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Rack, Ruin And Murder (2000)

by Ann Granger(Favorite Author)

3.4 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0755349113 (ISBN13: 9780755349111)

languge

English

genre

Graphic Novels & Comics

publisher

Headline

series

Campbell and Carter Mystery

review 1: Read this in (almost) one sitting last night - and enjoyed it. Same style and vein as Mitchell and Markby but with different detectives who aren't romantically entangled (yet?). Book two in the series - and I'll be looking for Book one and any subsequent ones. At times I felt that I was actually reading a Mitchell and Markby, which isn't a bad thing as I loved that series, so it's definitely a formula that Granger is sticking to - and why not - it works, I enjoyed it, I'll read more!
review 2: Monty Bickerstaffe was a disagreeable old man who lived alone in decaying Victorian splendor in Balaclava House. His family had originally made their fortune in providing hard tack to the the army during the Crimean War. Afterwards they had built an Empire wide brand i... moren Bickerstaffe Biscuits and Bickerstaffe Boiled Fruit Cakes which had rendered holidays and Sunday tea hideous to several generations of British children. The brand had finally sold to a multinational conglomerate in the 50's when Monty was a schoolboy. Now it was just Monty and a few other distant relatives.Then one day Monty walked home from the shops with his bottle of whiskey and found a strange dead man lying on a Victorian horsehair sofa in his drawing room cum bedroom. Rather put out he calls the police and finds himself involved in a murder investigation headed by Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter. Campbell and Carter for their pains find themselves in the middle of a mystery as they have an unidentified body and have to figure out who the corpse is as well as why and how.Its noteworthy that the name Balaclava not only refers to a major battle of the Crimean War but also to what in the US is called a ski mask which covers all of the head and face except for the eyes and (sometimes) mouth.Fans of Granger's other mystery series will appreciate the cast of characters including local farming characters some respectable, some villainous, a developer who had his eye on Balaclava house, and Bickerstaffe cousins by blood if not by name, all of whom have secrets that they want to keep from the police.While the set up is a bit of a retread from a Mitchell and Markby mystery-- no, I won't tell you which one-- it still kept humming along. It's different enough to be interesting but long time readers would probably note the similarities.PS: I'm also annoyed that no one has released what is a quite recent (June 2011 in the UK) book as either an ebook or an audio book in the US. As far as I can tell it isn't available as an ebook anywhere and Audible only has it on their UK site. Publishers keep leaving money on the table as they withhold books that would probably sell quite well in the US to those of us who enjoy British mysteries. I lucked into my copy on the secondary market. less

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