"A Malignant Death" by Charlie Garrett

Former police detective James Givens and his wife Rachel are back in Birmingham, England, after what they thought was to be a life-changing move to Brittany. It was that, but Givens almost lost his life while helping solve a mystery and then Germany invaded Poland, precipitating World War II.  

It’s now the summer of 1940. Givens is working in his father’s clothing business, but the tension between them is almost unbearable. His father resents Givens having changed his Jewish name to an English one, and the two have never gotten along since Givens was a teenager. 

 

He takes a few days off to visit his former police superintendent, who’s now retired and living a short 30-minute train ride away. Something seems off, but the man insists all is well. His wife is more forthcoming; someone has been committing acts of vandalism against their house and garden. Then the man disappears, and his wife calls givens and asks him to search for her husband. With military recruiting, the police are seriously understaffed. Because of a leg injury from his police days, Givens can’t enlist.

 

Charlie Garratt

Over his wife Rachel’s objections, he undertakes a search – and finds the missing man’s body. And his determination to do right by his former boss threatens his marriage and what little of a relationship is left with his father. 

 

A Malignant Death by Charlie Garratt is the fifth mystery novel in the Inspector Givens series. It combines a traditional mystery and a traditional police procedural with the overlay of war, which is now getting closer and closer to home. The reader knows what the characters don’t, that the bombing will be starting, and Birmingham will not be spared. It adds a tautness and tension to what is already a thoroughly enjoyable mystery.

 

Garratt is the author of four Inspector Given mysteries, including A Shadowed Livery, A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. Garratt has also published the novel A Handkerchief for Maria. He lives in Shropshire in England.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

 

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt. 

 

A Pretty Folly by Charlie Garratt.

 

A Patient Man by Charlie Garratt.

"A Patient Man" by Charlie Garratt

It’s September 1939, and Inspector James Givens of the Warwickshire Constabulary is having something of an existential crisis. He’s barely recovered from the wounds (physical and mental) he received in his last case, his boss has assigned him the duty of organizing old police case files, his Jewish family is pressuring him to find his missing uncle somewhere in Paris, Germany invades Poland, and Givens is ready to chuck it all in with the police.  

He goes to Paris to find his uncle but has no luck. He’s called back home; what had appeared to be a suicide by an Anglican clergyman turns out to look like something else, and Givens is needed to sort it out. The case is difficult; the minister was found hanging in a room behind a brothel. Givens soon learns that this was no suicide. Finding the killer, however, is nothing but a series of dead ends.

 

A Patient Man by Charlie Garratt is the third in the Inspector James Givens series, and it’s a cohesive blend of murder investigation and personal crisis. Givens has adopted an English name and identity to avoid the anti-Semitism which seems as much present in England as it is in Germany. But too many things force the detective to keep grappling with who he is and where he comes from. 

 

Charlie Garratt

And an additional complication arises. In the course of looking for the missing Kindertransport girl who’d been staying with his parents, he meets her music teacher, Rachel Stevens. Rachel is also Jewish; and Givens finds himself doing what he thought he could never do again – fall in love. But er brother expects any potential husband for his sister to be a practicing and faithful Jew. 

 

Garratt is the author of four Inspector Given mysteries, including A Shadowed Livery, A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

 

A Patient Man is a good mystery, depicting the frustrations of the job of a police inspector who’s struggling with his own identity. And the threat of war has now become something more than a threat.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

 

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt. 

 

A Pretty Folly by Charlie Garratt.

“A Pretty Folly” by Charlie Garratt

It is one strange case that Inspector James Givens of the Warwickshire Constabulary finds himself in charge of. The body of what looks like a young girl is found in the crypt of the chapel of the local school. The chapel is hundreds of years older than the school itself, and the crypt may be older still. The girl’s body is posed, her hands tied around a crucifix. There’s a hammer lying nearby.  

Because of the conditions of the crypt, the body is essentially mummified. The medical examiner can say when she died or how she died. The only thing that suggests foul play is the posing of the body. And there’s nothing to identify who she is. Givens discovers he’s looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

His professional life is also complicated by another case he’s looking into – growing vandalism against Jewish businesses. It’s 1938 Britain; Hitler’s making moves on Czechoslovakia on the continent and Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists is demonstrating that Britain is no stranger to hostility to Jews. Givens himself is Jewish, having Anglicized his name for professional purposes. He’s run into hostility and prejudice, right there among his own police colleagues.

