I've read a few of the Inspector Felse books and enjoyed them, and this one was no exception. It features the usual (but not boring!) combination of unpleasant murder victim, a touch of romance, hordes of plausible suspects and entertaining (but not entirely amicable) relationships between the various characters. George Felse is sympathetic, and son Dominic teeters charmingly between childishness and maturity.

The viewpoint is omniscient, freely shifting between characters and their thoughts. I generally find that jarring (either being confused by lack of clarity or annoyed by the author obviously withholding knowledge), but in this case the read was very smooth.

Events appeared a touch contrived, with Dominic happening upon clue after clue, but that didn't dectract from my enjoyment. I did have a pretty good idea of the murder's identity (and a final twist) well in advance of the denoument, but I don't think the clues were belaboured.

If you like well-plotted gentle mysteries, this is well worth reading.

The first Inspector Felse mystery--cover. ( )

I didn't care for this 1st book in the Felse series as much as the Cadfael books. The writing style is lush but not my kind of thing. Plus I thought the mystery was a bit too predictable. However, I liked Dominic and Pussy so I will try another one. ( )

DNF at 30%. I've read enough to know I don't want to keep reading, at least not now. Maybe I'll come back to it.

I picked this up for a reading challenge category (woman author with male pseudonym). I really liked Pargeter's Wales quartet, and this mid-century mystery series about a village policeman and his family sounded right up my alley. But the level of detail is stupefying, I have to stop an unravel sentences to get their meaning on a regular basis, and the unpleasant characters are really unpleasant. As in, I recoil from the words. Maybe my tolerance for reading racist and anti-Semitic language is just at a low. It fits the character, but it hits like a sledgehammer. I would get through that if the rest of it were easier to read, but it's not. ( )

http://tinyurl.com/y7q7tml3

I will definitely not be picking up the Brother Cadfael mystery series. Ms. Peters, ie Ms. Pargeter, crafts unbelievable characters, over-explains, and over-describes. However, her novels do all seem very British, so I guess she has that going for her.

I suppose I'm more of a fan of mystery writers like Chandler or novel writers like Steinbeck. They keep it spare by describing what's necessary, and they intensify the mystery as a result. Peters isn't necessarily florid in her writing, but she tells you literally everything her main characters are thinking and feeling. We don't need all that! It makes the reading sloggy (I almost wrote soggy, but that too).

Most particularly, the son of the cop (already forgotten his name) is an unimaginably precocious pre-teen (as is his young girl friend) who happens to be at all the right places at all the right times and yet still can't get his mum and dad to believe what he's seen. It isn't even really that he's precocious, it's that he gnaws on the plot line until it's threadbare and see-through. It's actually rather exhausting for the reader. ( )