Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death: Unabridged [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

W.J. Burley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1991

When Matthew Glynn, a respectable bookseller, is found bludgeoned and strangled, Wycliffe is mystified. Why would anyone want to kill him, and in such a brutal manner? But a look at Glynn’s background reveals family tensions. Alfred Glynn, an eccentric recluse, has held a grudge against his brother for years, and the older brother, Maurice, argued bitterly with Matthew over the sale of family land. Add to this a discontented son, valuable documents in the bookseller’s safe, and the mysterious, still unexplained disappearance of Matthew’s wife years earlier, and Wycliffe is facing one of the most impenetrable cases of his career.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Another case in Cornwall for ever more introspective Chief Superintendent Wycliffe (Wycliffe and the Tangled Web, etc.), who's now called to Penzance when Matthew Glynn is found strangled in the bookshop his family has owned for decades. One of three brothers, Matthew lived with unmarried sister Sara and his son and daughter in the large house adjoining the bookshop. His promiscuous wife, Inez, had left him 17 years before; brother Maurice's wife Celia is long dead; reclusive brother Alfred, a pharmacist once in love with Inez, never married. It's a strange family in whose history Wycliffe will find the answers to his questions--and an inconclusive end to this mildly interesting but unfocused story. Burley has done better. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

W.J. Burley lived near Newquay in Cornwall, and was a schoolmaster until he retired to concentrate on his writing. His many Wycliffe books include, most recently, Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine. He died in 2002. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Soundings Ltd; Unabridged edition (December 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854965263
• ISBN-13: 978-1854965264
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A potentially fantastic book ruined by lack of an ending, July 19, 2002

By 

alexliamw (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death (Paperback)

This book begins brightly enough as a well-written murder mystery. As the book progresses, more and more is unveiled and more and more possibilities enter the mind. So, of course, the reader wonders what the solution will be, and eagerly awaits discovering it. "How is the author going to pick a murderer out of all this" I thought. He doesn't. The book is closed on a sort of "and we'll never know who it was" situation that ranks up there with "and it was all a dream" for end of book cop-outs. So, this book does keep you guessing until the last page, in fact, it keeps you guessing forever! Surely the whole point of a murder mystery is to wrap everything up cleverly and explain.

Here, the author WJ Burley clearly digs himself into too big a hole to get out of and has to wrap it up by saying "the police will accept that the murderer is the man who committed suicide, as dead people can't be tried, even though they don't believe it is"; hence accepting the obvious theory at the beginning of the book which the whole rest of the book was meant to counteract: he might as well have wrapped it up after 60 pages when everyone thought that was the solution already. To illustrate this point, read the blurb on the back of the book: "the murderer's identity seems obvious, but Wycliffe is not convinced". Yet it is wrapped up accepting the obvious identity!

This book is not so much a bad book as one of the most dissatisfying I have ever read. I have not read the rest of the Wycliffe series, but if they are all wrapped up in this kind of way, then I have no idea how this author has enough money to go on! Imagine what the outcry would have been if Agatha Christie had resolved a book with "we'll never know who it was". I highly dis-recommend this book, unfortunately, unless you want a murder mystery without a solution. 2 stars.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where's the ending?, June 30, 2006

By 

NoWireHangers (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death (Wycliffe Series) (Paperback)

This book has been sitting in my bookshelf for several years, and for some reason I didn't read it until now. It's a standard murder mystery, but well written. I had read the other customer review here on Amazon.com before I finished the book, so I was prepared for the ending, which certainly is a disappointment. In a mystery novel, the mystery is supposed to be solved. In this book, everybody thinks the mystery is solved, except for Wycliffe, so the investigation continues, and more evidence is unearhted, making their initial theory less probably, but Wycliffe for some reason decide not to proceed with the case.

With a proper ending, this would have been a pretty good mystery novel, but it's not. You'd be better off with most other murder mysteries instead of this one. Not recommended.

2.0 out of 5 stars Could have been good - but no sense at the end, September 17, 2011

By 

review (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death (Wycliffe Series) (Paperback)

Spoiler Alert: This review will give away the book - because there isn't much to give away.

There are 2 murders and 1 suicide (driven to it - by the murder is who I say did it) and yet NO one is to be tried nor anything definite decided really.

Now after all the build up - I would say that NONE of the brothers did it. It had to have been Sara - she is the one the police agree (and which we know) drove the 1 brother to suicide. And thereby leaving the last brother looking guilty for it all but without definite proof (because he didn't do any of it) but still looking totally guilty. She knew how to play on peoples weaknesses and fears. She makes him look like the guilty party, then she gives him an alibi by blaming the one she drove to kill himself - what else can the last surviving brother do but agree with her to protect himself. She showed no feelings for anyone throughout the story, just trying to make sure to be in control of everything and everyone involved from the beginning. And she felt bitter towards them all. So she didn't just go out of her way to help anyone but only for her own sake. Yet she gets away with it, otherwise it just doesn't really make sense any other way. Very disappointing. She is the only one that 2 eye witnesses say they saw, not the brothers.