 

And the Sicilian Demme brothers are lurking in the background, possibly connected to the vandalism which soon turns to arson. Givens has old scores to settle with them, unless they get to him first. 

 

Charlie Garratt

A Pretty Folly by British author Charlie Garratt is the second in the Inspector James Givens series. It’s an mystery filled with disguised or mistaken identities, a multitude of suspects, and a problem of figuring out how the victim actually died. 

 

Garratt is the author of four Inspector Given mysteries, including A Shadowed Livery, A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

 

A Pretty Folly is rich with actual historical detail – the rise the Nazis, the plight of the Jews in Europe, Oswald Mosley and his thugs in Britain – coupled with one unusual murder story. It’s a highly entertaining read.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

 

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt. 

"A Shadowed Livery" by Charlie Garratt

It appears and open-and-shut case. The son of Sir Arthur Barleigh, crippled after an automobile accident, is shot and killed while in wheelchair. His mother then apparently turned the gun on herself. A short time later, the young man’s fiancée shoots herself in the son’s bedroom. It appears to be murder-suicide-suicide. An inquest is hurried and a verdict rendered just as quickly. 

The problem, Inspector James Givens of the Warwickshire Constabulary realizes almost immediately, is motive. He’s reviewing the case because the newspapers are pressuring his boss to take a more thorough investigation. Lady Barleigh wasn’t happy about the impending marriage, but was that sufficient to kill her son? Aided by the local constable, Givens sifts through the case, but he doesn’t have much time. His boss wants a quick review.

 

It’s 1938: Neville Chamberlain has just returned from his meeting with Adolph Hitler in Munich and is proclaiming “peace in our time.” Pro-Nazi Sir Walter Mosley has his thugs beating up Jewish merchants in England; James just attended a hanging where one such thug was hanged by the neck for murder. And it’s all becoming more personal, because “James Givens” is his English name; he’s actually the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant who’s a tailor in Birmingham.

 

Charlie Garratt

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt is the first in the Inspector James Givens series. Garratt has created a police detective hero who is conflicted by his Jewish heritage, in love with a woman who is involved in the case, chased by two Italian goons seeking revenge, dogged by a crooked colleague – and who is relentless at getting at the truth.

 

Garratt is the author of three other Inspector Given mysteries, including A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

The story is an effective and realistic interplay between the murder case at hand, deteriorating conditions in Europe, and the situation at home marred by Nazi sympathizers. A Shadowed Livery is an engrossing and entertaining read.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

"Where Every Man" by Charlie Garratt

It’s the late winter and early spring of 1940. James and Rachel Given have moved from England to a small town in Brittany. James has been a policeman, but he’s left the force; too much reality and too much evil that always seemed to find new life. They’re now working and living on a farm, helping the farmer with planting and sales in the weekly market. 

France is at war with Nazi Germany, but the war still seems far away. James has been asked by MI5 to keep an eye on anything that might look like German fifth column activity. He sends his disguised reports to a stamp collecting store in Paris. And for a time, things are quiet. James and Rachel even start attending the local Catholic church; they’re both Jewish, and they have false identity papers that might get them out of immediate trouble if the Germans come but won’t last much beyond that.

 

Then the town librarian dies in what may or may not have been a suspicious accident. The local policeman and the mayor prefer it to be an accident, but James himself isn’t sure. His wife urges him to look into it. And then he learns that the librarian is a former MI5 agent and that she had come across something, or someone, that might be an enemy agent. 

 

Charlie Garratt

A man from outside the area has taken a room in town and been asking questions about local military bases. He’s found with his throat slit, but the murderer may have been local patriots or another enemy agent. With local police approval, James slowly plows through the case, helped by a teenaged girl who takes violin lessons with Rachel. And all the time the threat of invasion is growing.

 

Where Every Man by British writer Charlie Garratt is the story of James, Rachel, and the French village where they live. The author does a fine job of slowly building suspense, creating a number of possible suspects, and using the menace of the war to underscore the tension. And he makes the narrative personal for James by locating close relatives some 30 miles away, an uncle, aunt, and cousin who have already fled the Nazis once and now face having to do it again.

 

Garratt is the author of three previous Inspector Given mysteries, including A Shadowed Livery, A Pretty Folly, and A Patient Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

 

Where Every Man is a solid mystery and a suspenseful tale of World War II.