Review: SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD, Colin Dexter - audio book

• Narrated by: Samuel West
• Series: Inspector Morse Mysteries, Book 4
• Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Release date: 10-05-17
• originally published 1979
• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Digital Audio

Synopsis (Audible)

Chief Inspector Morse, a middle-aged bachelor with a fondness for crossword puzzles, Mozart, and attractive women, investigates a series of suspicious and sinister events at Oxfords Church of St. Frideswide.

The sweet countenance of Reason greeted Morse serenely when he woke and told him that it would be no bad idea to have a quiet look at the problem itself before galloping off to a solution.

Chief Inspector Morse was alone among the congregation in suspecting continued unrest in the quiet parish of St Frideswide's.

Most people could still remember the churchwarden's murder. A few could still recall the murderer's suicide. Now even the police had closed the case.

Until a chance meeting among the tombstones reveals startling new evidence of a conspiracy to deceive...

My Take

Six dead bodies makes this story feel very complicated. How many of them are murders and how many are connected to each other? Morse himself is responsible for the death of the final person.

This is almost a cold case, or at least an unsolved mystery. The first murder took place in the vestry during a service when the church warden was stabbed by an intruder as he was counting the collection. The second followed soon after when the vicar threw himself off the bell tower. The most recent was nursing sister found dead in a hotel room.  It took some time to work out her identity.

It takes Morse's peculiar brain to work out how all the deaths are connected to each other.

The novel is divided into four books. Each book takes its name from a book of the Old Testament and follows a different style of writing. Notably, the third is in the form of a statement taken from a witness and the fourth (mostly) takes the form of court proceedings.

It is a very convoluted set of events, and I don't feel that the structure of the novel helped create a particularly successful audio production, although the narration is excellent once again.

The final events show us just how human Morse is.

My rating: 4.3

I have also read
4.3, INSPECTOR MORSE: BBB Radio Collection
4.5, THE SECRET OF ANNEXE THREE -audio book
4.6, THE WENCH IS DEAD, Colin Dexter - audio book

What I read in August & September 2019

Some good books for you to look out for

September 2019

1. 4.5, THE WOODS, Harlan Coben
2. 5.0, THE TURN OF THE KEY, Ruth Ware 
3. 4.6, THE WENCH IS DEAD, Colin Dexter - audio book
4. 4.4, DARK SATURDAY, Nicci French
5. 4.8, THE CHAIN, Adrian McKinty 
6. 4.6, THE HUNTING PARTY, Lucy Foley
7. 4.4, THE RUMOUR, Lesley Kara 
8. 4.8, THE SCHOLAR, Dervla McTiernan - Australian writer
9. 4.3, SLEEPING PARTNER, James Humphreys

August 2019

1. 4.5, CRISIS, Felix Francis
2. 4.4, MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER, Oyinkan Braithwaite 
3. 4.4, TRANSCRIPTION, Kate Atkinson 
4. 4.4, CLOSED CASKET, Sophie Hannah -audio book
5. 4.5, 55, James Delargy
6. 4.4, FORGET MY NAME, J. S. Monroe
7. 4.8, SNAP, Belinda Bauer  
8. 4.2, SISTERS, Gabrielle Lord - Australian author
9. 4.4, HEAD IN THE SAND, Damien Boyd 
10. 4.5, THE MISTLETOE BRIDE, Kate Mosse 
11. 4.5, THE SECRET OF ANNEXE THREE, Colin Dexter - audio book   

See what others have read in the last month

Pick of the Month - September 2019

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2019

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for September 2019, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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Review: THE NEVER GAME, Jeffery Deaver

• this large print edition published by Gale 2019
• ISBN 978-1-4328-6339-5
• 598 pages
• source: my local library
• #1 in the Colter Shaw series

Synopsis (author website)

The first novel in a thrilling new series.

Colter Shaw is an itinerate “reward-seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. When he learns of a reward for a missing college student in Silicon Valley, he takes the job. The investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of Silicon Valley and the cutthroat billion-dollar video gaming industry–and then a second kidnapping happens…and this victim turns up dead.

The clues soon point to one video game, The Never Game, in which the player has to survive after being left abandoned. Is a madman bringing that game to life? If so, Shaw has to stop him before he strikes again…and before he figures out that Shaw is on his trail.

My take:

A young woman goes missing and her father puts up a reward for her recovery. Soon after Shaw finds her, her boy friend is shot dead, and then another person goes missing. This time the kidnapped person does not survive.

The investigation takes Shaw into the heart of the video gaming industry and into Silicon Valley, where he learns what the NBT (next big thing) is.

A thread that runs through the story is what happened to Shaw's father 15 years earlier. Frustratingly this thread is left open to be continued in the next book in the series, to be published in 2020. A lot of the book is taken up with reminiscences about Ashton Shaw and allusions to his philosophy.

In the book, confusingly, the video game behind the kidnappings is called The Whispering Man, and The Never Game has a slightly different connotation. 

