Pursuit And Persuasion (Ben Reese mystery series) [Kindle Edition]

sally wright (Author)

Book Description

Pursuit And Persuasion, (a 2001 Mystery Writers Of America Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist) revolves around the secrets unearthed by Georgina Fletcher - a private, self-contained, contemplative Scotswoman, a widow, and an English professor at Aberdeen University. The day before she dies, she writes an alarming letter to her heir (the American daughter of her oldest friend) and arranges to have it posted in the event of her death.

"...I have reason to believe that my death was desired, planned and perpetrated with great care and deliberation. Even if I am right, the circumstances of my death will appear to have been brought about by natural causes..."

Georgina is anything but a fool, and it happens just as she'd feared. She's also punctilious and ethical, and won't name the person she suspects. Her assumptions are based on speculation, and she refuses to risk condemning any innocent person. She asks instead that her heir, Ellen Winter, hire a detective to investigate her death, free of her own prejudices.
Ellen is one of Ben Reese's archival apprentices at Alderton University, so she knows he's an ex-World War II Scout who's solved other murder cases and is in Scotland on sabbatical. She'd much rather ask Ben to help than use some unknown detective.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you feared that you were going to be killed and had a good idea who it might be, would you leave a cryptic note asking a friend to investigate even the most natural-appearing death if it happened--and not name your suspect? That's the premise of this pleasant third entry in Sally Wright's Ben Reese series (Publish and Perish, Pride and Predator) and unlikely as it may be, she makes do with it more than adequately.

Georgina Fletcher is a Scottish academic, a sensible woman troubled in the weeks before her seemingly natural death by knowledge of some unpleasantness in her family's history and a strong desire to make amends for the misdeeds of her forbears. When a former student of American archivist Ben Reese inherits Georgina's estate, she asks him to help her solve the professor's mystery so that she can carry out Georgina's wishes. Ben's investigation turns up several likely suspects in Georgina's demise, and the secret of how she was killed. Along the way, the reader is treated to descriptions and explanations of matters as far-ranging as falconry, stone-sculpting, microbiology, and rare book collecting.

A relatively bloodless cozy with pacing as slow as a country stroll, Pursuit and Persuasion presents the petty rivalries of academia nicely. Ben Reese, whose background as a World War II scout provides enough of a provenance to put him in the detecting business, is an interesting protagonist who warrants a fuller portrayal. --Jane Adams

From the Inside Flap

ACADEMIC SLEUTH BEN REESE RETURNS TO SCOTLAND,
ENTANGLED IN A CASE OF MURDER AMONG FRIENDS.

The sudden death of rich, generous Scottish professor Georgina Fletcher seems like a tragic accident. Indeed, American archivist Ben Reese can scarcely believe that it was not. But Georgina had foreseen her death, and had laid down a secret trail of evidence pointing to a hard-hearted murder committed by someone with much to gain if she died--or to lose if she lived. Was it the brilliant sculptor Georgina had educated and supported? The beautiful student who is also her heir? Her late husband's business associates? Or a jealous colleague in her own department? It appears that someone very close to her not only killed with fiendish cleverness but wants to ensnare Ben like a blind rat in a live trap--from which he'll never escape. . . .

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 600 KB
• Print Length: 306 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0345425901
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004EPYT9U
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,981 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tightly woven classic British suspense mystery. May 28, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Early 1960s, Scotland, a touch of Oxford, and pathological obsessions are the context for a fascinating plot. Though one of the author's Ben Reese series, the book stands very well on its own legs. Ben Reese, an archivist and unsung war hero, is called upon to help a friend solve the murder of a wealthy business woman who was also an Oxford scholar and professor. Ben is an American from Ohio academia, combining work with visiting friends in Scotland. The United Kingdom is familiar ground for Ben, from the years of WW II and subsequently his academic work. Some of the best aspects of the story are the intersections of the present with Ben's own past.

This is no cardboard copy of the classic British mystery. It is original and spiced with plenty of suspense. The motives for murder are as classic as Shakespeare and as old as time -- avarice and self-absorption manifested in the singlemindedness of the obsessive, secret collector of rare and priceless artifacts. In this case it is a clever villain whose victim dies of apparent natural causes. But this victim was a worthy opponent -- she left a letter foretelling her death but not naming her murderer. Instead Ben Reese must unravel a complex set of clues which may (or may not) be linked with other murders of other times, including a 400-year-old murder in the turbulent Tudor reigns. Commingled with the clues are a cast of eccentric characters each with his or her own agenda. Sometimes the author's description of geography is a bit confusing, but the map provided at the beginning is helpful for those who want to accurately follow Ben's travels in pursuit of evidence. And while some of the characters are more like props than people, Ben is fully drawn and an interesting person to know. The prose is well done and lyrically augmented with poetry written by the victim as a form of diary.

Whether by a fire on a rainy day or in the shade on a sunny summer afternoon, you will not put this book down until it's done and then you will wish it went on just a bit more!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars All This and Scotland, Too March 19, 2011

By Donna Fletcher Crow

Format:Kindle Edition

Tough and gentle, Ben Reese is a man of determination and he never overlooks a detail. Ben pursues details--and killers--from the Cotswolds to Scotland to solve an involved intellectual puzzle. This is a thriller with a subtle moral tale. As always, Sally Wright delivers all one expects--and then more.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rediscovering Ben Reese December 7, 2009

By Glynn Young VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I was in Big Sleep Books in St. Louis recently. A small shop in what we St. Louisans call the Central West End, Big Sleep is devoted to one genre of books - mysteries, broadly defined to include suspense and a few related areas. I wandered alphabetically about the store, and then found myself looking at the Ws. And there was Sally Wright. The store had the two mysteries I had previously read, and one additional one - Pursuit and Persuasion (yes, the titles sound like Jane Austen; they also sound like Dorothy Sayers). I bought all three.

Set in the early 1960s, "Pursuit and Persuasion" finds Ben Reese in Scotland and briefly in England, helping a former student and assistant find out what happened to the woman who left the student a large estate in Scotland - and a letter indicating that she was likely murdered. Reese has two mysteries to solve - what caused the deceased woman to make the young woman her heir to the estate, and who, if anyone, killed the deceased.

The first thing a reader notices about "Pursuit and persuasion" and all of Wright's mysteries is how well written they are. The next thing is how many characters are involved in the story, and the list of characters at the beginning of the story is immensely helpful, as is the map of the estate. (I love mysteries with maps like this - like the old S.S. Van Dine mysteries from the 1920s and 1930s).

This time, Reese finds himself running up against a mania - a mania known only to collectors whose desire to possess sometimes lead to murder. And Wright introduces a love interest, or actually, two potential love interests, for Reese.

"Pursuit and Persuasion" is a great read and great fun to rediscover. Best of all - there are three more in the series I haven't read.

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