Past Tense

Not bad. As usual, the secondary characters are solid and interesting; but this time, even Sloan and Crosby seemed reasonably solid. Crosby managed several scenes on his own, even. The Superintendent was cardboard, though - spouting things from night classes, as always. The mystery is a neat tangle - too many threads, some of which weren't really related. I did figure it out ahead of Sloan, though I missed the clue he used. And Bill seemed to learn some of the wrong lessons from his trick - very annoying fellow. Good story. It might not have been as good if I were reading a lot of the series, though - it's still pretty formulaic.

I liked the writing style so I wanted to give this four stars, but there were two major drawbacks for me.
First, I knew very early in the book "who, how, and why". Second, the husband's VERY bad behavior is never dealt with.
I may try some earlier books by this author, because I really did like the style.

An elderly woman with no friends and few relations dies in a nursing home. After her death but before her funeral, someone breaks into her room at the nursing home. What was the intruder after, and did he – or she – find it? Then a young woman dies under suspicious circumstances. As DCI Sloan and DC Crosby investigate her death, they find a link to the recently deceased nursing home patient, Josephine Short. Did one death lead to the other? Finding out exactly how the two women were connected may lead to the criminal's identity.

I had an idea early on about the identity of the killer and his or her motive. It seemed so obvious to me that I wondered why the police didn't consider it. As the end of the book approached, I began to show more question myself, and decided that I had fallen for a red herring. DCI Sloan finally caught on to what I had suspected almost from the beginning. I had hoped for a surprise twist, so I was disappointed that I saw this coming so far ahead. I did enjoy the interaction of Sloan and Crosby in the audio version. This is the first book in this series that I've listened to instead of reading, and I picked up on some aspects of the relationship between the partners that I had missed in the print version. The books in this series don't need to be read in any particular order. I didn't enjoy this one as much as some of the other books in the series, so I wouldn't recommend starting here. show less

Josephine Short, a woman with few friends and relatives, dies in a nursing home, leaving some unusual requests. Shortly thereafter an intruder enters her room. The attending physician noticed nothing unusual, attributing her death to heart failure. The woman listed a second cousin living nearby as the next of kin on her nursing home documents. He is in the Amazon at the time of her death, and his wife, who knew nothing about the woman, must deal with the arrangements. The woman's grandson from a faraway island attends the funeral. A young nurse who attended the funeral is found in the river soon afterwards. Then the old woman's grave is disturbed. Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby try to make sense of mysterious circumstances which show more must be linked--but how? It's an interesting puzzle. My hunch was correct, but even I doubted my own conclusions from time to time. I listened to the audiobook read by Ric Jerrom. He did a good job differentiating voices. show less

Sloan and Crosby investigate a break in at a nursing home where nothing was apparently stolen. The following day, a young woman is discovered drowned in the river. The day after that, a newly dug grave is disturbed in the graveyard. Are there any connections between these three cases?

I haven't read a Catherine Aird in a long time, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Klassieke detective, die welliswaar in het heden speelt, maar de sfeer van Agatha Christie en Josephine Tey ademt. Zeer plezierig geschreven, maar de plot vond ik wat doorzichtig. Ik had vrij snel door wat er aan de hand was, en verwachtte eigenlijk achter die doorzichtige verklaring nog een verrassing te krijgen. Die kwam niet, maar evengoed was het een plezierig boek om te lezen.