Fear of Drowning

July 31, 2000
"There's nowt so queer as folk," Sergeant Yellich tells his boss, Chief Inspector George Hennessey of the City of York Police, near the start of this gripping police procedural, the first in a projected series from this polished British author (The Man with No Face, etc.). "That's a gem of Yorkshire wisdom, is it?" replies Hennessey, who will shortly find himself preoccupied with the peculiarities of human behavior while investigating a double murder. Max and Amanda Williams, a respectable middle-aged couple, are missing, days after dining out with their grown children, Rufus and Nicola. Their cottage in the village of Bramley on Ouse stands spotlessly empty, almost too clean. Then a local countryman happens across a shallow grave containing two bodies with fatal head wounds; Rufus identifies them, more in anger than in sorrow, as those of his parents. A pair of suspects comes to the fore: Tim Sheringham, a health-club proprietor who was having an affair with Amanda and had just broken it off, and Michael Richardson, an Irish builder who was facing ruin because Max owed him a huge sum. The devil-may-care Max, while outwardly prosperous, was broke; indeed, as Hennessey and Yellich eventually discover, the man managed to squander a fortune inherited from a brother who mysteriously drowned in his bathtub ten years earlier. Though the killer's identity becomes obvious before the climax, Turnbull closes on a quietly chilling scene of confession, the perfect end to a subtle novel rich in character, as well as in Yorkshire wit and wisdom.

July 1, 2000
From popular crime novelist Turnbull comes this first installment of a new series featuring Chief Inspector Hennessey of the North Yorkshire Police. The author, known for his realistic police procedurals, hasn't ventured too far afield here: this is the story of Hennessey's step-by-step investigation of the murder of a husband and wife. What makes a good police procedural work--and what makes so many inferior ones fail--is not the procedural details themselves but the way the author constructs the characters. Since procedurals rely heavily on dialogue, the speakers (especially the lead) must be compelling, and the things they say must be worth hearing. On both counts, Turnbull succeeds completely. Hennessey is a man we want to know more about, and the supporting players are uniformly interesting. This is most definitely a formula novel, but Turnbull uses the formula as it was meant to be used. Procedural fans should look forward to the next novel in the series. ((Reviewed July 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)