In the Shadow of Evil

May 21, 2012
Det. Chief Insp. Neil Paget investigates the murder of Antonia “Toni” Halliday, the willful 23-year-old stepdaughter of Charles Bromley of Bromley Manor, and a near-fatal accident involving Maj. Adrian Farnsworth, a Bromley neighbor, in Smith’s well-constructed ninth procedural featuring the Shropshire policeman (after 2010’s A Killing Resurrected). Chief Supt. Morgan Brock, who’s eager to avoid upsetting Charles, believes plumber George Nash was the one who nearly decapitated Toni with a sickle in the Bromley barn. Nash earlier threatened Toni after she lost control of her car and hit his five-year-old daughter, seriously injuring the girl. Not one to jump to conclusions, Paget soon discovers that practically everyone at the manor is telling lies, and that the small office at the back of the barn was a love nest for someone. Despite uncooperative witnesses and suspects, Paget and his crew doggedly pursue their quarry, who emerges as a most subtle killer.

August 1, 2012
Family life can be messy, DCI Neil Paget (A Killing Resurrected, 2011, etc.) finds, when a retired surgeon's stepdaughter is brutally murdered. When Charles Bromley left his London practice for the country, he'd hoped to find escape from the scandal that erupted when young Antonia Halliday accused him of deliberately botching her father's surgery so that he could marry his rich, beautiful widow Margaret. But now Toni's back, trying to patch things up with her mother and, Charles suspects, wheedle her way into the fund Margaret holds in trust for her. So he's not really sorry when local farmer Bob Thorsen, in search of his dog Toby, finds Toni's body in the Bromley Manor barn. He is sorry, though, for all this fuss the investigation causes--so sorry he complains to Chief Superintendent Brock, who warns Paget to rein it in. But Paget wants to learn much more about this peculiar household. Why, for instance, did Charles' brother Paul flee the scene on the night of Toni's murder? What connection did Charles' son, Julian, have with Toni and with her newly announced pregnancy? Why does Elizabeth Etherton, the sister of Charles' first wife, still live with them? And most of all, why has housemaid Gwyneth Jones, who was likely in the barn the night of Toni's murder, disappeared? Smith takes the usual elements--dogged investigator, loyal subordinates, interfering boss, family plagued with secrets--and combines them to produce the usual result.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2012

Beware of village life, thinks DCI Paget in Smith's ninth tightly crafted procedural (after A Killing Resurrected). A horrific slaying in a barn opens up a whole slew of motives and leads to more deaths.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
Another mystery set in a British manor house? Yes, but as Detective Inspector Neil Paget discovers in his ninth outing, murder is never routine. The puzzle begins when Antonia Halliday, a flighty, irresponsible spendthrift living with her mother and stepfather at Bromley Manor, is found dead in the barn. Her death closely follows a car accident in which intoxicated Antonia hits a young girl walking along the road. The girl's distraught father becomes the first suspect, but when the man proves to have an alibi, Paget and his team turn their attentions to the manor's residents and staff. That's not acceptable to Chief Superintendent Brock, who is more concerned with not ruffling feathers than with catching criminals. Paget, on the other hand, knows there's something strange going on at the manor, and he smoothly sidesteps his boss' concerns, uncovering long-held family secrets. The backdrop may be familiar, but as procedurals go, this one, like others in the series, is nicely done.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)