Tuesday, February 18, 2014

A Clear Conscience by Frances Fyfield

Finished on 17Feb.

Because I found this together with the other of her books that I have, I mistakenly assumed that they were contiguous in the series. Not so much. There are four or five books between them. I ordered the second book, which is only available in paper, and mistakenly had it sent to my sister. Some days ...

I did enjoy the second book in spite of all the tension of a relationship at the critical point where it either disintegrates or becomes permanent. That was particularly uncomfortable because I like both Helen and Geoff.

This series of crimes is even closer to home than the murder in the first book. I am really curious about the books between to see if this is actually part of Fyfield's pattern, or if I just happened to pull the two that play out that way. And now, of course, the next book is headed to central Texas instead of here.

The crime is fairly simple, but Fyfield brings in the thoughts and motivations of all the principals. And since the theme is spousal abuse quite a lot of that is very dark indeed. I thought I had this one all figured out, wrong again.

I was at least trying to read for problems of style. I mentioned with the first one that it was so British in places that it was literally incomprehensible, and my sister thought that her sentence structure was ponderous and convoluted. I didn't notice any of that in this book - of course, I hadn't noticed writing style issues the first time around - maybe I have been reading too much academic stuff.

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