Diane J. (Lituria) reviewed A Late Phoenix (Detective Inspector Sloan, Bk 4) on + 61 more book reviews
Typical 'Sloan' mystery...good plot, good characters! Catherine Aird is a "must" for all readers of this genre.
Dangerous moonlight illuminated the English skies the night a German bomb razed the houses in Lamb Lane, Berebury. Then three decades quietly passed before a careless workman's pickaxe struck an old skeleton buried under the wreckage... and exhumed a new case of murder for Detective Inspector CD. Sloan. Time had blacked out the clues. All that remained were a body... an unborn baby. . . and a bullet. Could the Inspector's uncanny investigative instincts now unearth a killer? Or would this delayed action affair explode and send another victim to moulder in the grave?
Dangerous moonlight illuminated the English skies the night a German bomb razed the houses in Lamb Lane, Berebury. Then three decades quietly passed before a careless workman's pickaxe struck an old skeleton buried under the wreckage... and exhumed a new case of murder for Detective Inspector CD. Sloan. Time had blacked out the clues. All that remained were a body... an unborn baby. . . and a bullet. Could the Inspector's uncanny investigative instincts now unearth a killer? Or would this delayed action affair explode and send another victim to moulder in the grave?
Pamela S. (PamLS) reviewed A Late Phoenix (Detective Inspector Sloan, Bk 4) on + 27 more book reviews
A 1970's police procedural with Insp. Sloan and Detective Constrable Crosby. A body is found in a building site left over from a 1941 bombing site. A short book which gives an interesting insight in what it felt to be in England during the bombing raids. Ms. Aird describes much with few words.
Maura (maura853) -
Very old fashioned murder mystery, which I enjoy more for a glimpse into British life in the 60s and (this one) early 70s than for the writing style or the challenge of the mystery. While we might think that the Swinging 60s wrought an instant transformation on the British Isles, Aird makes it clear from the setting and context of her murders, and the attitudes of her characters, that change took time to percolate through to places like the little market towns of the fictional "Calleshire" (her version of Midsomer, for cozy mystery fans).
This is the fourth Aird novel I've read, and the context of the mystery (skeleton remains discovered in the ruins of homes bombed, 30 years before, during WWII) is interesting, and probably reflects genuine attitudes to the war, as time passed and memories faded. However, the revelation of the murderer is pretty uninspired: like mystery sodduku, rather than anything emerging from character development, or sharp insights into the human condition ...
This is the fourth Aird novel I've read, and the context of the mystery (skeleton remains discovered in the ruins of homes bombed, 30 years before, during WWII) is interesting, and probably reflects genuine attitudes to the war, as time passed and memories faded. However, the revelation of the murderer is pretty uninspired: like mystery sodduku, rather than anything emerging from character development, or sharp insights into the human condition ...
