Winter of Discontent

Dorothy Martin’s neighbour and best friend, Jane Langland, is upset when Bill, an old friend of hers, goes missing; not only is he not the type to disappear suddenly, but the two of them were old lovers, reunited after a lifetime away and planning to marry. Jane is not a demonstrative woman, so Dorothy knows that her friend is very worried indeed; when Bill is found dead in a tunnel below the local museum where he worked, Dorothy is loathe to believe it was due to natural causes, and when Bill’s assistant is assaulted in the same museum, she knows that it was not…. I’ve been reading the Dorothy Martin series for some time now, but it is only with this entry, the ninth in the series, that I finally started seeing Dorothy as a show more whole person rather than a collection of attributes and eccentricities. The writing is crisper in this book than previously, and the author has finally stopped (more or less) mentioning how Dorothy is an ex-pat American trying to get used to the strange language and habits of the English. The final reveal at the very end of the book was perhaps a coincidence too far, but it had no bearing on the main mystery and so can be forgiven. I think one might do best to start with this book and then work backwards (if the reader wishes) to the earlier, less believable novels in the series; recommended. show less

Jane Langland is Dorothy Martin's neighbor and best friend. When Jane's gentleman friend, Bill Fanshawe, disappears just before Christmas, apparently from the town museum of which he is curator, Dorothy and Jane launch a search for him. They're convinced that the police will make assumptions about his disappearance based solely on his age and will lose precious time looking in the wrong places. In the course of the investigation, Dorothy digs into Bill's past as a WWII aviator.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as some of the others I've read in this series. The mystery seemed to be constructed backwards. Instead of fitting clues together to form a theory, Dorothy started with a theory and then found clues to support it. I did enjoy the show more WWII aspect of the plot and for once I found myself wishing that the author had used flashbacks to tell that part of the story. show less

I read Sins Out Of School, the eighth book in the series featuring Dorothy Martin, an American retired to the Cathedral town of Sherebury in southeastern England, years ago — maybe a decade. I had been reading them as audiobooks, and I was waiting for the ninth volume, Winter of Discontent, to come out in audio. Which it never did.

When I stumbled onto the ebook edition at my library, I wholeheartedly jumped right in. And it was as if Dorothy; her husband, retired policeman Alan Nesbit, and Dorothy’s reserved, bullying, but kind-hearted neighbor, Jane Langland, had hardly been apart!

In Winter of Discontent, Jane’s old flame, museum curator Bill Fanshawe, goes missing. At 80, police at first blame his age, but Dorothy and Jane both show more know that something has gone terrible amiss. The women realize that something in Bill’s Royal Air Force past has come back to haunt Bill, and the two them are determined to find out what.

Author Jeanne M. Dams renders some of the secondary characters — Jane Langland and her stiff upper lip, the naïve college boy Walter Tubbs, the snobby RAF Commodore John Merrifield — a bit too stereotypical. But vivacious, tenacious Dorothy makes up for it, and Dams also creates other characters — the patient Alan, the widowed Leigh Burton, and the loquacious, lonely Stanley Rutherford — that ring true to life. Best of all, Dams plays fair with the mystery, which is cleverly plotted. All in all, I’m glad Dorothy and I got reacquainted. I promise not to be such a stranger. show less

It's getting close to Christmas season in Sherebury. The town museum's curator is missing. Dorothy Martin then finds his assistant in the museum with a bump on his head. She calls the police and begins exploring the museum and finds the curator dead of natural causes in a tunnel under the museum with a mysterious letter in his hand. Dorothy knows there is something not quite right and sets out to investigate. She talks to many of the curator's World War II associates to try to get to the bottom of the case. Another charming installment in this series.

I enjoy Dorothy Martin (and her husband, Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt)- she just can't resist a good murder!