An Unhallowed Grave: A Wesley Peterson Crime Novel (Wesley Peterson Crime Novels) (Hardcover)

by Kate Ellis (Author) "The two teenage girls stood at the churchyard gate, trying to hide the nervousness they felt..." (more)
Key Phrases: weatherproof coat, incident room, white mac, Gerry Heffernan, Pauline Brent, Philip Thewlis (more...)

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.

Review
"Ellis, [is] a beguiling author who interweaves past and present...An Unhallowed Grave works well on both levels." --Times

"This third crime novel featuring DS Wesley Peterson is a sturdy, nicely paced detective yarn with the added fascination of an historical mystery tangled with a modern murder." --South Wales Argus

"Cleverly constructed and painstakingly researched, the novel uncovers both the modern and medieval mysteries, and both have twists at the end of the tale." --Bookshelf

"Ellis unfolds both [mysteries] at a good pace, with plenty of red herrings littering the ground." --Jersey Evening Post

"Kate Ellis is a fine story teller, whose characters are well realized, and this one gripped me to the end." --Shots
-- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur; 1st edition (May 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312274602
• ISBN-13: 978-0312274603
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,501,980 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever story, good incorporation of history and archaeology., September 24, 2001

By	K. L Sadler (Freedom, Pa. USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I love it when I pick up a book by a new author who I have not read before, and find that the author is capable in character and plot development. Ellis is a good writer at both of these particulars, not great, but definitely so good at what she does that her mysteries deserve a five star rating. For those readers who enjoy intelligent mysteries, her books will be a nice addition. Her Wesley Peterson, a black detective, seems to be an intelligent fellow with a different background in archaeology. This background comes of some use (and brings him in contact with hilarious 'tree-huggers' and friends from universities with agendas of their own) in a mystery involving two women separated by centuries who are hung for crimes they didn't commit. Nice to see we Americans are not the only ones who lynched first, and asked questions (or not!) later.

Ellis' characters are definitely characters. I love Wesley's boss, a lonely widower who is looking for friends. Part of the ability to draw realistic characters is the ability to observe real human beings and their reactions to normal life, which includes loved ones dying from cancer and the subsequent need of those left behind to find something to do with themselves besides work. If the reader can sympathize with the character, then the author has done a good job.

As always, I enjoy reading British writers and really enjoy reading mysteries with a historical bent. I had no idea about the existence of art called "Jesse Trees" which are an artistic rendering of the geneaology of Jesus. I am so intrigued by this I plan to look up some more information on these 'trees'...
Karen Sadler,
Science Education,
University of Pittsburgh

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent parallel development of history and mystery, May 11, 2001

By	booksforabuck "BooksForABuck.com" (Dallas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.

1 of 1 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 (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.