A Fatal Attachment

January 3, 1994
A cruel and manipulative woman is strangled to death in a British village in Barnard's subtle, delightful novel.

July 1, 1992
Barnard's new contribution evidences the same excellent plotting and characterization seen in A Scandal in Belgravia ( LJ 7/91). This time, his psychological study centers on a wealthy, highly intelligent, but condescending popular biographer who tries to direct the lives of two teenaged village boys. Lydia's first attempt to mold young lives--those of her own two nephews--ended unsuccessfully, and so does her new attempt: someone murders her. Chief among the suspects stand her sister and alcoholic husband, her surviving nephew, a wimpy ex-husband, and the boys' ineffectual father. Up to the usual high standard.

Copyright 1992 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 1993
YA- -The author of The Skeleton in the Grass (Thorndike, 1988) has written another page-turner. Lydia Perceval has always controlled the men in her life, from her former beau, to her n'er-do-well ex-husband, to the nephews to whom she is so devoted that she usurps her sister's role as mother. Just as it seems that she has lost her power, two boys enter her life. Intelligent and friendly, they soon become her pet project. In fact, when Lydia is murdered, they are surprised to learn that she had not yet placed them in her will, while investigating superintendent Mike Oddie observes that her former boyfriend is not at all surprised to be her sole heir. The deeper Oddie delves into Lydia's past, the more he realizes that there was nothing simple about any of her "attachments" and that any one of them could have led to her fatal end. Combining the psychological probing of a Ruth Rendell story with the class tensions of a P. D. James mystery, Barnard creates a unique form of suspense novel. It's an excellent introduction to a prize-winning writer.- Catherine Clancy, Boston Public Library

August 1, 1992
Briton Barnard is both amazingly prolific and amazingly consistent in terms of quality of storytelling. His latest classic-grounded whodunit features a compelling character named Lydia Perceval, a biographer of the dead by trade and a dominator of the living by inclination. Lydia and her sister and brother-in-law aren't on the best of terms; Lydia rather took over control of her two nephews as they grew to manhood, and as it turned out, this interference in the boys' lives had less-than-successful results. Now, as Lydia finishes her latest biography--of French king Charles X--two teenage boys cross her path, and once again Lydia is hell-bent on dominating young lives. Presently, though, Lydia is murdered, and the psychological tangles she has woven in her life must be untangled in order to discover who has done her in. A pleasure to lose oneself in. ((Reviewed Aug. 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)