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Inspector Rudd #11
A Dying Fall
Book by Thomson, June
- GenresMystery
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
15 people want to read
About the author
June Thomson
70 books22 followersJune Thomson, a former teacher, has published 24 crime novels, 18 of which feature Detective Chief Inspector Jack Finch and his sergeant, Tom Boyce. She has also written six short story collections of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Her books have been translated into many languages. She lives in St Albans in Hertfordshire.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 24, 2025
Martin Holt's relationship with his father has been a rocky one--especially after his mother's death and Martin's decision to leave the family business to become a small hold farmer with the hopes of raising spectacular roses one day. Rex Holt has been used to a lifetime of successes as a businessman and getting his own way. But the two men meet periodically for lunch...and an almost regularly scheduled argument. Martin's latest visit home sees him faced with two unpleasant revelations--his father has installed his long-time mistress in the local village and he has given a random researcher from America access to poems written to Martin's mother by the man she loved before she met and married Rex Holt. Neither announcement is particularly palatable at the lunch table and the men have their usual row before Martin heads back to his farm.
But come the next morning all is not as usual...Rex Holt's housekeeper finds him dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden. He had been a bit unsteady after a slight stroke a few months ago, so it's expected that the death will be ruled an accident. But it isn't and the local police soon call in Detective Chief Inspector Jack Finch (renamed Inspector Rudd in US editions) to get to the bottom of things. As the heir to Holt's rather large estate, Martin is the prime suspect and certain clues found at the scene seem to point his way. Finch isn't too sure though--it appears that someone has gone to great pains to make the murder appear to be very much a murder with a very clumsy attempt to disguise it as an accident. After interviewing witnesses and suspects, Finch has difficulty believing that Martin would be that clumsy if he were to try and make a murder look like an accident. But who else has a strong motive...and who would want to see Martin take the blame?
Thomson has provided another solid police procedural in this eleventh Finch mystery. Sometimes her characters (beyond Finch & his side-kick Sgt. Boyce) aren't as fully developed as one might like, but here they all shine--from Rex and Martin Holt to the housekeeper and her husband to the American researcher to Rex's lady, Bea Chilton and other peripheral characters. Even those that are on the page very briefly are well-defined. The plot is pretty solid as well. I did figure out half of it. My one complaint is that I don't see how the reader could be expected to make the connection necessary to get the full picture before the reveal. Perhaps I missed an early pointer, but I don't think so....
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
But come the next morning all is not as usual...Rex Holt's housekeeper finds him dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden. He had been a bit unsteady after a slight stroke a few months ago, so it's expected that the death will be ruled an accident. But it isn't and the local police soon call in Detective Chief Inspector Jack Finch (renamed Inspector Rudd in US editions) to get to the bottom of things. As the heir to Holt's rather large estate, Martin is the prime suspect and certain clues found at the scene seem to point his way. Finch isn't too sure though--it appears that someone has gone to great pains to make the murder appear to be very much a murder with a very clumsy attempt to disguise it as an accident. After interviewing witnesses and suspects, Finch has difficulty believing that Martin would be that clumsy if he were to try and make a murder look like an accident. But who else has a strong motive...and who would want to see Martin take the blame?
Thomson has provided another solid police procedural in this eleventh Finch mystery. Sometimes her characters (beyond Finch & his side-kick Sgt. Boyce) aren't as fully developed as one might like, but here they all shine--from Rex and Martin Holt to the housekeeper and her husband to the American researcher to Rex's lady, Bea Chilton and other peripheral characters. Even those that are on the page very briefly are well-defined. The plot is pretty solid as well. I did figure out half of it. My one complaint is that I don't see how the reader could be expected to make the connection necessary to get the full picture before the reveal. Perhaps I missed an early pointer, but I don't think so....
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
May 7, 2020
"Like many successful businessmen -- the kind who find it easier to write a cheque for 5000 pounds than to say they're sorry -- power rather than money was Rex Holt's drug. Even in retirement, very comfortably off, he enjoyed gaining a hold over people. A subtle phrase, a discreet gesture -- and suddenly you owed some kind of obligation to him.
"So when Rex Holt was found dead one morning, quite a few people might have secretly rejoiced. No one cared to deny that it might be murder. But as Detective Chief Inspector Finch quickly realised, here was a homicide with a difference. It was a killing that had been got up to look like an accident. In its own curious way, it was a murder very much designed to look like a murder."
~~back cover
This book seemed to be an earlier work, although it's copyright date doesn't indicate that. But what really put me off was Detective Chief Inspector Finch was secretly in love with Marion Greaves, a pathologist who had filled in when the local pathologist wasn't available. She wasn't pretty, but she was coolly independent and self-sufficient and "created a sense of space around herself." And Finch had been secretly in love with her for some time. That's all well and good, but in The Dark Stream, published in 1986 (A Dying Fall was published in 1985) it's Detective Chief Inspector Rudd who's in love with Marion Greaves, for all the same reasons and with the same outcome. I found the sudden switch disconcerting, but a wee bit of research gave the answer: "Originally the Inspector “Finch” series, in the UK, but renamed “Rudd” in the US starting with the second book, to avoid conflict with a series written by Margaret Erskine" - Goodreads. Lovely to have that cleared up!
"So when Rex Holt was found dead one morning, quite a few people might have secretly rejoiced. No one cared to deny that it might be murder. But as Detective Chief Inspector Finch quickly realised, here was a homicide with a difference. It was a killing that had been got up to look like an accident. In its own curious way, it was a murder very much designed to look like a murder."
~~back cover
This book seemed to be an earlier work, although it's copyright date doesn't indicate that. But what really put me off was Detective Chief Inspector Finch was secretly in love with Marion Greaves, a pathologist who had filled in when the local pathologist wasn't available. She wasn't pretty, but she was coolly independent and self-sufficient and "created a sense of space around herself." And Finch had been secretly in love with her for some time. That's all well and good, but in The Dark Stream, published in 1986 (A Dying Fall was published in 1985) it's Detective Chief Inspector Rudd who's in love with Marion Greaves, for all the same reasons and with the same outcome. I found the sudden switch disconcerting, but a wee bit of research gave the answer: "Originally the Inspector “Finch” series, in the UK, but renamed “Rudd” in the US starting with the second book, to avoid conflict with a series written by Margaret Erskine" - Goodreads. Lovely to have that cleared up!
October 21, 2014
Martin Holt's relationship with his father was never good and it got even worse after his mother died, so Chief Inspector Rudd must find out if Martin's brief visit home is connected to his father's murder. Read and find out!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews