Faithful Unto Death

A young woman disappears and her husband starts acting odd, so Inspector Barnaby is called in to see if there's any foul play afoot, which there turns out to be plenty of when the husband ends up dead and yet another young woman goes missing. The previous book in the series was my favorite and I thought Graham had hit her stride properly with the series, but this installment hit a stumbling block and turned out to be my least favorite. It moves incredibly slowly and at long stretches absolutely nothing happens that brings the story forward. There are several references in the text as to how slowly a police investigation sometimes proceeds, but I very much doubt a fictional detective story needs to move in real-time. Also, Sergeant Troy show more is no longer the bumbling, laddish, lovable fool that he's been before, but had become uncouth and at times even downright mean. It's also not a great thing when the fate of the baddies is little more than an "oh well, nothing to do about that;" there needs to be some sort of comeuppance or at least a point made about its absence. Hopefully this installment was a blip on the Midsomer radar and we get our proper format back in the next book. show less

I was intrigued throughout the book, but the ending was a big letdown for me. For one thing, there is no mention at all about the fate of one of the major and most interesting characters, which, for me, left a huge, gaping hole in the narrative. Can't go into my other reasons without spoiling the book, but such a disappointment after all the buildup.

The first I've read of a series of mysteries involving Inspector Barnaby, an older man, happily married, not too enamoured with the paraphenalia of modern communications and computers, but who relies more on the old fashioned hard work, intutition, and thinking. His partner, Sgt Troy is quite the opposite: married, but young, brash, full of himself, shallow, fancies himself God's gift to women, impeccably dressed, etc. Very much the "English" mystery with a wonderful cast of colourful characters in the pleasant but dull village of Fawcett Green. It is here that Simone Hollingsworth, unhappy wife of a driven, wealthy, business excutive, disappears; the plot thickens with the murder of said husband, and the disappearance, and subsequent show more murder of a neighbour woman, Brenda Brockley, who fantasizes a relationship with the husband, Alan, to fill out her incredibly dull, boring life. The cast of characters includes the village bobby: Constable Perrot who stumbles through the mystery at key point, the local vicar, the local personalities, the local store owner steeped in medieval lore, etc. But Graham does a good job of skirting caricature. A good mystery, though I was pleased that I figured out the principal element before we got to the end, and not the standard pat ending of the bad guys getting their just desserts. Worth reading more. show less

I love the way Caroline Graham writes! Such detail, and she creates a world that allow your senses to wrap around the people, places and incidents. I haven't seen Midsomer Murder yet (the TV series based upon her novels), but now I can't wait!

Bored housewife Simone Hollingsworth disappears one day, last seen on a bus out of town. No one in the village seems concerned, except her neighbor, old Mrs. Molfrey. Her workaholic, unsocial husband tells the police she has gone to visit her sick mother. But her mother is dead. What is the husband hiding? Barnaby and Troy investigate. A very enjoyable read!

Simone Hollingsworth is missing. Has she left her husband or has she been kidnapped or even murdered? Barnaby and Troy investigate.

Again a satisfyingly complex mystery which outdoes the TV version, which even here veers quite a bit from the storyline of the book in the final episode of the first series before veering off on its own in the subsequent series.

It becomes more obvious in this story that Causton in the books is in the area where I grew up rather than Midsomer being a county in its own right.

If you're familiar with the "Midsomer Murders" series from British tv, you may have seen the dramatization of this book. Apparently Graham wrote several Inspector Barnaby mysteries and the first season or so of the series took care of them, then subsequent episodes were written solely for TV. Anyway, this was a nice British police procedural in the same vein as Ruth Rendell's Wexford books; the plot had some very nice twists to it.