graham develops the other members of the village, and we suddenly find ourselves caring very much about some of the chief characters. This book is also different in that there is no real doubt as to the killer - the only thing is to try to flesh out the details as to why that particular killer killed that man and harmed that woman. This makes it a bit different than many other of her books. I certainly hope that this not her last effort in the Barnaby/Troy series. This book was written in 1999 and there has been nothing since then.

Caroline Graham is an excellent mystery writer. Who was responsible for the transfer of this novel to Kindle? Macmillan? Minotaur books? The Kindle staff? The book is marred throughout by typographical errors -- some of them quite astonishing! Whoever the culprit may be, he has done a disservice both to Ms Graham and to her readers. I hope that Kindle will be polite enough to take a look at the first edition of the novel and make the necessary alterations. In the future I shall continue to read the new Felony and Mayhem editions of her novels -- and of other mysteries as well. I don't want to repeat this experience!

I was a little disappointed with some aspects of this book, namely the way the mystery was solved. I don't want to give too much away, but the perpetrator of the crimes involved felt way too obvious. On the other hand, there was a very satisfying ending with a wodnerful twist, something that, in my opinion, is essential for a good mystery. Another thing I liked about this book was the characters. I found myself wishing I had a neighbor like Evadne Pleat, with her eccentric outfits and many dogs. Also, the two main female characters, Louise Fainlight and Ann Lawrence, are beautifully developed and wonderfully complex. In the end, the book is an entertaining read, but based upon other books in this series, is nothing very special. However, I would still recommend it to any fan of mysteries and thrillers.

Caroline Graham has a real talent for creating interesting characters caught up in tragic situations. Her sympathies are often reserved for women who have chosen their men unwisely. She has little sympathy for men acting badly and her gay men characters are often victims or victimizers of one kind or another. Despite my gut reservations about these writing tendencies, her mysteries are a cut above most of what's out there. "A Place of Safety" is no exception to that rule.

This story is set in the village of Ferne Basset, a berg so small that it seems like the entire population is made up of the dozen or so characters that figure in the tale. It begins with the garroting of the meanest man in town who has been a witness to an altercation between two women residents of The Old Rectory--the former vicarage turned into a kind of half-way house by a misguided do-gooder. As this is a Chief Inspector Barnaby book, the good copper is quickly on the case along with his much abused colleague, Inspector Troy.

In this novel the only things described as perfect or even good are an aging JR terrier and some of the village's architecture. The offering and serving of tea attends every violent act and bad behavior. And good does eventually triumph over evil after several red herrings are distributed and disposed of, as the reader would expect.

This is, overall, a good read. Perhaps not author Graham's best, but worth the time and money.

Caroline Graham is a great discovery if you enjoy British mysteries. Great plot, intriguing characters, well-thoughtout dialogue, etc. Seems nearly everyone has a secret in this little village...
I'm looking forward to reading her other Chief Inspector Barnaby books.

#6 in the Chief Inspector Barnaby series, which was adapted for TV as the "Midsomer Murder" series. (I still haven't seen any of them!) Barnaby and Sgt. Troy are off to the village of Ferne Bassett, where a local gardener/handyman's body has been found dead, his dog having been discovered earlier in the day, severely beaten and barely alive. While no one in the village liked Charlie Leathers--including his wife--it's uncertain who would dislike him enough to murder him.

As we meet each of the players in the village drama--the tormented children's author and his recently-divorced sister, the local (sort of) vicar who (along with his much younger wife) takes in troubled teens and several others--we find that village life isn't as idyllic as is often portrayed. Each person has secrets, resentments, shattered dreams and broken hearts--but how do they tie into Leathers' murder, and the disappearance of young Carlotta Ryan, one of the troubled teens? Leathers was certainly blackmailing someone, but who? And is it related to his murder, or is there something else happening below the surface?

This series has quite a few things that make it somewhat atypical of your usual police mystery--telling the story from the point of view of many of the various characters, for one thing, and setting the scene very firmly before ever introducing the police for another. It does get a bit long-winded sometimes with the emotional descriptions of each person's despair and problems and petty resentments built up over a lifetime, but I suppose those are somewhat necessary to help understand the motivations of the characters.

The mystery wasn't much of one, but I do like Tom Barnaby and his family, and even and his sour-puss Sgt. Troy too. The series tends to be kind of hit or miss (there were a couple of earlier books that I barely made it through) but I did enjoy this one quite a lot. Only one more left in the series, and I will look forward to it--then I can feel free to watch the TV series based on these characters.

Marvelous book and great read except for the most typos I have ever seen in a published book. I am wondering if they are only in the Kindle version.