Skeleton at the Feast: Complete & Unabridged (Soundings) [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Patricia Hall (Author), Michael Tudor Barnes (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001 | Series: Soundings

With an inquiry into the death of one of his officers hanging over his head back in Yorkshire and his career in limbo, DCI Michael Thackeray sets off for his alma mater, Oxford College, for a summer course, all the while brooding on his newly uncertain future. Before long, a former tutor has persuaded him to investigate the disappearance of a senior don. Why has Dr. Mark Harrison abandoned his wife, his family, and his students so abruptly? And why has no one heard from him or his girlfriend since the day they left St. Frideswide's? The college needs some answers urgently.

Back on their home turf, Thackeray's girlfriend, reporter Laura Ackroyd, watches and waits--and does some of her own investigating--as the ripples caused by the young policewoman's death throw young sergeant Kevin Mower into turmoil and an ambitious officer pursues Thackeray's job.

As Laura Ackroyd battles on the home front, Thackeray is tormented by unhappy memories of his own time at Oxford. Are the missing professor and his girlfriend alive or dead? How many more horrors, so effortlessly covered up over the years, will come back to haunt St. Frideswide's, as well as Thackeray himself? The answers to these questions may be more than he bargained for, and the distance between the privileged world of college cloisters and the violence outside its ivy-covered walls may turn out to be just an illusion.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Last seen in 2001's Dead on Arrival, DCI Michael Thackeray again combines instinct with persistent investigation to work his way through a case in this smoothly written story. The Yorkshire cop travels to Oxford University, his alma mater, ostensibly to take a course in police work. In fact, he has been sent away from Bradfield during the investigation into the shooting of one of his detectives, for which he may bear some responsibility. Upon arriving at his old college of St. Frideswide's (aka Friddies), Thackeray is besieged with disquieting memories of his unhappy days there and summoned by a former tutor, Hugh Greenaway, who asks Thackeray to look into the disappearance of a don named Mark Harrison. Harrison was an undergraduate with Thackeray, and he was a prime example of the kind of brutish snob that made Thackeray hate college. Nevertheless, Thackeray agrees to help Greenaway. He talks to Harrison's wife, Penny, and begins to question Magnus Partridge, a creepy old tutor who seems to have been at Friddies for most of its 500 years. While Penny will do anything to reveal the truth, Partridge and, as our hero slowly discovers, most of the college will do anything to protect Friddies' noble history. Back at Bradfield CID, Thackeray's underlings, detectives Val Ridley and Kevin Mower, are investigating the rape and beating of a young teenage girl, and mourning the dead detective, Rita Desai. The story moves easily between the two plotlines. Excellent pacing and nicely textured characters carry the reader along for a very pleasant ride.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

From Library Journal

While Detective Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray takes a continuing education course at his alma mater, Oxford College, the new master, who is also an old friend, asks him to investigate the disappearance of a chemistry tutor. The academic surroundings remind Thackeray of a young woman's supposed suicide, which he had witnessed as a student. Meanwhile, back home at Bradfield, Thackeray's team works on the case of a 13-year-old girl, apparently beaten and raped, whose unwarranted recalcitrance causes complications. Intricate plotting and detailed police procedure, ably handled by a master hand (Perils of the Night), make this a most satisfying read.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Soundings Ltd (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860429890
• ISBN-13: 978-1860429897
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Patricia Hall remembers telling stories to her little sisters when she was six years old, and by the time she was in her early teens she was sure that she was going to be a writer one day. She gained a a degree in English before becoming a journalist and working for The Guardian and the BBC in London, amongst others.
On 1991 her first crime novel, The Poison Pool, was published in London and New York and this was followed by a book a year. Most feature her feisty heroine, reporter Laura Ackroyd and her on-off lover DCI Michael Thackeray. They are set in the decaying industrial towns of West Yorkshire and the nearby countryside of the Yorkshire Dales. In 2011 she launched a new series with Dead Beat, casting a sceptical eye on "Swinging London" in the 1960s. The sequel, Death Trap, will be published in 2012.
Patricia is married and now lives in Oxford. She has two grown up sons and a grand-daughter.
Visit Patricia's web-site at www.patriciahall.co.uk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing characters, weak mystery, February 23, 2002

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Skeleton at the Feast (Yorkshire) (Hardcover)

DCI Michael Thackeray is sent back to Oxford, to the college where he'd studied, while his superiors work out what to do with the disaster of a case he left behind. Back at Yorkshire, his detectives try to get on with their lives and cope with the death of one of their own. All is not well at Oxford. His college, which has always hidden its crimes, has continued to do so but a missing professor, the professor's missing girlfriend, and considerable missing money compound Thackeray's old memories of a murder that took place when he was a student.

Author Patricia Hall balances the Oxford mystery with the case of a 13-year old girl who was raped and beaten back in Yorkshire. Reporter, and Thackeray's girlfriend Laura serves as a bridge, spending weekends in Oxford with Thackeray and working on both cases.

