An Unhallowed Grave: A Wesley Peterson Murder Mystery (The Wesley Peterson Murder Mysteries) [Paperback]

Kate Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2009 | Series: The Wesley Peterson Murder Mysteries

When the body of Pauline Brent is found hanging from a yew tree in a local graveyard, DS Wesley Peterson immediately suspects foul play. Meanwhile Wesley's archaeologist friend Neil Watson has excavated a corpse at his nearby dig, that of a young woman who—local legend has it—had been publicly hanged from the very same tree before being buried on unhallowed ground five centuries ago. Wesley is forced to consider the possibility that the killer knows the tree's dark history. Has Pauline also been executed rather than murdered? To catch a dangerous killer Wesley must discover as much as he can about the victim, but Pauline appears to have been a woman with few friends, no relatives, and a past she has carefully tried to hide.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her third mystery featuring Trinidadian police sergeant Wesley Peterson (after 2000's The Armada Boy), Ellis proves herself once again adept at linking a contemporary British police procedural to a crime from centuries in the past that neatly parallels the present-day murder. When the body of Pauline Brent, a doctor's receptionist, turns up hanging from a yew tree in Stokeworthy churchyard, Wes and his colleagues of the Tradmouth (Devon) police soon determine that she was initially strangled. But who would want to murder Pauline, who by all reports had led a blameless life? While Wes and his team interview people who knew the victim, who mysteriously doesn't have much of a past, an archeological dig unearths the 500-year-old skeleton of a young woman whose broken neck suggests that she was hanged. As the police draw closer to identifying Pauline's killer, 15th-century legal documents just as suspensefully reveal an ancient miscarriage of justice. Besides providing a clever dual mystery, Ellis humanizes her characters with glimpses into their reassuringly ordinary personal lives. (Wes's wife, Pam, for instance, worries about finding child care for their newborn son.) This is a series that just gets stronger with each new book. (May 14) Forecast: With its appealing cast of police officers, its English village setting and ingenious but not overly complicated plot, this series would seem a natural for TV adaptation in the author's native Britain.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

Review

'Chilling' - Scotsman 'This is a series that just gets stronger with each new book' - Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Piatkus Books; New edition (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749937009
• ISBN-13: 978-0749937003
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,097,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent parallel development of history and mystery, May 10, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: An Unhallowed Grave: A Wesley Peterson Crime Novel (Wesley Peterson Crime Novels) (Hardcover)

Kate Ellis has developed an approach to mystery that parallels a historical event (in AN UNHALLOWED GRAVE the historical event is the lynch execution of a woman for murdering a child) and a current mystery (in this case the death by hanging of Pauline Brent). Sergeant Wesley Peterson, together with is boss, sex-starved Steve, and competent Rachel try to find motive for killing Pauline--a woman who fit into the background so well she shouldn't have been able to make any enemies.

As the mystery unfolds, Wesley discovers Pauline's secret. Now, rather than to few people with motive, there are too many. It turns out that relying on the historical parallels (being dug up by archeologist-buddy Neil) is key to solving the murder.

I enjoyed Ellis's earlier book THE ARMADA BOY but found AN UNHALLOWED GRAVE even better. Ellis writes well--definitely English but with little enough dialect that the novel is approachable by an American audience. Better yet, she doesn't write down to the reader, yet brings a thoughtful approach to both the mystery and the characters.

Somewhere between a cozy and gritty urban mystery, Ellis writes of bucolic but dangerous small-town England. Excellent.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Unhallowed Grave, April 30, 2001

By 

tregatt (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Unhallowed Grave: A Wesley Peterson Crime Novel (Wesley Peterson Crime Novels) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed reading "An Unhallowed Grave" very much -- it made for riveting reading, and the plot of this novel was as strong as those of the first two books in the Wesley Peterson/Neil Watson mystery series.

Pauline Brent, a doctor's receptionist, is found hanging from a yew tree in the local graveyard. A preliminary examination reveals that she may have been strangled and then strung up onto the tree. Not too far from the crime scene, Neil Watson of the County Archaeological Unit has just uncovered the grave of a woman who was buried at the crossroads (an unhallowed grave) about 5 centuries ago. Local legend has it that the woman was publicly hanged from the very same tree that Pauline Brent was discovered in -- it was believed that she had committed a horrific murder. Could Pauline Brent's murder be linked to a 500 year old lynching? D.S. Peterson wonders as he considers the fact that Pauline's murderer must have known of the tree's reputation. This would then make Pauline's death some kind of execution. What wrong could Pauline have committed to merit such a theatrical end? Peterson must discover all he can about Pauline, but she soon proves to be an enigma -- a woman who was well liked but not fully excepted by the villagers because she was an 'incommer', she also seems to have very few friends and practically no history prior to her arrival at the village. It looks as if Pauline Brent was hiding from something, but what and why? In the meantime, Neil Watson tries to discover more about the young woman who was executed 500 years ago, and of the crime for which she was hanged. Tension mounts as both men home in on the backgrounds of the the two women and of the crimes that they allegedly committed.

This novel was truly well crafted: the manner in which Ellis switches seamlessly between the centuries, and the way in which the solution of one mystery points to the solution of the other -- that was brilliant. I was well and truly hooked by "An Unhallowed Grave" and recommend as riveting reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent Brish police procedural, April 15, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: An Unhallowed Grave: A Wesley Peterson Crime Novel (Wesley Peterson Crime Novels) (Hardcover)

The two teens enter the churchyard in Stokeworthy, England to cast a love spell. However, instead of seeing their true loves, Jo Talbott and Leanne Matherly find a corpse hanging from a tree. The police arrive to contain the scene and it turns out that the local constable did the right thing because the local doctor later followed up by the medical examiner believe that the victim was strangled first and then hung from the tree to make it look like suicide.

Detective Sergeant Peterson and Detective Inspector Heffernan begin investigating the murder of Pauline Brent, a doctor's receptionist. Immediately, the police learn that the victim was well liked, but never fully accepted as a local after living in the South Devon region for fifteen years. They also learn that the tree has a long history as legend says others as far back as five centuries ago have been hung there. With an archeology dig nearby adding clues to the seemingly impossible to solve case, Peterson, who has a degree in archeology, begins to see links between the murders and another incident in 1969, but still struggles to uncover the identity of the killer.

AN UNHALLOWED GRAVE is an excellent British police procedural with a touch of archeology enhancing the entertaining story line. Readers will enjoy the plot mostly because the key cast members such as Peterson and his family (through second hand accounts) seems real, making the inquiries feel genuine. The who-done-it is quite the puzzler, leading the audience to want to seek Kate Ellis previous Peterson novels (see ARMADA BOY).

Harriet Klausner