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A Stranger in the Family (2010)

I thought the book started off pretty good, but halfway through it bogged down. A man learns that he was adopted. While trying to find out about his real family, he finds that he had been abducted when he was three. The rest of the book is about him finding out how he came to his adoptive pa...

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The Franchise Affair (1998)

Robert Blair has settled into the law firm that was waiting for him. His cousin Nevil, is the younger partner now. Robert is sitting in his office after tea contemplating leaving for the day when his phone rings. It is Marion Sharpe - she would like him to come out to the Franchise because Scotla...

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To Love and Be Wise (1998)

My favorite Tey so far, though it is definitely not for everyone. This is not your typical mystery by any means. The story starts at a dinner party being held to celebrate the publication of romance writer Lavinia Fitch's latest book. Inspector Alan Grant has gone to pick up his friend, Marta Hal...

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A Shilling for Candles (1998)

I enjoyed this book very much. It is the second book in the Inspector Grant series and features the death of a very talented, popular movie star. There are few clues at the scene, since she was drowned at a secluded beach and the tide has obliterated anything of use. One suspect delivers himself ...

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The Mistress of Alderley (2000)

Caroline Fawley thinks she has the perfect set-up: a manor house, her children around her, and a great lover who only drops in on weekends and is underwriting the whole shebang. After two bad marriages, she doesn't want to marry again and is happy to give up her relatively successful career as a...

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Corpse In A Gilded Cage (1996)

I wonder what my reaction to inheriting a grand estate would be. Would I prefer my own cozy home. That is how the unexpected 12th Earl of Ellesmere and his wife felt. Percy Spender was willing to spend a brief time in the cold drafty yet elegant almost palace, then they wanted to sell it and get ...

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Death And The Princess (1983)

Princess Helena had only a distant claim to the throne, but when her friends and lovers began turning up dead, Buckingham Palace demanded to know why. And Perry Trethowan of Scotland Yard had to catch a cold-blooded killer intent on causing a scandal that could shake the nation.

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The Corpse At The Haworth Tandoori (2002)

Masterly mystery writer Robert Barnard transports us to the Yorkshire town of Haworth, once home to the literary Brontës, now a crowded tourist mecca, for The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori, which begins with the shocking discovery of a young man's strangled body in an Indian Tandoori restaurant ...

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Death and the Chaste Apprentice (2007)

At the Ketterick Arts Festival, the apprentice is just about the only fella that is chaste, know what I mean (wink wink nudge nudge)? Ah, the pleasures of smutty innuendo, and no one relishes them more than Des Capper, a font of dubious gossip and unwanted advice. To the horror of the actors and ...

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A Cry From The Dark (2004)

The book starts off on a yawningly slow note but picks up a little bit of speed once the ‘incidents’ in Bettina’s past & present take place. The author has contributed to the slow pace with the language – instead of using simple English (like he normally does), he has used colloquial words and ph...

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Out of the Blackout (2006)

With the Nazis bombing London on a nightly basis, many working-class families sent their children to the comparative safety of the countryside. When the Blitz ended, the families came for their kids...but no one ever came for Simon Thorn. His name appears on no list of the evacuated children. And...

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Political Suicide (1995)

Originally read in August, 2006. Re-read for a Robert Barnard-themed group blog effort. Excerpted from my post: I’ll confess that everything I know about British politics is cobbled together from Yes, Minister, The Thick of It, and some references on I’m Alan Partridge. (Someone from across the p...

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Fete Fatale (2005)

The rigidly conservative town of Hexton-on-Weir, where twelve-year residents, such as veterinarian Marcus Kitteredge and his wife Helen, are still regarded as newcomers, sponsors a church fair which becomes the background for murder.

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The Bones In The Attic (2006)

"In this superbly written suspense novel from British author Barnard, ...former soccer star Matt Harper, now a television and radio personality, is the new owner of Elderholm, one of a small street of sturdy old houses in Leeds. As he and his remodeling contractor take a look around the attic, th...

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Dying Flames (2006)

From Robert Barnard, the internationally acclaimed Diamond Dagger-winning crime writer . . .Some memories are better left buried in the past. Well-known author Graham Broadbent has managed to repress one particularly dangerous memory for many years, but a trip home to a school reunion brings back...