Virtually all of Hall's male characters are damaged, trying to make a life for themselves despite the loss of so much. Thackeray has never recovered from his years at Oxford, and now must relive that terrible time and the cover-up that he has never forgotten. His sergeant, Kevin Mower, is slowly self-destructing out of grief for the loss of his love. Strong women, Laura, her grandmother, and DC Val Ridley provide the strength to keep the males moving.

Hall's writing is vivid and American readers are likely to enjoy her judicious use of Yorkshire dialect. The mysteries themselves are fairly anti-climactic, however. In particular, the the Oxford murders seem a little too disconnected. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop--but it never did. Likewise the Yorkshire mystery was quickly resolved once Thackeray returned to the job--so quickly that I wondered why it took so long in the first place. SKELETON AT THE FEAST is interesting and thought provoking, but needs a bit of sharpening to be a really compelling mystery.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best work yet in this series, December 20, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Skeleton at the Feast (Yorkshire) (Hardcover)

Detective Michael Thackery is in trouble with the Bradfield brass since a female police officer died on his last major case. The leadership claims negligence on his part and failure to obey orders caused the death. He is up for review in a short time but his superior, Detective Superintendent Jack Longley sends Michael to a seminar at St. Fridsuade's College to keep him out of the firing line.

The Master of the college, which happens to be Michael's alma mater, wants his former pupil to investigate the sudden disappearance of Professor Mark Harrison. The professor vanished with his girlfriend, but left behind a wife under psychiatric care, a son dead from a drug overdose, and a bitter daughter. Much to Michael's surprise, his investigation leads to scandals and crimes that the college would prefer never see the light of day.

Patricia Hall's ongoing series starring Michael Thackery and his girlfriend Laura Ackray continues to be one of the better British police procedurals on the market today. SKELETON AT THE FEAST is a complex, multi-layered mystery that shows how ugly the academic world can turn. The romance between Michael and Laurie is progressing and fans of the series will take much pleasure in this novel and want to read the next book in this delightful series

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an enjoyable and compelling read, January 13, 2002

By 

tregatt (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Skeleton at the Feast (Yorkshire) (Hardcover)

"Skeleton at the Feast" is yet another compelling and riveting installment in the Yorkshire Mystery series that features the broodingly charismatic Detective Chief Inspector, Michael Thackeray.

In "Skeleton at the Feast," Thackeray has been sent to Oxford University (his alma mater) in order to attend a summer course on police management. In reality however, Thackeray has been sent out of Bradfield while his fate is being decided -- a young police officer had been shot under his command, and Thackeray is now facing an inquiry into whether or not he is to be held accountable for her untimely death. For Thackeray however, being in Oxford again resurrects all kinds of painful memories of not really fitting in, being harassed by the snobby upper-class students with whom he played rugby, and the tragic accidental death of one of the first women to be admitted to St. Frideswides (Thackerary's college). And when Thackeray's old tutor, Hugh Greenaway, and current Master of St. Frideswides asks Thackeray to unofficially look into the disappearance of a senior don and an old undergraduate rugby foe, Dr. Mark Harrison, he reluctantly agrees to do so. But when he meets the don's abandoned wife, Thackeray realises that there is a whole lot more going on then Greenaway had led him to believe. Motivated by sympathy for Mrs. Harrison, and a desire to see justice done, Thackeray begins to look deeply into the affairs of the missing Mark Harrison, and discovers that Harrison is not the only person missing from Oxford. His young mistress seems to be missing as well; and not only has her disappearance been ignored, but few seem to care as to her whereabouts. Angry that once again unsavory misdeeds are being swept under the carpet, Thackeray is determined to discover the truth and to bring it out into the open. The once friendly Greenaway tries to warn Thackeray off, but will independently minded Thackeray listen?

What makes "Skeleton at the Feast" such great reading is that we get to know a little bit more about DCI Michael Thackery and the past that haunts him and that helped shape him. We also get to see how much policing in England seems to have become a little bit less the pursuit of law and order, and more about clearance rates and numbers. And while the Oxford events that are related in "Skeleton at the Feast" make for compelling reading, what makes this mystery novel doubly interesting is that Patricia Hall has juxtaposed what occurs in Oxford with a case of violent assault that has taken place in Bradfield which Thackeray's sidekicks DS Mower and DC Ridley have to cope with under the command of the new acting head, the ambitious DI Jackie Bairstow, who is after Thackeray's job. How Hall manages to juxtapose these two different subplots, and yet makes everything seem so seamless, is absolutely brilliant.

The greatest charm about this series (and book) is that Patricia Hall has created a group of characters whose well-being we have come to care about. With each new mystery novel we learn a little more of each character and empathise with the ups and downs in their lives. The Yorkshire Mystery is a wonderfully absorbing series, and "Skeleton at the Feast" fits in superbly.