According to the Evidence

March 14, 2011
Set in 1955, Knight's enjoyable second Richard Pryor mystery (after 2010's Where Death Delights) finds Pryor, now a Home Office forensic pathologist, and his professional partner, Angela Bray, a forensic biologist, continuing to run their private consulting business from a secluded house in the Welsh countryside near the English border. Success brings them three simultaneous cases: the suspicious death of a farm mechanic crushed by a tractor, the supposed poisoning of a woman dying of cancer by her veterinarian husband, and a British soldier's death in an accidental shooting incident in the Middle East that the soldier's widow is calling a murder. Knight may disappoint some readers by refusing to turn Pryor into an all-purpose detective or to emphasize action and intrigue, but the low-key sexual tension of Pryor's thus far platonic relationships with Bray and his secretary, Moira Davison, provides plenty of dramatic interest for those who prefer quieter traditional mysteries.

March 1, 2011

The growing roster of the dead in the Wye Valley of Wales extends a thriving forensic practice by leaps and bounds.

Word of mouth has given forensic pathologist Richard Pryor; his partner, former Home Office forensic scientist Angela Bray; and their lab tech Siân and housekeeper/secretary Moira more than enough to keep them busy. But new cases seem to arrive every day. Richard begins this round by checking out a death at a Welsh farm. It looks as if a mechanic there has been killed when a tractor he was working on slipped off the wooden blocks holding it up. Richard soon discovers that the accidental death is really murder. The man had been strangled, then hanged in a bid to make him appear a suicide, then crushed by the tractor in a final attempt to confuse the evidence. Richard's other big case is more complicated. A Cotswold veterinarian has been accused of murdering his wife, who was close to death from cancer. The case, which will require help from all the regulars, hinges on the amount of potassium found in her eyes.

Retired pathologist Knight follows his last Pryor mystery (Where Death Delights, 2010) with another solid effort. Don't expect fireworks, just a character-driven look at the life of forensic scientists in 1950s Britain with a touch of romance.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011

Richard Pryor, a forensic consultant, represents a new profession in this gentle mystery set in rural Wales in the mid-1950s. Three different cases are presented to Pryor and his team, and using the new technology, they are able to help solve them all. Veteran historical mystery author Knight ("Crowner John" series) provides an intriguing premise that flows easily but offers minimal suspense in this second series entry (after Where Death Delights). VERDICT Is a gentle forensic mystery an oxymoron? This leisurely paced entry could be just the ticket for Alexander McCall Smith readers.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2011
Six months after starting their private forensics practice in Englands Wye Valley in 1955, pathologist Richard Pryor and forensic biologist Angela Bray (introduced in Where Death Delights, 2010) get three cases well beyond the routine: the apparent suicide of a mechanic found crushed beneath a tractor, the possible mercy killing of a dying cancer patient by her veterinarian husband, and the alleged murder of an army warrant officer by his colleague in a training exercise in the Mideast. Motive abounds in each case. The mechanics partners wanted him out of their family business, the vet is having an affair, and the soldier was actively disliked. But evidence, collected with expertise and intuition (though without twenty-first-century technology), leads to surprising conclusions. Adding spice are personal relationships, notably those between Pryor and Bray, who, somewhat scandalously for the times, share his home as well as workplace, and between Pryor and Moira Davison, the young widow who serves as secretary-cum-cook. A final twist promising complications ahead will leave readers waiting for the next installment of this entertaining series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)