Chelsea Mansions

With any long term series, it's not surprising to see an author rejigging the relationships just a little, bringing in new perspectives or adjusting the expectations. CHELSEA MANSIONS is the ninth Brock and Kolla book from Barry Maitland, and in the last book there were hints that there is a little viewpoint modification going on. It's always particularly interesting to watch how various authors move their long-term characters in and out of the limelight, particularly when you have an inherent seniority built in, as you have in a police pairing. Maitland seems be carefully repositioning Kathy Kolla - pulling her more to the centre and he's doing it cleverly. Brock isn't sidelined, more ... shall we say ... distracted. And in CHELSEA show more MANSIONS he's extremely distracted. In fact a sudden and very dramatic health crisis means he's completely distracted by the real prospect that he may not survive.

Kolla is under pressure, not just because she's worried about Brock, but also because there's something very odd going on with her current investigation. The reason why somebody would actually pick up and throw an elderly American tourist under a bus in Chelsea is completely elusive. The connection between the brutal death of Nancy Haynes and that of a Russian oligarch living in the same building as the hotel that Nancy and her companion are staying in equally elusive. As is the reason that Nancy was so insistent about staying at this particular, quirky and not particularly upmarket hotel in the first place. To say nothing of the young Canadian man hanging around the same hotel.

One of the quirks of Maitland's books is the settings that he uses for the main component of the action in his books. In this case, this small square, with it's row of houses - part of which is the hotel, the rest of which has been progressively turned into a massive townhouse by our Russian victim Mikhail Moszynski. Not just a setting, this area because an intricate part of the plot itself as is often the way. As is also often the way Kolla's investigation is characterised by her dogged determination. Brock's part in the investigation is more thoughtful, cerebral, intuitive. Along the way there's some nice touches of the personal, and there's a bit of professional skullduggery just to make everyone's lives more complicated than they need to be.

Whilst it's undoubtedly partially that feeling of getting back in touch with old friends that always makes the arrival of a new Brock and Kolla book a satisfying experience, in the last few entries in this series, there's that sense of rejigging, just a gentle little jostling of positions to add a little spark. But at the end of the day, the best part about CHELSEA MANSIONS is that it IS a new Brock & Kolla novel, and it's a very good entry in which is really an extremely solid and keenly anticipated series. show less

In Chelsea Mansions, Barry Maitland’s 11th — and possibly best — novel in the Kathy Kolla-David Brock series, a 70-year-old American tourist, Nancy Haynes, and a millionaire Russian expatriate, Mikhail Moszynski, are murdered within days of one another on the same block. (Moszynski owned a building, and Haynes was staying at the hotel next door.) Coincidence? Brock and Kathy don’t think so. But what could a Boston matron and a probably crooked Russian oligarch have in common? And why are MI5 and MI6 so interested in the case? Kathy gets an assist from an unusually helpful Canadian professor of historical linguistics named John Greenslade. Is he everything he appears?

The unscrupulous, corrupt MP Nigel Hadden-Vane, last seen in show more Spider Trap, returns with a newly burnished knighthood and plenty to hide in Moszynski’s death. Faced with Hadden-Vane’s interference, the media glare and Brock’s bout with the flu, solving these murders will be anything but easy.

Chelsea Mansions contains as many twists as a labyrinth and a big surprise — and big change — for Brock and Kathy. The novel kept me reading late into the night. You don’t want to miss this one. show less

This is my first Brock and Kolla Mystery, and I usually never start this far along in a series (this is the 11th novel). However, this was the only one in the library at the time so I gave it a try. Glad I did--I like the characters, and I care about what they are up to and this is the first prerequisite for any good read. The plot kept me in there too as DCI David Brock and DI Kathy Kolla work their way through the interesting asides of their personal lives (like who is this young Canadian who's taken a shine to Kolla and what does he have to do with the murder of the American widow and the murder of the wealthy Russian oligarch). Are the murders related? How? In the meantime, Brock goes to Scotland, or does he? And Kolla makes her show more first trip to the States (Boston) in search of answers to what in our widow's life makes a connection between the widow's insistence she and her traveling companion stay at the old hotel in Chelsea Mansions on this trip to London and our mysterious Russian who lived in and owned the rest of the Chelsea Mansions Estate and who was fatally stabbed shortly after a maniac grabbed our American widow on Sloan Street outside the Chelsea Flower Show and threw her under a bus? Whew! Moves right along! Then an old enemy of Brock's and Kolla's comes into the game and watching the links between the killings, the people, and the past and the present unfold, keeps one in the chair turning pages long past the midnight hour. show less

A worthwhile read, #11 in Maitland's long standing Brock & Kolla series, the first published in 1994.
DCI Brock and DI Kolla have been together through so many cases that they have developed a very close relationship despite the difference in their ages.

I have included this in my lists for both the 2012 Aussie author challenge and the 2012 British reading challenge, because although Barry Maitland is Australian by adoption/residence, by setting and construct these books are British police procedurals. Fantastic Fiction lists him as a Scottish author.
There's plenty in CHELSEA MANSIONS to keep the grey cells working. The hook is the unexpected murder of an elderly American tourist walking back to her hotel from the Chelsea Flower Show. The show more murder of a Russian billionaire who is living in the same buildings a matter of days later seems to point to a connection between the two.

Enter the fickle finger of fate when DCI Brock contracts the deadly Marburgh virus and Kathy Kolla has to lead the team. And just who is the young Canadian who turns up at Chelsea Mansions? As the story unfolds and mysteries are resolved one by one, there are some plot points that strain credibility just a bit, but that really didn't matter to me.

There are a number of connecting threads between CHELSEA MANSIONS and SPIDER TRAP, but that shouldn't prevent you from reading this if it is your first book by Barry Maitland. I think this one will send you looking for earlier titles. And there are plenty of openings for a sequel to this one. show less

I was disappointed in this one. An American tourist is (literally) thrown under a bus, but then she is forgotten at the expense of a Russian oligarch (yawn!). The Ugandan with the infectious disease was wholly irrelevant to the plot and seems to have been included solely to get Brock out of the way for much of the book. I worked out who John Greenslade was very early on, and the murderer was obviously 'off' right from the beginning.

As ever the solution was obscure and unrealistic and in this instalment involved an international incident which was introduced about 90% of the way through. I'm nearing the end of these, and they seem to be tailing off a bit.

Too convoluted by half. My first disappointing Brock and Kolla mystery.

a good read

another solid / good example in the series

the more I read of them , the more I realise that they are more about Kathy, rather than Brock. Brock is the central point off which the rest spark.

it read really quickly, less than 24 hours of intermittent reading ...a testament to readability