Thursday, December 29, 2022

"Murder at Home" by Faith Martin


She was an elderly lady living in a Council house. A widow and her only child and daughter dead, and a drug-addicted grandson, she still managed to impress her friends and neighbors with her love for life. She’d been ailing, but she was looking forward to celebrating her birthday and then Christmas. She had little financial means, existing on a monthly pensioner’s check. 

So why, wonder Detective Inspector Hillary Greene, would someone drive a razor-sharp letter opener into the woman’s chest, as she was sitting and watching television? Her money from her cashed pensioner’s check was missing, but nothing else in the house had been taken. Find the motive, Greene knows, and you find the murderer. Except in this case, no one seems to be able to find a motive.

 

Greene has more than a murder to manage. She has a new detective on the team, a young policeman from London under a cloud, that being he had decked his sergeant. The only reason he wasn’t drummed out the force was that the sergeant deserved it. And Detective Sergeant Janine Tyler is in her last days with the team; she’s transferring to another police group because of her impending marriage to Greene’s boss’s boss. And Tyler is keeping tight-lighted about her own growing problem – she’s being stalked, with the incidents and threats getting uglier. She won’t say anything, but Greene figures it out, and learns that the stalker is someone inside the police department.

 

Faith Martin

Murder at Home
is the sixth of the DI Hillary Greene mysteries by British author Faith Martin, and it’s another winning story. Martin manages her characters exactly right, keeping Greene (and her love life) at the center of the story. It’s fast-paced, with a few clues for the reader to grasp as you try to solve the mystery with the detective.

 

In addition to the DI Hillary Greene novels, Martin (a pen name for Jacquie Walton) has also published the Ryder and Loveday novels as well as the Jenny Sterling mysteries. Under the name Joyce Cato, she has published several non-series detective stories. Both Cato and Martin are also pen names for Walton. (Walton has another pen name as well – Maxine Barry, under which she wrote 14 romance novels.) A native of Oxford, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire. 

 

Related:

 

Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at the University by Faith Martin

 

Murder of the Bride by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Village by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Family by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Obsession by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Mistake by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Flaw by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Secret by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Truth by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Affair by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal Night by Faith Martin.

 

A Fatal End by Faith Martin.

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