Before the Poison

by Peter Robinson

Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife Laura.

Now he's back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow him to work.

Kilnsgate House turns out to be rather more than he expected, however. A man died there, sixty years ago. His wife was convicted of murder. And something is pulling Chris deeper and deeper into the story of Grace Elizabeth Fox, who was hanged by the neck until she was dead...

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Thriller

436 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Peter Robinson was born in Yorkshire. After getting his BA Honours Degree in English Literature at the University of Leeds, he came to Canada and took his MA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor, with Joyce Carol Oates as his tutor, then a PhD in English at York University. He has taught at a number of Toronto community colleges and universities and served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, 1992-93.

Series:
* Inspector Banks

Awards:
* Winner of the 1992 Ellis Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 1997 Ellis Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2000 Anthony Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2000 Barry Award for Best Novel.
* Winner of the 2001 Ellis Award for Best Novel.

Reviews

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long-time expat buys a large house in his native Yorkshire following the death of his wife. The plan is to compose a classical piece of music (as opposed to film scores that has been his livelihood) in his semi-retirement. With lots of time to spare, he finds out that the house was the location of great drama in the early 50's. The man in the house died and days later it was deduced he was poisoned, something he wife was later convicted of. But was she guilty? Our composer-cum-amateur detective starts his own investigation and gets further than he though he would.

Very mellow-paced and low-key, my thoughts went to Robert Goddard (for the 'historical mystery'), rather than Inspector Banks. But I came to like the story a great deal more than I thought I would.

Thinking about the next read left me strangely uninspired and I felt a reading slump creeping up on me, which is all the more evidence for the captivating quality of this story that it kept me interested and reading anyway. Being a Banks aficionado I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy a totally different story by Robinson.

[Sunnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can sum this book succinctly. TMI. Short on plot way too long on description and minutae. Robinson is best known for his Inspector Banks series and perhaps he should stick to those.

In this standalone the protagonist is a successful composer returning to England after 35 years in the USA and the death of his wife. He buys a house in a remote part of Yorkshire and becomes intrigued when he discovers a former owner was hanged for poisoning her husband.

Plot sounds ok, right? Well it probably is but not a lot of the 337 pages is devoted to plot. The rest is pretty much extraneous. Authors such as Ian Rankin have used music references to flesh out characters, and that's all very well and good to do that maybe half a dozen times in a book but when it is done every 4 or 5 pages it becomes tedious. All very noble liking classical music, but when the reader has little knowledge and, to be honest interest, it means nothing. It's padding. Nor do we need to know where he parked his car or what he had to eat at which pub when it does nothing to advance the plot.

In short. Tedious and just a little pretentious with a rather wafer thin plot.

Don't waste your time.

[Nancy Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoy the "Inspector Banks" series. I have mixed feelings about this one. The characters simply do not ring "true". The storyline is very interesting in those sections dealing with Grace Fox, but Chris seems a sort of a "milk toast" type.

The character of Chris is the problem for me. I had to keep checking the year of the story, because Chris didn't seem to know about internet use in completing his research, until fairly well into the novel. "Heather" seems like the sort of fantasy love interest a conceited, unrealistic older man would concoct for himself. And why does every character urge him to back off in his investigations? That seemed odd. After all, the murder was 60 plus years ago, and who wouldn't be interested in a murder in their home?

Also, why would a woman who proudly noted that she had resisted war time romances for 6 years, when anyone could be forgiven for needing human comfort & when she could have conceivably gotten away with it, with no consequences, return & have an affair with a man 20 years younger in her own home town?
That fact is never explained or explored & seems very out of character for Grace. What could have been an excellent book is merely good.

[Mihaela Abrudan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mă așteptam la un roman polițist tipic, dar a fost mai mult un roman al regăsirii. Interesant finalul și chiar surprinzător. Este povestea unei crime și a unei execuții misterioase care își găsesc adevăratul mobil după 60 de ani de la întâmplare lor.

[Rachel Piper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up because of its cover and its vintage mystery-sounding plot. The plot itself was fine (except for a few of the subplots, which I’ll get to later) but the main character and the bland writing makes it impossible to give this more than 3 stars, and I found while writing the review that my feelings were more on the 2-star level.

