"Murder Never Misses" by Faith Martin

I’ve discovered I don’t like stalker novels, even when they’re well-written and gripping.  

Murder Never Misses, the 14th novel in the DI Hillary Greene series by British author Faith Martin, is the third in a row with a substantive stalker sub-theme. We know who the stalker is – a policeman working in Greene’s own Oxford / Kidlington police station. And we know who the victim is – Greene herself. We also know that he has stalked before, and he likes to visit a nearby woods and talk with “his girls.”

 

Narrowly escaping a serious injury at the hands of the stalker in the previous story, Greene convinces her superintendent to allow her to investigate the cold cases of three missing women, while another officer investigates her stalker case. It’s a dicey request – they know the same stalker was involved in the earlier disappearances.

 

As the investigations get underway, a college student assigned to Greene’s team is unknowingly feeding details about the cases to the stalker himself, and Greene and her colleagues are finding themselves outguessed at every turn. All the time the tension is mounting.

 

Faith Martin

Murder Never Misses is the kind of story you can’t read in one sitting with a experiencing a serious case of high blood pressure. Better to set it down for a time while you recover.

 

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.

 

This installment of the Hillary Greene books will keep you on the edge of your seat, even with frequent breaks. My advice: read it, but make a point of not reading it before falling asleep. 

 

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.

 

Murder at Home by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Meadow by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Mansion by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Fire by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Work by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin.

 

Murder of a Lover by Faith Martin.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Practice and Place of Thanksgiving – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

2023: Ten Reasons I’m Thankful This Week – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian.

 

A Thanksgiving to Remember – Jacob Gerber at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Civil War Cooking: “What do you call this stuff, anyhow?” – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

Thanksgiving: a sonnet -- Malcolm Guite.

"Murder at the Spring Ball" by Benedict Brown

It’s 1925. In the 10 years since the death of his wife, Lord Edgington has essentially spent his time sitting in a chair, staring out a window. He’s ignored the day-to-day operation of his Surrey estate, the heart of which is a rambling old house whose number of rooms has never been determined. Edginton has gone his own way in life. The younger of two brothers, he joined Scotland Yard for a career. And then his older brother died in the Boer War, and he became the heir and eventual lord.

 

Sixteen-year-old Christopher Prentiss, one of the lord’s grandsons, knows his grandfather better than most of the rest of the family. He boards at a nearby school, where he spends considerable time avoiding the bullies, and stays with his grandfather on weekends. But the two seldom talk, and Christopher spends most of his time with the servants or with the lord’s dog Delilah. 

 

Christopher’s mother, father and older brother are among the family members called to the estate in early spring. Also on hand is the oldest daughter Belinda and her ne’er-do-well son George, along with the lord’s son Maitland and his family and the lord’s sister-in-law Clementine, who appears in her dotage and is known for bursting in song without notice. Lord Edgington has decided the time for mourning is past, and he’s going to have a spring ball. And he’s enlisting Christopher to be his assistant in organizing it.

 

Benedict Brown

Weeks later, the ball begins. A celebratory toast with an old bottle of champagne doesn’t happen, for Belinda has drunk too much already, gulps her champagne before the others, and promptly drops dead of what turns out to be cyanide poisoning. As the whole family (including Christopher) almost drank the poisoned wine, it’s obvious that someone was out to kill the entire family. The timing is such that the perpetrator must be a family member. But motives, mostly financial, abound. The police arrive to investigate, but Lord Edgington conducts his own investigation, with the help of Christopher.

 

Murder at the Spring Ball is the first of the Lord Edgington historical mysteries by Benedict Brown. (I started them out of order, first reading the fourth one, The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall.) Told from the perspective of 16-year-old Christopher, the reader gets both a fun mystery (and more than one puzzle) and something of a coming-of-age story

 

In addition to the five published Lord Edgington stories, a sixth is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2022. Brown has also written seven Izzy Palmer mystery novels and three novellas. A native of south London, he lives with his family in Spain. 

 

Related:

 

The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall by Benedict Brown.