‘Mercy or Mercenary’ by Sheila Parker

Published by Troubador Publishing,
28 September 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-78901352-8

Writer Ralph McGuire, whilst virtually bed-ridden as a result of Alzheimer’s disease, is nevertheless working on the biography of a flamboyant and well-known actor, Leo Adare.  Ralph’s condition makes him reliant upon various carers, overseen by his wife Isabel, and including his niece Joanna.  Whilst this small team assist him with his physical needs, Isabel, a writer in her own right, and family friend Duncan Sinclair provide McGuire with the professional support required to ensure that the Adare project is completed.

When a mysterious man, purporting to be a friend of the biographer, arrives at the McGuire home, Joanna, is alone in the house with her uncle.  He persuades Joanna to allow him upstairs for a brief discussion with the biographer.  After ten or so minutes the visitor emerges from her uncle’s room and, as he leaves the house, tells Joanna that Ralph wants to rest and not be disturbed.  She complies, but when she next checks on her uncle, he appears to be unconscious.  She panics not knowing what to do next – then Isabel comes home and is appalled to discover that her husband is not just unconscious but dead!  She summons Ralph’s doctor who confirms death; he then checks the bathroom cabinet for his patient’s medication but finds only an empty bottle.  He suspects that Ralph has died of an overdose, but who gave him the pills and why?  He calls the police at once.

Detective Inspector Kershaw and his sergeant Tom Small are assigned to the investigation but immediately find themselves with more questions than answers.  Who was the unexpected, and apparently unknown, friend who visited McGuire just prior to his death?  Moreover, whilst the anonymous caller is the obvious suspect, Joanna is the only person to have seen him.  Could she be lying?  And then, whoever administered the medication, what motivated the act?  Did the perpetrator intend to relieve Ralph of his suffering or was he, or she, hoping to hasten their acquisition of an expected inheritance?  The situation facing the detectives is further complicated when other members of the household are themselves threatened by a stranger who appears to be able to appear and disappear at will.  Kershaw and Small must move quickly to find the killer but are confronted by an ever-increasing array of suspects!

Mercy or Mercenary successfully employs flash-backs to increase tension within the narrative and as the list of suspects grows Kershaw and Small, along with the reader, are kept on their toes! The book is fast-moving with twists and turns galore.  The moral dilemma posed by euthanasia and assisted dying is an underlying theme within the novel, but it does not detract from the who-done-it puzzle that the detectives must solve.  An enjoyable read.

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Reviewer: Dorothy Marshall-Gent

Sheila Parker was born in Guernsey and spent the war years evacuated to Bristol until the island was liberated in 1945, when she returned. Now a retired hotelier, she still enjoys meeting new people and hearing their stories.

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.  

‘Kith and Kin’ by Jane A. Adams

Published by Severn House,
28 September 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-7278-8827-3 (HB)

When two bodies are washed up on the Kentish marshes, DS Mickey Hitchens sent from London with DCI Henry Johnstone, to investigate, quickly identifies one of the bodies as Billy Crane, one of the henchmen of the East End’s notorious gangster Josiah Bailey.  The other he has no doubt will be from the same stable.

Investigating a disturbance at a nearby gypsy camp site gives them no actual information, as no will tell them anything, but a witness account unrelated to the camp has them certain that it merits more investigation. Whilst pondering their next more, a further death provides links that lead them to secrets long buried in the past.

As Mickey and Henry seek to unravel the mysteries more bodies are discovered.   What the investigation team can’t work out is who is orchestrating the killings.  Is it Josiah Bailey, or is someone brave enough or foolish enough to try taking over his patch, or is it a vendetta, or just simple revenge – but for what?

Set in December 1928, although 10 years after The Great War, the shadows of that time are still very alive.  Where did you serve?  is still the question often asked?  

Although written in the third person, the narrative is interspersed with first person journal entries from Henry Johnston.    It was clear when reading the book that it was written by someone who had researched that period extensively.  It is universally known that it was a terrible war, and one can only imagine how those experiencing it would long to be back home – or would they?  One passage in Henry’s journal really had me thinking. 

I can’t even recall wanting to live. I can’t recall wanting anything except to be away from that place. I don’t think I even had a desire to be at home because I could no longer remember what home felt like. It had been too long, and the change had been too great, and I don’t think I felt that I could ever belong anywhere, ever again.

Whilst following the investigation we learn much of the protagonists lives and meet some interesting characters along the way.  The most enigmatic of the characters is Henry Johnson, and although we learn more of him there is, I feel more to be learned.  The background to the close relationship between him and his Sergeant Mickey Hitchens is also revealed.