The story is told in the first-person, which is a bad choice—it’s very bland expository stuff, like what someone would write in their “what I did this summer” school journal: “I went here. I went there. I found myself here. I walked here. I sat down. I listened to my favorite piano concerto. I watched one of my favorite black and white movies. I opened my 36th bottle of fine wine.” Speaking of which, there is a LOT of booze happening in this book. Every single “revelation” is spoken only after someone is poured a new glass of scotch or bitter; it’s amazing that everyone—especially the narrator—survives the novel without their stomachs being pumped.

Chris, 60, is a successful, Oscar-winning film composer who’s just returned to England because … I can’t remember. Anyway, he buys an old house in the backwoods of York, and starts getting these funny feelings, which eventually lead to him discovering that the house witnessed a murder back in the day. He then becomes consumed with finding out more about the murder, specifically more about the murderer—the beautiful Grace, hanged for killing her husband.

It’s rather hard to like any of the characters; they’re all pretty much the same two people: Moneyed older men who spend their days reading, drinking and listening to classical music on the stereo; and their younger, hot wives who read the classics, cook amazing food and apparently find pudgy older dudes incredibly sexually attractive. The subplot of Chris and his relationship with his real-estate agent, Heather, is completely unnecessary and unbelievable—not just because he’s 15 years older than she is, but because their attraction is explained by Chris in his usual way: “It was clear that Heather and I had an attraction.” Well, good for you.

Chris’ growth from casual investigator into the history of his house to someone who flies to South Africa to demand of a stranger whether he was sexually abused as a child was also rather odd, and the late-breaking “twist” about the death of his wife, Laura, was much less of a shocker than the author intended. So was the truth about Grace and the murder that happened at Chris’ house. By the point the answers were revealed I was just happy to have Chris’ story over.

In the end, the two stars for Grace’s war diaries and for the descriptions of York, which were nice to read since I’ll be traveling there soon.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before the Poison by Peter Robinson.

This was definitely not an Inspector Banks mystery! My mistake.

A long, drawn out, monotonous story that could have been so much shorter. I was more than half way through it and had to stop.

[Gloria Feit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diverting his attention from the popular and successful Inspector Banks series, the author has written a murder mystery of a different genre. Instead of a police procedural, he has undertaken to use a variety of literary devices to unravel the truth behind a death that took place sixty years ago.

It begins when Chris Lowndes, reeling from the death of his wife, decides to buy a home on the Yorkshire Dales. He purchases Kilnsgate House, a large, bleak, isolated structure in which he hopes to recover from his depression, and, perhaps write a sonata instead of the incidental music for motion pictures which he did for many years on the West Coast of the US. No sooner does he take possession than he becomes haunted by its past: Grace Fox, the former owner, was accused and convicted of poisoning her husband, a respected local physician. And she was hanged for it.

Chris becomes so obsessed that he endeavors to “discover” the truth, initially convinced that she was innocent of the charge. The author leads the reader (and Chris) from supposition to fact, alternating excerpts of Grace’s wartime diary (she was a nurse, first in Singapore, then escaping the Japanese, suffering a series of devastating experiences, finally serving in France before returning to her husband at Kilnsgate House) and various interviews with aged characters, including her younger lover now living in Paris and a man who as a seven-year-old lived with the Foxes for a time as an evacuee at the beginning of World War II.

The shifts in the plot, as Chris conducts his “investigation,” are truly ingenious, keeping the reader off balance to a fare-thee-well. The characters are well-drawn, and the author undertook deep research to create Grace’s diary. While the novel may seem at times somewhat dry and slow to read, it constantly draws the reader forward and is well worth reading, and it is highly recommended.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by Peter Robinson and I much preferred this one. This is a stand-alone book and does not feature DCI Banks.

We follow a film music composer who returns to Yorkshire after living in California for many years. His wife has recently died and he decides to return to England. He buys a secluded house in the country outside Richmond. An earlier occupant - several decades before - was hung for the murder of her husband. Chris (the music composer) becomes obsessed with Grace's story and starts to track down her movements and what may have lead up to her committing a murder. He jumps to all sorts of conclusions - most of which are totally wrong! - but eventually Grace's story emerges.

This is a quick, engrossing crime read that is a bit different from regular detective type stories. The crime is historical, our protagonist is not a policeman and there are no other murders. So its a clear focus.

Enjoyable book.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just the type of story I love. A Hollywood composer comes back home to the Yorkshire dales after a personal loss and finds himself drawn into trying to find out the details of a notorious crime that was committed in the out of the way country house he purchased. A very well written character driven suspense that had me staying up late to finish.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Famous trials: Grace Elizabeth Fox, April 1953, by Sir Charles Hamilton Morley

Grace Elizabeth Fox rose from her bed and dressed with the aid of her young Attending Officer Mary Swann at 6.30 AM on the morning of 23 April, 1953. She ate a light breakfast of toast, marmalade and tea, then she busied herself writing letters to her family and friends. After a small brandy to steady her nerves shortly before 8.00 AM, she spent the following hour alone with the Chaplain.
 