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Death Of An Old Goat (1983)

Professor Belville-Smith had bored university audiences in England with the same lecture for fifty years. Now he was crossing the Australian continent, doing precisely the same. Never before had the reaction been so extreme, however, for shortly after an undistinguished appearance at Drummondale ...

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The Bad Samaritan (1996)

It's bound to be a problem when a vicar's wife loses her faith. In a Robert Barnard novel it can be a source of amusement, dismay, contemplation, and even murder. The hideous neo-Gothic parish church of St. Saviour's may or may not be typical of the Church of England, but clergy wife Rosemary She...

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A Hovering Of Vultures (1995)

The author of A Scandal in Belgravia takes on skullduggery in literary society. Two minor Yorkshire literary figures came to an unhappy ending more than 50 years ago, never having achieved any great literary acclaim. Why then does greedy Gerald Suzman want to establish a fan club in their honor?

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Skeleton in the Grass (2007)

More social commentary than mystery, this is a short, intriguing portrait of life between the wars. Sarah Causeley comes to Hallam Park to be a governess for the youngest child of an aristocratic family of pacifists. She’s enchanted by their kindness and acceptance as well as by their intellectu...

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The Cherry Blossom Corpse (1986)

Scotland Yard's Perry Trethowan never wanted to make the trip to Norway for the World Association of Romantic Novelists convention. But it was hard saying no to his newly published sister, Christobel. And besides, the worst he expected was the chilly Scandanavian weather and a harmless if irritat...

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The Graveyard Position (2005)

From master of mystery Robert Barnard comes a brilliantly witty and piercingly observant new suspense novel featuring one of the most dysfunctional families ever to grace crime fiction. Meet the Cantelos of Leeds, England. To call the Cantelos dysfunctional is actually a wild understatement. But...

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Death of A Mystery Writer (2002)

Here's enormous fun. Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs is Britain's most successful thriller writer, even though it's generally agreed his books are bloody awful. And so is he: he's vile to his family (except his gold-digging, ghastly daughter) and everyone else around him. So it's not much of a surpri...

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Unholy Dying (2001)

England's celebrated, multiple-award-winning master crime novelist returns with a witty and poignant chiller about the evil of gossip and the sin of indifference. Father Christopher Pardoe is a good priest. He cares about his parishioners. He is also a human being -- and is thus saddled with man'...

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Death Of A Salesperson And Other Untimely Exits (1989)

Award-winning author Robert Barnard, hailed by critics for his brilliant novels of suspense, proves himself equally master of the short story with this delightful first collection. 16 tantalizing stories show ingenious killers at work in cozy English villages, sophisticated London neighborhoods, ...

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At Death's Door

They were sitting outside their tent, eating eggs and bacon and fried bread cooked on their Primus. So they could manage something other than sausages and beans. “Your mother rang last night,” Roderick said to Cordelia. “I thought it wouldn’t be long,” she said equably. She fiddled nervously with...

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Death of a Salesperson

No doubt one of the with-it etiquette books had a section on it. Luckily mourning itself has practically passed away, so delicate questions of full or half-mourning did not present themselves. A sober suit was all that could be expected, and as a Lloyd’s broker Derek wore a sober suit every day o...

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Death by Sheer Torture

To record your father’s sad death, you know, Perry dear. And it occurs to me that we have entries to mark up about you too, isn’t that right?’So: I was helping them; I had paid my subscription. I sipped my sherry (which was wine-seller’s bulk, the sort of thing I drank at home, but decidedly not ...

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Masters of the House

Then their visits became more occasional for a time, with Rob patently more uneasy—unwilling to come beyond the kitchen, shuffling his feet, throwing uneasy glances ceiling-wards if he thought he heard a noise upstairs. But Grace chaffed him about this, and soon he was behaving quite normally, at...

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Death of a Perfect Mother

It always was. Lill didn’t like it, but she recognized there was nothing she could do against the collective lethargies of the other four. Saturday night was always Fred’s big night of the week: darts at the Yachtsman’s took it out of him, and Sundays he crept blearily about the house, all passio...

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No Place of Safety

The scene-of-crime people had finished now and had departed with their bagged loot of dust, mud and blood specimens. The place should have been regaining an air of normality, but just one policeman on the door was enough to prevent that. Inside, however, there was only a single representative of ...

