Day for Dying

April 29, 1996
In his 13th appearance, following No Laughing Matter, Inspector Luke Thanet has ample opportunity to display the sympathetic and acute investigative technique that has earned a Silver Dagger award for the author of this British series. Dead is Max Jeopard, a handsome, outwardly charming playboy and travel writer found floating in the swimming pool at his own engagement party. Among the family and guests at the impressive family home of his fiancee, Tess Sylvester, Thanet finds many with both motive and opportunity for murder. Among them are the victim's brother Hartley, who was Tess's former boyfriend, and Anthea Greenway, who was dropped by Max when he took up with Tess. There's Tess herself, whose relationship with Max was volatile; her parents, each with reason to lament the prospect of Max as a son-in-law; Tess's schizophrenic brother, who escaped the watch of his nurse at the same time Max disappeared; and Gerald Argent, the man whom Tess spurned for Max. Thanet's deft probing reveals an increasingly ugly portrait of the victim and uncovers more than one secret and more than one crime in the lives, loves and tangled loyalties of the suspects. This is a solid, if unexceptional, offering from Simpson.

May 1, 1996
Inspector Luke Thanet and Sergeant Mike Lineham head the investigation into the apparent murder of Max Jeopard, a handsome but manipulative scion of a wealthy family. The disparity between a policeman's wage and the showy affluence of Jeopard's Tudor mansion gives rise to trenchant observation as Thanet and Lineham interrogate the usual suspects--spurned lover, jealous ex-boyfriend, disapproving father--with practiced adroitness, piecing together a picture of events. Simpson (No Laughing Matter, Scribner, 1993) is very good at dialog and characterization, so this English village "cozy" goes down quite well.