Helpful Score: 2
This is a mystery novel set in England. The subject matter is a little different than your average detective novel...it focuses on a set of murders set around a role-playing game. People are dying and the subtle clues point to a killer involved in a D&D-like fantasy game. The book is a good read because the characters are well-fleshed out and there is more going on than just the mystery at hand. A good series of detective fiction.
Welcome to a dinner party where the three diners are all sitting around the table--dead. Scotland Yard Chief Superintendent John Coffin doesn't believe it was the curry soup....
Scotland Yard murders...Inspector Coffin is back!
Coffin is such a wonderful character. Butler truly knows how to write mysteries that keep you going till the end! Highly recommend!
A grippin tale of sinister fantasy role-olaying and bloody murder.
Elizabeth E. (TylerTxRose) reviewed Coffin Underground (John Coffin, Bk 19) on + 84 more book reviews
Publisher's Weekly states this is a "puzzler with a cliffhanging ending." While Kirkus Reviews says, "Butler improves with each outing." This one includes: a haunted house with a history of violent death over the centuries, and a complex web of relationships, interlocking and interacting in a way which gets people caught up and destroyed... as they play into a game of a very clever killer. Booklist says," Butler has a light touch of a master and a beguilling soul in the somberly monikered Coffin."
In this absorbing somber work, John Coffin (last seen in Coffin on the Water ) is now a chief superintendent of South London's Tactical Activity Squad, established to investigate serious crimes in the area. In 1978, South London is in transition, its longtime working-class residents mixing uneasily with newcomers, who bring new money and different values. The community has experienced several mysterious deaths, which the quietly perceptive Coffin is convinced are connected. But what could link a student's suicide three years earlier, an ex-con's brutal murder by his son-in-law, and the deaths of a prosperous black family by poisoned curry soup? Coffin and his squad gather information from the residents, who have their own theories about the deaths, but only one clue is uncovered: a figurine inscribed with the words "Tombs and Torturers" and "The Virgin." Butler successfully blends social commentary with low-key violence in this puzzler with a cliffhanging ending.
