A Place of Safety (Thorndike Core) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Caroline Graham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000 | Series: Thorndike Core

Tucked away in the charming English village of Ferne Basset, the local rectory is supposed to be a place of safety, not danger. So when ex-vicar Lionel Lawrence opens the rectory to help young offenders he has no way of predicting the consequences--least of all that they will include blackmail and murder. The mysterious disappearance of the wild Carlotta, his most recent charge, seems to involve both. And not only has Carlotta vanished, but village resident Charlie Leathers is found dead. Although Charlie was not the most popular man in town, few people seemed to hate him enough to murder him.

Inspector Barnaby comes to the scene as the small town buzzes with theories about the unfortunate events. It's not long before Barnaby has ideas of his own--Ferne Basset offers a wide variety of plausible suspects. However, what Barnaby doesn't know is that before his death Charlie witnessed what might have been Carlotta's suicide--or murder.

A man is dead, a girl is missing, and a town is in chaos as long-kept secrets begin to unravel, with deadly repercussions.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Graham's eighth novel (which follows Faithful Unto Death) masterfully recounts the effects of loveAor its absenceAon a diverse group of people, including her series detective, Inspector Tom Barnaby. In the peaceful English village of Ferne Basset, Ann Lawrence has a row with Carlotta, one of the young felons her husband, the former vicar, is sheltering. After she accuses the girl of stealing her heirloom earrings, she and the young woman take their fight to the village's picturesque bridge, where Carlotta falls into the river. Seeing this and hearing the girl yell, "Don't push," Charlie Leathers decides to blackmail Ann when the girl's body doesn't surface. However, the morning after the payoff, Barnaby, whose silver wedding anniversary is almost upon him, is summoned to learn that the unpleasant Charlie has been garroted and his dog, Candy, roughed up and left to die. When another blackmail note arrives, Ann decides that even though she's withdrawn the money, she won't pay up. However, she is attacked before she can return it to the bank, and the cash is stolen. In order to sort out who would kill ne'er-do-well Charlie, what happened to Carlotta and who attacked Ann, Barnaby and his team must peel away the layers of secrets harbored in the village. Those secrets, rendered in poignant detail, concern the various types of love that exist in Ferne Basset. Graham is a master of pacing, and her dialogue is dark and worldly-wise enough to make this much fuller fare than most English-village cozies. (Oct.) FYI: The Inspector Barnaby series has been adapted for television by A&E.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

British Inspector Barnaby investigates the murder of a seemingly harmless village resident. Evidently, the victim may have witnessed the suspect death of a troubled young woman. This fine procedural series has been adapted for television by A&E.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 434 pages
• Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783889682
• ISBN-13: 978-0783889689
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,856,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No place of safety, this., December 22, 2003

By 

John Austin "[e-mail]" (Kangaroo Ground, Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Place of Safety: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Novel (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The book is great, the Kindle edition a travesty, filled with errors, August 23, 2010

By 

Katiekins (St. Augustine, Florida) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Place of Safety: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Mystery (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries) (Kindle Edition)

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.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read, September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Place of Safety (Hardcover)

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