Eventually the tenuous threads come together taking us back to 1918.  A cleverly plotted the story that reaches a satisfying conclusion, whilst providing a couple of hooks to keep one on edge for the next book in the series..  

Kith and Kin is the third book in this series, with a fourth due out in July 2019, entitled The Clockmaker. I look forward to it.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Earlier books in this series are The Murder Book (2016) and Death Scene (2017.

Jane Adams was born in Leicestershire, where she still lives. She has a degree in Sociology and has held a variety of jobs including lead vocalist in a folk-rock band. She enjoys pen and ink drawing; martial arts and her ambition is to travel the length of the Silk Road by motorbike. Her first book, The Greenway, was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award in 1995 and for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award. Jane writes several series.  Her first series featured Mike Croft. Several books featuring DS Ray Flowers. Twelve titles featuring blind Naoimi Blake, and more recently seven featuring Rina Martin. Her latest series is set in the 1920’s and features Chief Inspector Henry Johnson. Jane has also written three standalone novels. She is married with two children.

http://janeadams.wixsite.com/writer

‘Murder by Matchlight’ by E.C.R Lorac

Published by The British Library,
10 November 2018.
ISBN: 978-0-7123-5222-2 (PB)

The story plays out during the period of the blackout as the Nazi bombers fly over London in 1944. However, this is not a historical novel as this is the year the novel was written, and it was published the following year. All of which means that Lorac’s readers were all too familiar with hardship of those dark (both figuratively and literally – because of the enforced blackout) days. Lorac is the pen-name of Edith Caroline Rivett, one of the writers of the Golden Age and in many ways, this novel is typical of that period – a whodunit mystery although this is a police procedural not about some clever private investigator outdoing the bumbling, inept police. 

A man is murdered as he stands on a bridge in Regent’s Park, the face of his assassin momentarily caught in the flare of a struck match. In charge of the investigation is Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald, ably assisted by the equally fair-minded Detective Inspector Reeves.

There is no shortage of suspects from the two witnesses to the crime, the doctor who suddenly arrives on the scene and the fellow occupants of the victim’s boarding house although the evidence appears to be mounting up against Mr Rameses, a stage illusionist who has rooms on the first floor of the boarding house.

I enjoyed this book immensely - a satisfying feel-good mystery with a large slice of humour. The twists and turns of the puzzle plot so beloved of the Golden Age writers kept me entertained but it was the delightful characters, all admittedly larger than life, that made me want to read on. Chief Inspector Macdonald proves to be an eminently sensible individual, intelligent and well-educated, who refuses to jump to easy assumptions – in short, everything we like to think the good policeman should be. I was intrigued by Rameses and his diligent practice to maintain his stage act. Like Macdonald, he is a man who observes first and comments after. The two work well together. I shall read more by this author just to find out if the two men join forces on a case in the future. Perhaps my favourite character is the boarding house caretaker, Mrs Maloney who always brings a smile to my lips when she appears.

This is the first novel I’ve read by this author. I must confess that I had never previously heard of the writer before and it was a surprise to discover that Edith Caroline Rivett had published 48 mysteries under the pen-name of E C R Lorac plus a further 23 novels as Carol Carnac.

This is a novel of its time but if you enjoy the gentle whodunits of the Golden Age, ‘Murder by Matchlight’ will not disappoint.

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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick

E.C.R. Lorac was a pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894-1958) who was a prolific writer of crime fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s, and a member of the prestigious Detection Club. She lived her last years with her elder sister, Gladys Rivett (1891-1966), in Lonsdale, Lancashire. Edith Rivett died at the Caton Green Nursing Home, Caton-with-Littledale, near Lancaster. Her books have been almost entirely neglected since her death but deserve rediscovery as fine examples of classic British crime fiction in its golden age.

Judith Cranswick was born and brought up in Norwich. She wrote her first novel (now languishing in the back of a drawer somewhere) when her two children were toddlers, but there was little time for writing when she returned to work teaching Geography in a large comprehensive. It was only after leaving her headship that she was able to take up writing again in earnest. Judith teaches Tai Chi, and line dancing, yoga, Pilates and Zumba. Her other hobbies include reading and travelling. She is lucky enough to be a cruise lecturer. You can read some of her adventures – the Ups and Downs of Being a Cruise Lecturer on her September 2014 blog on her home page.

http://judithcranswick.co.uk/