Some Deaths Before Dying

Starred review from May 31, 1999
His first mystery in five years gives ample evidence that Dickinson, an award-winning storyteller whose first novel was published in 1968, can still entrance readers with superbly drawn tales. He knows how to construct an atmospheric English country house mystery as do few other contemporary writers, and he can build a complex plot as skillfully as ever. An old woman, Rachel Matson, is paralyzed and slowly dying, but the mind inside her wasted body is as sharp as ever. She discovers one day that one of a pair of antique dueling pistols, which she had given her late husband, is missing. Her husband had been the colonel of an army regiment that was taken prisoner by the Japanese in WWII and used as slave labor. The men who survived the war have forged strong bonds, and their lives remain intertwined. Before her illness, Rachel had chronicled her life and her marriage in photographs; she was an artist who documented the reality around her. Now she must use her old photographs and her observational skills to discover why the pistol is missing and how its disappearance may connect to a secret that has been hidden for many years. Dickinson has long been known for creating subtle and meticulously detailed portraits of eccentric characters. In this novel, he depicts a family possessing courage, talent and wealth, but whose members are obsessed with an old crime that has haunted their lives. This beautifully crafted and highly original English mystery should bring new fans to an exceptional writer.

February 1, 1999
Two-time Golden Dagger Award winner Dickinson comes up with an unusual mystery plot: a dying woman realizes that an important possession with a dangerous past is missing and that to die in peace she must find it.

April 15, 1999
Rachel Matson's body is ravaged by a disease that leaves her unable to move and barely able to speak while her mind, ironically, remains clear and sharp. A gifted photographer, Rachel spends her days remembering the events she once captured in photographs. Rachel must also face a mystery that centers around two valuable antique pistols she gave her husband, Jocelyn, years earlier. One of the pistols has turned up in the hands of a young woman named Jenny; where it has been all these years and what role it played in Rachel and Jocelyn's past are questions that Rachel can only answer by confronting dark secrets she has ignored for years. With Jenny's help, Rachel begins the painful process of facing a reality she has steadfastly tried to forget, and finally, at the end of her life, she discovers the sad but ultimately liberating truth. A rich and stylish story that is at once haunting, touching, and provocative, Dickinson's latest will capture the reader's imagination from beginning to end. ((Reviewed April 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)