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Rogue's Gallery (2011)

‘Dad, could you do me a favour?’ Terence Munday regarded his daughter-in-law. Her plump, squat body always reminded him of an over-full plastic shopping bag. ‘Of course, Gloria, if I can.’ ‘It’s the next two weeks. My boss is away, and all his work is landed on me. I’ll ha...

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Bodies

I felt I had done my bit with bereaved nearests and dearests, and I didn’t see that the father, who had apparently kicked Wayne out of the house, was likely to know very much about what his son had been doing recently. Me, I took Charlie’s advice, and got on the phone to all the people who were i...

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A Fall from Grace

house, and she watched as he crumbled toast and toyed uninterestedly with the scrambled egg. “You’re bored and frustrated, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yes. I won’t ask how you know. There are probably fifty different indicators that give me away.” “There are. And you’re frustrated because you’ve bee...

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A Mansion and its Murder (2012)

He went straight to his old bedroom. There was no longer any pretense of marital relations between him and Mary, and indeed even when they returned from honeymoon they had had separate bedrooms in their apartment. Now, apparently, he could not bear even to be so close to her. This much I had lear...

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A City of Strangers

Makepeace, Michael’s anchor to normality, indeed had a phone. In a free period at school next morning Carol leafed through the dog-eared telephone directory in the staff common room and found Makepeace, L., 37 Belfield Grove Avenue. That would be her. It was quiet in the common room so Carol rang...

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Death in a Cold Climate

The air was thick with the fumes of beer and frying steak and the smoke of self-rolled cigarettes, but luckily for Fagermo this was not one of the evenings with live jazz. Then you had to bellow your lightest inanities, and take your companion’s reply on trust. So up and down the narrow L-shaped ...

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Blood Brotherhood

Since the departure of Plunkett the delegates had somehow been less willing to talk about the murder investigation and the questions Inspector Croft had put to them. Since the maniac had been taken off, things had somehow become more real. They had therefore been forced back as a topic of convers...

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Killings on Jubilee Terrace (2012)

Hamish Fawley had never played Cyril as one of the box’s perma-tanned homosexuals, but this was extreme. It was the make-up department’s way of saying to the viewers: this is serious, my friends. This may not be a deathbed, but it sure as hell is going to lead to one. Winn...

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Last Post

The uncertainty in her voice had never been more audible. “Eve! Hi! Why do you sound as if you wish you were talking to someone else?” “That’s not how I sound. But we did say we’d keep in touch as old friends who’d also been something more.” “So?” “This is . . . well, rather more than ‘old friend...

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The Skeleton in the Grass

Oliver and Sarah had said nothing of their reception in the village, and the woman who had come to help with the cleaning that day kept well out of everybody’s way. If Elizabeth was conscious of how the affair was viewed in Chowton, she said nothing. She was talking about her Season next year, th...

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A Scandal in Belgravia

I played the grandfatherly role up to the hilt, while consenting to be led around the sights of that deplorable city. I allowed myself to be dragged to the opera on one of the evenings, and the clothes I saw then will remain with me for the rest of my life. I have to admit though—disgraceful as i...

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Phantasos

He held his Gameboy a few inches from his face, struggling to find a comfortable angle to view it from. The screen wasn’t backlit, so it had to be held at just the right degree from his nightstand lamp to see it. Tilt too far to the left, and the screen was nothing but reflected glare; too far to...

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The Case of the Missing Bronte

Little things came up, such as the first dribbles of information about the two Scandinavians from the US, but most of the stuff that was shoved in my direction by the police at Milltown, Bradford and Leeds illuminated little and led nowhere. I had long conversations on the phone with Jan, in whic...

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A Fatal Attachment

“Of course she likes us, you oaf. Goes out of her way to meet up with us, asks us to tea . . . It was good, that tea.” The boys had needed a couple of days to assimilate their first independent social occasion. Bicycling had precluded talking on the way home, and when they had got there they had ...

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A Murder in Mayfair

Somehow I was not surprised. Nor did her slightly odd manner disconcert me. The bright tone and roundabout way of speaking, hinting but not saying, were things I instinctively understood. I was on the verge of becoming in reality a brother to her and Matthew. “Back to work so soon! You must be a ...

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