My rating: 4.1

I've also read
4.2, EDGE
4.8, NINTH AND NOWHERE

Review: SLEEPING PARTNER, James Humphreys

• this edition published by Macmillan 2000
• ISBN 0-333-90106-1
• 359 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

A ...courtroom thriller, seen through the eyes of the accused. A ... debut novel from a very promotable young author, whose day job is at 10 Downing Street.

Clarissa Morland is twenty-seven, attractive, shy - and standing trial for the murder of her ex-lover John Grant. John was shot at dawn as he answered the door of his isolated farmhouse. But Clarissa has no memory of this. All she can remember is being cut free from the wreckage of her car that same morning, after what looks like a frantic getaway. As intimate details of her life and relationship are laid bare for the court, even Clarissa finds it hard to believe she is innocent. But murdering the man she loved in cold blood? She's just not that evil - is she?

My take

It has been nearly nine months since the murder of John Grant and Clarissa Moorland still has no memory of the day. She was found in her wrecked car, badly injured, shortly after John's body was discovered. She spent weeks in hospital and eventually the police charged her with the murder.

This novel gives an account of her trial. She does not know whether she is guilty of John's murder or not as she simply has no memory. The police prosecutor wants to prove the case that they have built up but it becomes very obvious that once they latched onto the possibility of Clarissa's guilt, the police did not follow up other possibilities. It is almost as if they concluded she was guilty and then set about fitting the facts to their conclusion.

The witnesses for the prosecution include those who want to make a name for themselves, and among the witnesses are surprisingly some people who believe Clarissa is innocent. There are of course those who are carrying out their own private vendetta.

The story is rather slow at times as Clarissa considers the idea that she may be guilty and looks at what the future may hold for her. Despite the slow pace, it raises some interesting considerations, and made intriguing reading.

I think I will definitely be looking for another by this author.

My rating: 4.3

Review: THE SCHOLAR, Dervla McTiernan

• this edition published by Harper Collins 2019
• ISBN 978-14607-5422-1
• 360 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Being brilliant has never been this dangerous ...

When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit and run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. A security card in the dead woman's pocket identifies her as Carline Darcy, a gifted student and heir apparent to Irish pharmaceutical giant Darcy Therapeutics. The multi-billion-dollar company, founded by her grandfather, has a finger in every pie, from sponsoring university research facilities to funding political parties to philanthropy - it has funded Emma's own ground-breaking research. The enquiry into Carline's death promises to be high profile and high pressure.

As Cormac investigates, evidence mounts that the death is linked to a Darcy laboratory and, increasingly, to Emma herself. Cormac is sure she couldn't be involved, but as his running of the case comes under scrutiny from the department and his colleagues, he is forced to question his own objectivity. Could his loyalty to Emma have led him to overlook evidence? Has it made him a liability?

My take

This novel leaps from one complexity to another.

Detective Cormac Reilly has spent the last year on the back burner, investigating cold cases at least 30 years old and now his boss has just decided to allow him to take on the Henderson case, where a manipulative husband planned to kill his wife and children. He is not sure why Murphy has allowed him to take over the case, maybe so he can trip over his own shoe laces.

So the hit and run death outside Galway University is not at first his case, but eventually there is a reshuffle of case loads and it comes to him.

The first discovery is that the person whom they think the victim is, is very much alive and so the body needs to be identified. Even though she is carrying Carline Darcy's swipe pass, Carline says she does on know her. There is some doubt about whether Cormac should be investigating this case because his girlfriend discovered the body. But Emma is cleared of involvement although some in the investigating team insist on referring to her as "the suspect".

Cormac is not really sure of who in his team will not undermine him, and loyalties become very important as the case progresses.

An excellent read.

My rating: 4.8


I've also read
4.8, THE RUIN

Review: THE RUMOUR, Lesley Kara

• this edition published by Bantam 2018
• ISBN 978-1-7876-3004-8
• 304 pages
• source: my local library 

Synopsis (publisher)

When single mum Joanna shares a rumour at the school gates – desperate to ingratiate herself with the clique of mothers at her son’s new school – there is no going back . . .

Rumour has it that a notorious child killer is living under a new identity, in their sleepy little town of Flinstead-on-Sea.

Sally McGowan was just ten when she stabbed little Robbie Harris to death over 47 years ago – no photos of her exist since her release as a young woman.

So who is the supposedly reformed killer who now lives amongst them? How dangerous can one rumour become? And how far will Joanna go to protect her loved ones from harm, when she realizes what it is she’s unleashed?

My take

There is a lot going on in this novel. Single mum Joanna has newly moved into the area and this is new school for Alfie. Her mother suggests she latch on to some of the other mothers to help make potential friends for her son Alfie who is having some problems settling in.

Joanna overhears some gossip which she passes on to the book group that she joins and it seems to her that it spreads like wildfire. Indeed someone sends her scary messages on Twitter and then the owner of a local shop is targeted.

Alfie's father is a journalist and he becomes interested in the Sally McGowan story and also decides to move into Joanna's flat to see if they can make a go of their relationship.

In her search to see if there is any truth to the rumour Joanna discovers that the truth is much closer to home.

My rating: 4.4


About the author

Lesley Kara is the author of the Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller, THE RUMOUR, published in December 2018. Her second novel, WHO DID YOU TELL, is out in January 2020.