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The Hippocratic oath binds medical professionals to a lifetime of helping fellow human beings. For a doctor to kill himself is not just to renege on that pledge, but to betray all mankind. When Dr. Arnold Pettifer is found dead from an overdose of pills and alcohol, Det. Inspector Luke Thanet's first reaction is disgust. His second is suspicion: This, he thinks, is murder. Nothing in Pettifer's life would point to suicide. He had a prospering practice, money in the bank, a beautiful new show more wife, and a baby on the way. But when Inspector Thanet learns that Pettifer's wife had taken a lover, he begins to suspect her-only to find that nothing about the death of Dr. Pettifer is as obvious as it may seem. This CWA Silver Dagger-winning series set in the Kent countryside is beloved by fans of the classic English mystery. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I had not read any of the Detective Inspector Luke Thanet series before and I read these all at once. In the introduction to the first one, Ms Simpson explains that she spent her professional career as a marriage counselor and that she found some inspiration for her plots in the psychological insights she gained as a therapist. That admission coloured my reading of the books, as did my familiarity with the early run of Midsommer Murders, a long-running UK TV series.
Luke Thanet and Tom Barnaby share a smarminess about their home lives and marriages that I find repulsive. In the case of Luke Thanet, I read Ms Simpson's efforts to teach responsive marriage techniques and her idea of how a married man should act. She even drags DI Thanet's show more assistant, Mike Lineman, his controlling mother and his suffering wife into it. Yuck.
The mysteries are OK but nothing special.
I don't need this series.
I received review copies of "Close Her Eyes", "Puppet for a Corpse", and "Six Feet Under" by Dorothy Simpson (Open Road Integrated Media) through NetGalley.com. show less
Luke Thanet and Tom Barnaby share a smarminess about their home lives and marriages that I find repulsive. In the case of Luke Thanet, I read Ms Simpson's efforts to teach responsive marriage techniques and her idea of how a married man should act. She even drags DI Thanet's show more assistant, Mike Lineman, his controlling mother and his suffering wife into it. Yuck.
The mysteries are OK but nothing special.
I don't need this series.
I received review copies of "Close Her Eyes", "Puppet for a Corpse", and "Six Feet Under" by Dorothy Simpson (Open Road Integrated Media) through NetGalley.com. show less
Very good. I want to look for more by Dorothy Simpson. Suicide looks like murder -- is it?
Somewhat tedious.
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Author Information
22 Works 3,320 Members
Dorothy Simpson is a mystery writer. Her character, Inspector Luke Thanet, has solved upper-crust mysteries in more than a dozen novels. Her novel, Last Seen Alive, received a Silver Dagger Award from the Crime Writers of America in 1985. Another book, The Maine Islands in Story and Legend, was written with information gathered by the Maine show more Writers Research Club. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Inspector Luke Thanet; Joan Thanet; Gemma Pettifer; Andrew Pettifer
- Important places
- Sturrenden, Kent, England, UK; Kent, England, UK
- Epigraph
- The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients according to my ability and judgement, and not for their hurt or for any wrong. I will give no deadly drug to any, though it be asked of me, nor will I counsel such,... (show all) and especially I will not aid a woman to procure abortion. Whatsoever house I enter, there will I go for the benefit of the sick, refraining from all wrongdoing or corruption, and especially from any act of seduction, of male or female, of bond or free. Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart therefrom, which ought not to be noised abroad, I will keep silence thereon, counting such things to be as sacred secrets.
Extract from the Hippocratic Oath - Dedication
- For my mother
- First words
- The smell of burning toast drifted upstairs to the bathroom, where Detective Inspector Luke Thanet was shaving.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Sand went scudding in all directions as they set to work with a will.
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Statistics
- Members
- 206
- Popularity
- 158,608
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.41)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 10