So starts Before the Poison the tale of a fictional murder trial in 1950s England as seen through the eyes of Chris Lowndes a composer for films, who has returned to his native Yorkshire after decades living in the US. Recently bereaved he buys the remote Kilnsgate House unseen as somewhere to compose music and to recover from the loss of his beloved wife Laura.

It doesn’t take Chris long to discover that Kilnsgate House was the scene of a murder some fifty plus years before. On 1 January 1953 Dr Ernest Fox and his younger wife Grace, aged forty, were entertaining two old friends, waited on by their maid Hetty Larkin. The fire was roaring and despite rationing the menu comprised of roast beef, mashed potatoes, roast parsnips and Brussel sprouts followed by that very English desert rhubarb pie and custard. Outside the snow began falling and it didn’t stop, the party was going nowhere and the guest bedroom was made up for Jeremy and Alice Lambert. That night Ernest died and the remaining four inhabitants waited with his body two days until the police and the mortuary van could get to the house. With what he gleans from Grace’s life and learning that his brother was at school, next door to the prison when Grace was hanged, her life and perhaps more importantly the question of her guilt, or innocence, becomes something of an obsession.
With my love of historical crime, this fictionalised account of a murder trial in the 1950s hit just the right note with the details about the key players really coming alive, it was hard to believe that all this was fictional perhaps because the author had clearly done his research so the details were spot on with key references such as Albert Pierrepoint, the most famous of hangmen, adding hooks to hang the case on. With our protagonist being a composer the numerous references to music are completely in sync with the story unfolding and provide a gentrified backdrop to a story that delves into the past to a time where perception was everything. Fictional this may be, but Peter Robinson makes good points about why a woman may be suspected of murder, particularly if it was thought that the woman didn’t hold the highest of morals.

The story is of Chris in 2010 researching the crime, the details of the murder and the trial are presented in excerpts from the book, Greatest Trials and later on some diary excerpts that give further context to the key player’s life. This made for tantalising reading with the details forming a natural part of the story-telling, a clever device that allowed Chris’s narrative to focus on his next step in his discovery.

I haven’t read any of the Inspector Banks books but if they are anywhere near as absorbing as I found Before the Poison to be, I need to check them out sooner rather than later.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Robinson writes the Inspector Banks series. He has also written a few stand alone novels and Before the Poison is one of them.

Chris Lowndes is a semi-retired composer who has returned to his native England after his wife's death. Sight unseen, he buys a large home in the Yorkshire countryside. After he moves in, Chris finds out that Kilnsgate was formerly the home of Grace Fox who was hanged for the murder of her husband, Dr Ernest Fox. Chris dives into Grace's history and is soon obsessed with trying to prove her innocence.

The plot gets an A, but this book never seemed to get going for me. It could have been an exciting murder mystery, but moved too slowly. There were hints of a potential ghost story, but that was not to be the case. Halfway through the book, we started to read Grace's journals. There was interesting historical content here, but this is not a historical novel. The execution of the plot was too clunky and Chris's obsession didn't ring true to me. Robinson gives us additional insight close to the end of the book. If this tidbit had been shared with the readers earlier, the foundation for a good psychological thriller would have been set.

Not my favourite Robinson book, but he is still one of my favourite writers.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is rich in depth but also replete with detail and requires a chunk of time for concentrated reading. A good snowstorm comes to mind first, but I did not have that. Peter Robinson has shown himself to be a person interested in music in his Inspector Banks series, and here he is allowed the freedom to paint the pages with a variety of musical references. The main character has done well writing musical scores for Hollywood and has set out on a new path he hopes will allow him to write music that might be listened to. He returns to his home country, buying a large and isolated house in the Yorkshire Dales. He wants to know the history of the house after seeing a reflection in a mirror of a woman. Well, who wouldn't? He soon becomes obsessed with discovering why the former owner of the house died under suspicious circumstances that led to the hanging of his beautiful wife. This investigation takes him on many interesting journeys. As part of the history of this woman, a journal is uncovered detailing the horrors of her war service as a nurse including biological weapon use.

[Lbaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read this book, and have nothing more to say beyond my original review, still a very good read.
Read January 2012, re-read August 2017

Not a Banks mystery, something different but wonderful.

Peter Robinson shows how versatile his writing can be, but has many constants from his Bank's series to keep readers comfortable. Constant with the hero Chris Lowndes and Inspector Banks are their love of many types of music, movies, and curiousity of why people behave the way they do.

Each chapter is divided into two parts. During the first half of the book the first part was a historical record of Grace Fox's trial in the 1950's, the second part modern life of Chris Lowndes. During the second half of the book the first part is the journal of Grace Fox from her time as a nurse in the Pacific between 1940-45, the second part continues to be modern life of Chris Lowndes.

During the first half of the book, I found myself wanting to get through the record of the trial, impatient to get to the modern part of the chapter. Once it changed to Grace's journal I flipped my preference from the modern to the historic, disappointed sometimes in the brevity of the descriptions although they fit perfectly as a journal entry, but I greedily wanted more.

I loved the ambiguities, one cannot expect to have a perfectly clear picture of an event when 60 years have passed.

[Sherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our protagonist, Chris, is presented as a 60 year old grieving widower who decides to return to the area where he was reared. To do this he purchases a house, sight unseen. Because he has a successful career in musical composition, we must assume that he's rolling dough. The writer gives us a detailed list, throughout the book, of what music he listens to, what he eats, what movies he watches and which are his favorites. Although he professes to be deeply grieving the recent death of his beloved wife, there still stirs enough testosterone for him to know that his first acquaintance is "hot". The writer punctuates this story with Chris grieving - Chris wanting to bed the real estate lady. The house he buys has a history so Chris, with all his liquid assets, goes off to Paris and then to South Africa on the slimmest of clues. Does he "solve" the mystery? Better not give up your day job, Chris!

[Denise Samuels · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment this book was. It just went on and on and on. I have enjoyed all of Peter Robinson’s books but this stand alone book tested my patience to the limit. I constantly put the book down as the story moved at a snail’s pace.

[Iustina Dinulescu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cu ce am rămas după ce am terminat de citit acest roman? Am rămas cu ideea că uneori bunătatea și integritatea unui om nu sunt de ajuns atunci când ești înconjurat de oameni nepotriviți sau ai neșansa să te naști într-un secol greșit.

Înainte de ispită explorează mai multe aspecte ale vieții, iar tema centrală nu e de fapt noaptea „crimei” așa cum ne face să credem descrierea cărții, ci este mai degrabă povestea unei femei deosebite, pe care tocmai felul ei de a fi a ucis-o pe nedrept.

Finalul a fost neașteptat, căci ceea ce s-a întâmplat rămâne totuși un secret pentru toată lumea, deoarece „adevărul” se bazează în exclusivitate pe intuiția lui Chris. După ce pune cap la cap toate informațiile primite atât de la persoanele cu care a avut legătură Grace cât și din fragmentele jurnalului acesteia, Chris trage propriile concluzii. Iată un lucru care mi-a displăcut într-o oarecare măsură. Finalul ambiguu, parcă neterminat, prea brusc, prea lăsat la imaginația cititorului.

Un alt aspect pentru care îi mai scad o steluță este mulțimea de detalii care te plictisesc la un moment dat. Autorul a încercat să creeze totodată un roman vizual, presărând din abundență detalii cu privire la locuri, la mâncare și băutură, la muzică, care au devenit enervante de cele mai multe ori. Personal, în contextul oferit de carte mă puteam lipsi de ceea ce mânca Chris și de muzica pe care o asculta. Mi s-a părut că mă îndepărtam de scopul principal și anume acela de a afla dacă Grace a fost sau nu vinovată de moartea soțului său și dacă da, ce a determinat-o să recurgă la acest gest. Chris parcă bătea câmpii câteodată…

Una peste alta nu pot să spun ca nu mi-a plăcut, însă e puțin sub așteptările mele. Partea cea mai interesantă e experiența lui Grace din timpul războiului. Deși sunt fragmente scurte, aduc cel mai mare plus romanului.

Așadar, are 3/5 steluțe de la mine. Recenzia completă: http://momenteinviata.ro/inainte-de-i...

