Unnatural Wastage

October 8, 2012
Rowlands’s plodding 12th Sukey Reynolds mystery (after 2011’s Miss Minchin Dies) has Sukey and her fellow detective constable of the Avon and Somerset CID, Vicky Armstrong, methodically investigating the murder of Fenella Tremaine, found in a rubbish bin outside her upscale Bristol flat, stabbed in the back with a distinctive oriental knife. Sukey and Vicky quickly zero in on the victim’s pugnacious neighbor, Marcus Ellerman, as the two had an earlier hostile confrontation and were bitterly competing for a senior position at a major corporation. The local police, always polite, always attentive to detail, link the promiscuous Fenella to the director of a nursing home, and further ripples of suspicion involve a cleaning lady and an interior decorator. Sukey and Vicky combine their carefully structured interrogative skills with endless cups of hot tea to coax information from reluctant witnesses. Unfortunately, too many stodgy and bland characters weigh down the narrative, and red herrings swim by with alarming frequency.

November 1, 2012
Murder disrupts a block of upscale flats in Bristol. Fenella Tremaine may have been tough and outspoken, but did her clashes with fellow tenants' association member Marcus Ellerman or her criticisms of caretaker Frederick Wilkins lead one of them to stab her with an Oriental-patterned knife and heave her lifeless body into a Dumpster behind Sycamore Arms? Fellow tenants with their own theories include elderly Kate Springfield, who doesn't want to jeopardize her second-floor flat with its view of the well-tended garden and the hills of Wales in the distance. But her cousin Patsy Godwin insists it's her duty, so Kate tells DC Sukey Reynolds (Miss Minchin Dies, 2011, etc.) about the tall, well-muscled gentleman she saw by the rubbish bins the night of the murder. Kate's is just one of the tantalizing bits of information that seem to lead Sukey nowhere. Learning that Fenella was to be called as a witness in a lawsuit against the Holmwood Care Home in the death of an elderly patient doesn't move their investigation forward, even when it seems that she was having an affair with its owner. Nor does the knowledge that Fenella was Ellerman's chief rival for promotion at Maxworth Foods, where they both worked. More deaths increase Sukey's frustration with the case--frustration she deals with mainly by sharing endless bottles of wine and canoodling with reporter Harry Matthews. Usually brisk Sukey hits the doldrums in her sluggish twelfth outing.

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December 1, 2012
Detective Constable Vicky Armstrong and her colleague, DC Sukey Reynolds, are complaining about the lack of new serious cases. Of course, that does not last long. The body of Fenella Tremaine, who lived in an exclusive block of apartments in Bristol, turns up in a skip (trash can). She has a distinctive, oriental-patterned knife in her back. Fenella was attractive but not well liked. Which of her enemies would kill her? Was it a professional rival? Perhaps it was because she was about to testify against the administrators of a local residential facility in a negligent-death case. Sukey will need to use her detective skills and her contacts, including journalist friend Harry Matthews, to solve what shapes up to be a baffler. This is a solid British procedural featuring appealing female police officers. It will appeal to readers who enjoy Peter Lovesey and Peter Turnbull.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)