Dead Before Morning (First in the critically acclaimed Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series) [Kindle Edition]

Geraldine Evans (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This British author's mystery debut introduces Detective Joseph Rafferty, newly promoted, and his sidekick, the lugubrious and sententious Sergeant Llewellyn. Their first big case together, the mutilation murder of a young woman in an expensive mental hospital, tests both their ability and their compatibility: they risk unpleasant retribution from the clinic's ambitious, womanizing owner as well as scrutiny by press and superiors. Solid police procedure set in an isolated area but fraught with conflict. For most collections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The debut of marriage-phobic Detective Inspector Joseph Rafferty and his well-educated, lonely subordinate, Sergeant Llewellyn, who are called to the grounds of a posh private psychiatric hospital to survey the naked body of a young woman with her face bashed in. Who coshed her, and why? The philandering, social-climbing hospital-director, Dr. Melville-Briggs, his proud, do-gooder wife, his mistresses, and his staff all claim airtight alibis--which Rafferty and Llewellyn soon see right through, thanks to the smarmy hospital porter, the folks at the pub, and the tendency of major characters to spread malicious gossip about each other. Then a worried young woman named Miranda insists that she was meant to be the victim because of her firsthand knowledge of Melville-Briggs's drug-trafficking; Melville-Briggs himself dies in a suspicious car accident; and a diary with some heavy-duty S/M entries pops up before the villain is confronted--almost. Unpleasant people behaving in preposterous ways, with the author showing little insight into the medical profession or police procedure. A sequel, alas, is in the works. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 483 KB
• Publisher: Geraldine Evans; Four edition (December 3, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004EYUHN8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,689 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Hi, Welcome!

I've had eighteen novels published - sixteen crime, one historical and one romance. I've been plucked from slush piles twice: once by Robert Hale, and once by Macmillan, who took my very first mystery novel, Dead Before Morning, and published it in 1993. They sold it in turn to St Martin's Press in the US and thence on to Worldwide for softcover publication. Not bad for a writer who had endured six long years of rejections for her first six novels. Admittedly, they had been romances: clearly not my metier!

My eighteenth novel, Deadly Reunion, came out in the UK in February 2011, it'll be out on 1st June in the States. In this one, Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty is barely back from his honeymoon before he has two unpleasant surprises. Not only has he another murder investigation - a poisoning courtesy of a school reunion, he also has four new lodgers, courtesy of his Ma, Kitty Rafferty. Ma is organising her own reunion and since getting on the internet, the number of Rafferty and Kelly family attendees has grown, like Topsy. In his murder investigation, Rafferty has to go back in time to learn of all the likely motives of the victim's fellow reunees. But it is only when he is reconciled to his unwanted lodgers, that Rafferty finds the answers to his most important questions. Deadly Reunion is the fourteenth in my Rafferty & Llewellyn humorous crime series.

I've also a new ebook out, Death Line, the third ebook,in my Rafferty series, available from amaxon's kindle, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, nook, kobo, android, and God knows where else. Price 99c for a limited period only. In this one, Jasper Moon, internationally renowned 'seer to the stars', had signally failed to foresee his own future. He is found dead on his consulting-room floor, his skull crushed with a crystal ball and, all, around him, his office in chaos.

Meanwhile, Ma Rafferty goes in for a bit of star gazing herself. She sees a good Catholic girl with child-bearing hips in Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty's future. Rafferty hopes a cunning plan will help him avoid her machinations. During their murder investigations, Inspector Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn gradually discover connections between Moon and others in the small Essex town of Elmhurst. But why is it that all of Rafferty's suspects have seemingly unbreakable alibis?

I've just started to prepare The Hanging Tree, the fourth in my Rafferty series, for epublication. I hope to have it available in the usual places by the middle of April.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tried and Trusted., January 1, 2011

By 

leigh beresford (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Before Morning (First in the critically acclaimed Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series) (Kindle Edition)

The formula for detective novels seems to be to place two disparate characters together, call them partners and invent a vehicle on which to carry them and by this I don't mean the type of car. In the UK there have been many :Morse and Lewis,Dalziel and Pascoe, Dempsey and Makepeace, Tyler and Hunt. And in the USA who can forget the iconic duo Cagney and Lacey the first pairing of two women detectives on television?
Well I would like to add another pair of well deserved detectives to that grouping, not yet on TV but I feel sure it is only a matter of time. For years I have been a lover of crime fiction only recently discovering that Death Before Morning with its detective heroes Detective Inspector Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn is the first of many undiscovered gems. Using the tried and trusted formula of intelligent reasoning and hunches-gut feelings- these new pair take on a murder investigation in a private mental hospital. The only problem is that the victim is not a patient, or a member of staff yet is found dead inside a secure facility.
The police procedures followed in the book would convince anyone that they were written by an expert-one who had served time in that position- and the easy way in which the writer blends her two heroes suggests a long writing apprenticeship. It would be easy for me to reveal the plot but that might spoil it for some, I know it would for me so I finish off by saying, well done, well written and well worth spending a few pennies on. Highly recommended.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Crime Fiction, April 12, 2011

By 

Alexis Leno - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Before Morning (First in the critically acclaimed Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series) (Kindle Edition)

Dead Before Morning is classic crime-fiction from Geraldine Evans. The book starts out following our main character, Joseph Rafferty, along with his Ma. We follow Rafferty, and his partner Llewelyn, through their difficulties in dealing with a murder at a local sanitarium.

Rafferty is an interesting main character. In this debut novel, some of his past is exposed, but it leaves you wanting to learn more about it. Much of the novel is focused on the murder itself and finding the culprit(s) behind it, but I think that I would have liked to see more of Rafferty on a personal level. I would have liked to identify more with our main character, if I could have, and I feel that this would have come out with more scenes involving his personal relationships, especially the relationship with his Ma!

Ma was one of my favorite characters. I really would have liked to see more of Rafferty and the banter with his mother! She was highly relatable and made me chuckle on more than one occasion. Ma could have been utilized a lot more in the story, even if she wasn't in any way related to the murder that took place.

Llewelyn is Rafferty's partner. As an intellectual man, he provides some interesting comments during the case. He acts, mostly, as a sounding board for Rafferty and his ideas on the case. I don't know how clear it was if the two were partners or if Rafferty was his superior officer. The story takes place in the UK and I am unfamiliar with their police system, however, I enjoyed learning the ins and outs of a different culture while I was reading.

The murder takes place at a local sanitarium. A young woman is killed, her face brutally mauled, and Rafferty is called to the scene. The different suspects were all interesting in their own right and it made it fun to try and guess if they were involved or telling the truth. I think the problem was that any one of them could have committed the crime, despite Rafferty's preference of one singular person, and it made it a little less exciting when we found out who it truly was. I liked finding out the motivations behind the murder as they were figured out - it was truly interesting.

The last comment I would like to make on the story is that it was very well written and flowed nicely from scene to scene. I was definitely hooked into the story and needed to know who had committed this crime and why. I think that Rafferty is interesting enough to pull you into the next novel to see where he goes with his life and career.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, March 20, 2011

By 

R C Bridgestock - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Before Morning (Paperback)

This book had a hold on me from the start. It had everything a crime novel should have including so many twists and turns that I thought I had solved the mystery several times. Loved the twist at the end. Can't wait to get my head into Geraldine's latest that is sitting on my bedside table for tonight! Excellent!