Brothers' Tears

June 24, 2013
In Gregson’s low-key 17th British procedural featuring Det. Chief Insp. “Percy” Peach (after 2012’s Dusty Death), former internationally known Irish rugby player Jim O’Connor, now a successful Lancashire businessman, is shot in the head while attending a dinner in his honor. Since O’Connor’s interests include prostitution, gambling, and drugs, Peach and Sgt. Clyde Northcott know where to focus their inquiries and an arrest is quickly made. Case solved? Hardly. Several days later O’Connor’s younger brother, Dominic, is found strangled in his home office. Is there a connection? A widening investigation that includes painstaking interviews with spouses, personal assistants, and business associates reveals, in addition to an astonishing number of adulterers, a possible Irish connection. The appeal of this mild story lies in the interplay between such memorable characters as Northcott, laconic yet intimidating; Det. Sgt. Lucy Peach, Peach’s shrewd, competent, and sensuous wife; and Peach’s superior, the thick-witted and egotistical Superintendent Tucker, on whom all irony is lost.

July 15, 2013
Two murders within a week pose a formidable puzzle for Brunton CID's most irreverent DCI, Percy Peach (Least of Evils, 2012, etc.). When Jim O'Connor is killed in the parking lot of Claughton Towers during a celebratory dinner, there are almost too many suspects. His wife clearly hated him. He had a finger in every dirty pie in Brunton, including a ring of Asian thugs who snatched vulnerable girls from council care homes and forced them into prostitution. And his past as an Ireland rugby player left him in the cross hairs of some unwilling to abide by the IRA's ban on violence. His brother Dominic's death a few days later only deepens the puzzle. Jim's shady connections had no gripe with his law-abiding brother. But Dom had family issues of his own, including a wife who likes to fool around and her devoted lover. The problem is that those with the strongest motives for dispatching one brother have nothing particular against the other. As Percy Peach works his dogged path through this briar patch, he can't resist casting the occasional barb at his boss, Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, who prefers to give his overview of the case from the comfort of his office. But needling Tucker won't solve the case. For that, Peach will need persistence, ingenuity and the help of his bagman, DS Clyde Northcott. Another solid outing for Gregson and the indomitable Peach.

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August 1, 2013

Two brothers die badly, and DCI Percy Peach must untangle a seriously dysfunctional family tree. Peach pursues his 17th case (after Least of Evils) in a notable British procedural series.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
Local businessman Jim O'Connor is shot dead at a family dinner, and two days later, his younger brother, Dominic, is found garrotted. Chief Inspector Percy Peach figures the elder O'Connor was probably killed by a local rival, given the shady nature of his business. But Dominic had distanced himself from his elder brother, so who killed him? Logic would dictate that the two deaths were connected, but as Percy struggles to make sense of the case, he is confronted by a surfeit of suspects, from unhappy, unfaithful wives to vengeful crime lords, the head of a local prostitution ring, and even hit men from the Provisional IRA. A clever story filled with red herrings combines with slick dialogue and plenty of authentic procedural details to make this an absorbing read, but it's the irreverent, clever, menacing, almost frighteningly competent Percy who makes this series a winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)