A Place of Safety by
Caroline Graham
hbk out March 99
Published by Headline
at £14.99
Sometimes the success that television brings an author leads to a drop in the quality of their novels. But if the latest of Caroline Graham's Barnaby and Troy novels (televised as the Midsomer Murders starring John Nettles) is anything to go by, it's simply encouraged her to go from strength to strength. Her affection for the classic tradition of the English crime novel is always tempered by a tart take on contemporary mores but she never sacrifices compassion for the cheap shot.
Do-gooding ex-vicar Lionel Lawrence thinks he can cure the ills of society by inviting young offenders in need of rehabilitation to live with him and his wife. But his gentle wife Ann eventually reaches breaking point, with terrible consequences. Tearaway Carlotta plunges into a fast-flowing river and disappears, leaving Ann prey to blackmail, which in turn appears to lead inexorably to murder.
Ferne Bassett is a typical Graham village, where strange passions seethe under the civilised surface and dark secrets fester before exploding with terrible consequences. For Barnaby, possessed by a hunch he can't prove, the challenge is to penetrate the veils of mystery that shroud the truth before Ferne Bassett turns into Mayhem Magna. As always, Graham demonstrates there is feisty life in the tradtional English crime novel.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
A Place of Safety by
Caroline Graham