Say It With Poison [Hardcover]

Ann Granger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1991

Foreign Service Consul Meredith Mitchell returns to England for the wedding of her godchild and is shocked when a bloody ox heart, a dead cat, and some poison threaten to ruin the nuptials. Reprint. PW. K.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Granger's strong debut features Meredith Mitchell, a British consular officer who encounters murder during her Oxfordshire holiday, and contemplative chief inspector Alan Markby. Throughout their investigations of two well-plotted village murders, the two sleuths--working for the most part separately but along parallel paths of detecton--stand out as realistically portrayed, mature characters whose motivations for solving the case are nearly as interesting as the crime itself. Indeed, this is one of those volumes to be savored by connoisseurs of characterization since the murder cannot be unraveled without gaining an understanding of the inner lives of those connected with the events. Meredith's duty visit to attend the wedding of her goddaughter, Sara, swiftly becomes anything but an ordinary nuptial occasion when Meredith finds a bloody ox heart tied to the gate of the house bearing the message "Welcome Home Sara." From there the inquisitive godmother discovers one by one that the locals are not all that they appear to be, including the charming local potter Philip Lorrimer, Lorrimer's theatening elderly neighbor, Sara's glamorous movie-star mother, the all-too-suave fiance and of course, the bride-to-be herself. It takes Meredith a bit longer to begin to understand the enigmatic chief inspector, whose attraction to her is delicately drawn by Granger. This novel establishes Granger as an author of considerable promise.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is married, with two sons, and she and her husband, who also worked for the Foreign Office, are now permanently based in Oxfordshire. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 215 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (March 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312055064
• ISBN-13: 978-0312055066
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,554,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soulless Village Backdrop for Murder, March 23, 2000

By 

Elsie Wilson (Aberystwyth, Cymru) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Say It With Poison (Hardcover)

Fun murder mystery; like many others, not altogether believable in the real world, but entirely cohesive in its own. The heroine, Merry Mitchell, has a true past we learn about and learn to care about. The characters are not, for the most part, caricatures or stereotypical but drawn from life, believable. Definitely a possibility as the first novel of a series; whether Granger can continue the writing of believable characters we care about ~ especially Mitchell and Alan Markby, the police representative ~ remains to be seen. I hope so.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First in series remains one of the best, June 15, 2002

By 

RachelWalker "RachelW" (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Say It With Poison (Meredith and Markby Mysteries) (Paperback)

This may be the first in this wonderfully entertaining series, but it remains one of the very best.

The characters immediately strike you as real and quirky, with great potential. They are interesting and likeable. The writing is good, and the setting of the small village of eccentric people is excellent. The writing tangs with realism, even though this is generally accepted as being a not-very-realistic sub-genre. (Although, in my opinion, it actually is. The category of the village mystery is filled with realism. Lots of different people all living in close proximity to each other and no one else is bound to cause...interesting, things to happen. The potential for crime in a village is just as real in a village as it is a large city. However, while in a city you could have many different murders being investigated at once, in a village, rules of proportion cut the number of murders down to one. (Or thereabouts.) And as such, you can bring across in your novel every single aspect of the society in which this murder has occured, as the society is such a small one.

The plot here is great. The characters realistic. The solution unexpected. And the style typically Agatha Christie's Miss Marple-esque.

Great, great fun.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shows promise!, April 11, 2008

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Say It With Poison (Meredith and Markby Mysteries) (Paperback)

This first in the Mitchell & Markby series holds quite a bit of promise. It is certainly a modern version of the English village mystery. Ms. Granger writes a book with a tight plot and believable characters. We discover that Meredith Mitchell is a diplomatic worker who has come home to England for the wedding of her god-daughter who is also a cousin. She visits a poky little English village, and discovers that a whole lot of evil is going on behind the scenes. It results in a murder, and Meredith is thrown in with the local Police Inspector. She finds herself helping him with solving the puzzle, much to Markby's chagrin. The play between these two characters is interesting to watch, and I am looking forward to reading more in this series.