Review: BLOOD FROM STONE, Frances Fyfield

• format Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 381 KB
• Print Length: 335 pages
• Publisher: Sphere (October 4, 2012)
  originally published 2008
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B008EOA324

Synopsis (Amazon)

When the body of a successful criminal barrister is found outside a chic Kensington hotel, it looks at first like a suicide. For colleagues and friends, her death comes as a huge shock - Marianne Shearer was at the pinnacle of her career, wealthy and stylish - but for the police the case is open-and-shut.

There's something strange about the circumstances, though, something that prompts fellow lawyers Thomas Nobel and Peter Friel to dig deeper. Little by little, they discover that all is not as it seems. Oddly enough, Marianne herself appears to have left a series of small, almost imperceptible clues - clues that point to a far more sinister truth. Retracing Marianne's steps, Nobel and Friel uncover a carefully concealed darker side of her perfect life that leads them back to her last, gruesome case - when she knowingly sacrificed an innocent witness to let a criminal walk free.

From the author's site

Marianne Shearer is at the height of her career, a dauntingly successful barrister, respected by her peers and revered by her clients.  So why has she killed herself?  Her latest case had again resulted in an acquittal, though the outcome was principally due to  the death of the prime witness after Marianne's forceful cross-examination.  Had this wholly professional and unemotional lawyer been struck by guilt or uncertainty, or is there some secret to be discovered in her blandly comfortable private life? Her death reveals a paucity of friends, a grasping brother and a tenacious colleague, Peter Friel, who is determined to find out if that last trial held the reason for her taking her own life. The transcript holds intriguing clues, but it is another witness at the trial who holds the key to the truth and she is far from sure that she can reveal her secrets without releasing even more deceit and destruction.

My Take.

BLOOD FROM STONE was chosen for discussion by my face-to-face book group. It was also the winner of the 2008 Duncan Lawrie award for Crime Writers Association best novel of the year.

Apart from the enthralling story, the novel raises some ethical questions about defendants who are allowed to walk free because their lawyer was clever, not because they were innocent.

It is hard to imagine anyone more evil than the Defendant, Rick West. There was plenty of evidence of previous instances where he had mistreated women. But two previous victims were not available to give evidence and then Marianne Shearer caustically and methodically destroyed the victim in the witness box. But Rick West didn't get his day in court because the case was dismissed when the victim died. And more than anything he wanted his innocence declared. Is this justice?

When things become personal Marianne Shearer realises the truth of what she has done and she can see only one way out.

I realised the "truth" about 2/3 of the way through the novel but that didn't limit my enjoyment.

My rating: 4.6

I've also reviewed
PERFECTLY PURE AND GOOD
4.3, TRIAL BY FIRE

Review: TRIAL BY FIRE, Frances Fyfield - audio

• first published 1990, #2 in the Helen West series
• this edition published 2011, by AudioGo
• aka NOT THAT KIND OF PLACE
• available from Audible
• narrator Rula Lenska
• length 7 hours 14 mins
• source: local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

A woman's naked and dead body is found outside the Essex commuter village of Branston. Crown Prosecutor Helen West and the local police discover a world of passion and envy ready to explode under the veneer of village gentility.

My Take

Helen West, Crown Prosecutor, and Geoffrey Bailey, police inspector, have moved in together into a new house in the estate that is the commuter village of Branston. Neither of them like their rented accommodation, a stylistically modern house, and it adds to the stresses of them working out their relationship. They never seem to have any time to talk about their feelings either.
Helen is working through the local Crown Prosecutor's office, very different to her city base in London, and Geoffrey is finding his work is far from ideal. Helen is aware that she is making major career sacrifices and Geoffrey seems determined to exclude her from his new life. He also has a new sergeant, female, who is career driven, and hard for Geoffrey to relate to.

The murder investigation provoked by the discovery of the body of the wife of the estate's creator brings both Helen and Bailey into close contact with the locals, many of whom are commuting to work in London, as well as establishing a social pecking order based on their economic status and the quality of their housing. Most have little time to devote to taking notice of what is happening around them.

Apart from the issues of the West/Bailey household, the author uses the novel to explore what is happening in these modern "yuppy" communities, where faux villages give London commuters the impression that they are living in the country. Her analysis of the two teenagers who feature centrally in the novel is stunning.

Many refer to the work of Frances Fyfield as "literary" at the same time as being crime fiction. The first in this series A QUESTION OF GUILT was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel in 1990.

Though I enjoyed the story, I didn't find the narration of Rula Lenska easy to listen to, although she did much to embellish her character portrayal. The voice that holds TRIAL BY FIRE together is that of Helen West but the narrator didn't seem to capture that as well as I would have liked.

Nevertheless, well worth reading. My rating: 4.3

Trial by Fire was a major TV film and starred Juliet Stevenson.
I've also reviewed PERFECTLY PURE AND GOOD #2 in Frances Fyfield's Sarah Fortune series.

review: PERFECTLY PURE AND GOOD, Frances Fyfield

A BBC Audiobook, unabridged, 7 hours 40 minutes, read by Rula Lenska
ISBN 978-1-4056-4791-5

Sarah Fortune goes to a small seaside town in Norfolk to straighten out inheritance issues for the Pardoe family. Three siblings and an apparently demented mother own most of Merton-on-Sea. For Sarah the job offers the opportunity to get away for a little time at least from a claustrophobic relationship with her boss's step-son. The inheritance issue isn't all that needs straightening out and tidying up. The town has its own secrets: the death by drowning two years before of a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sarah and an elderly thief with a thatch of white hair whom everyone refers to as "the ghost".

This isn't simple crime fiction. Frances Fyfield brings to her story telling an embellished literary style that demands that the reader see the world through the eyes of the main characters. This will undoubtedly mean that many readers will find it heavy going. You get the impression of a carefully crafted story, when the language is every bit as important as the action.

Sarah Fortune herself is a real conundrum: "perfectly pure and good", she at times uses her own body to bring solace to men whom she likes. She does not see this as amoral behaviour, even though the reader might.

My rating: 4.3

This was the second in Frances Fyfield's Sarah Fortune series:

• Shadows On the Mirror (1989)
• Perfectly Pure and Good (1994)
• Staring At the Light (1999)
• Looking Down (2004)
• Safer Than Houses (2005)

Frances Fyfield has written also as Frances Hegarty. In all she has written over 30 novels, and has been and Edgar and a CWA Dagger nominee.
In 2008 she won the Duncan Lawrie Gold Dagger for BLOOD FROM A STONE.