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Before the poison" by Peter Robinson tells the story of Chris Lowndes, a successful Hollywood musical score writer who moves back to his homeland England after the death of his wife after a long and painful illness. Having bought an old mansion in the Yorkshire dales sight unseen, he gets a big surprise to find out that one of the house’s previous mistresses, Grace Fox, was hanged in the 1950’s for allegedly poisoning her husband. Haunted by Grace’s ghostly presence in the house and his own demons, Chris becomes determined to find out the truth regarding the alleged murder and starts an investigation of his own. As he delves deeper into the house’s history and Grace’s life, he not only uncovers surprising facts about Grace herself but also about some of the mysterious events which preceded the tragedy.

The deeper I got into this book, the more I enjoyed it. As the reader gradually finds out details about Grace’s past and the house’s history, the novel becomes so much more than your average ghost/detective story, but unveils rich stories about a tragic part of history we don't often think about - the fate of nurses during WW2.

Not to give too much away, Grace’s diary entries from the past and her vivid recollections of her war experiences were what “sold” the book for me. I would have loved to hear more! As the novel skips between past and present, I found myself getting impatient with Chris’ life & unfolding love story, but eagerly awaiting the chapters that told of Grace’s past. Gradually the novel takes on a completely unexpected turn of events, and I thought the ending was quite clever and unexpected.

Whilst at times Chris’ account of his romance with Heather and his jumping to wild conclusions during the investigation could be tedious, it was balanced by the rich story unfolding as part of his search for the truth, and held my interest to the very end.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by Peter Robinson, and I'm not familiar with his other books. I notice there are many people who enjoy his Inspector Banks novels; he seems to have quite a loyal following. I was impressed by his writing, which was sure and capable. Unlike several other reviewers, I enjoyed the minutiae he included: the protagonist's taste in music, movies, food, and most of all, fine wine and assorted spirits. I also liked the concept - it isn't exactly new territory, an old crime is resurrected and our hero is compelled to seek out the truth, but it is one that, when handled correctly, can remain fresh and intriguing. The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is another novel dealing with a similar concept which I believe was much more successful than this novel.

I can't really explain why I feel it missed the mark; I can only go by how I felt as I was reading it. I was not compelled by this story, it was too genteel and there was something missing, an energy and underlying urgency that requires the reader's undivided attention. Many times, I found my mind wandering and reading became more of a task than a pleasure. There was a blandness there, despite the subject matter which ranged from murder to execution to war atrocities. There was a lot going on, but the action felt static and I was not particularly interested in the rather flat outcome. I did finish the novel however, and based on the strength of the writing, I have borrowed two more Peter Robinson novels from the library.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not much of a mystery reader, but if I do read a mystery I tend to avoid series writers as they often tend to be formulaic. So when an honored mystery writer comes along with a standalone I am more apt to give it a try. In the case of Peter Robinson’s latest Before the Poison I’m glad I took the chance. Best known for his Inspector Banks novels Robinson is indeed a celebrated novelist, and Before the Poison is sure to win him new admirers. Chris Lowndes has spent twenty-five years in the States, most of them composing musical scores in Hollywood, but after the death of his wife he decides to return to Yorkshire. Buying a house, Kilnsgate, virtually sight unseen, upon his arrival he senses he has not been told the full story about the house. Chris quickly learns that a previous owner, Ernest Fox had been murdered in the house, and his young wife Grace stood trial and was executed in 1953 for the crime. Chris becomes almost obsessed with finding out more about the incident and begins to compulsively seek answers to the many questions that remain. The more he uncovers the more he’s convinced Grace was innocent. Despite warnings to leave the past in the past Chris begins to uncover secrets, some of which lie too close to the present. Filled with likable and unforgettable characters and encompassing everything from War time secrets to lost love, Before the Poison is a gripping read.

[Ana Stanciu-Dumitrache · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am rămas impresionată de acest roman care, din păcate, nu e deloc promovat. Îl recomand cu drag și sper să ajungă în rafturile a cât mai mulți cititori.
Povestea merge pe două planuri temporale. Prezentul prezintă drama unui om intelectual, cult, care, ajuns la vârsta de 60 de ani, trece printr-o depresie puternică și încearcă să-și găsească un nou rost în viață, după ce o pierde pe Laura, soția lui. Rostul și-l găsește în încercarea de a descoperi adevărul legat de condamnarea lui Grace Fox, o femeie acuzată că și-ar fi otrăvit soțul. De aici pornesc multe intrigi. Autorul a inserat și jurnalul lui Grace, precum și rezumatul procesului prin care aceasta a trecut. Restul poveștii îl aflăm din spusele martorilor și din evenimentele puse cap la cap de Chris. Grace mi-a amintit de Malena, un alt personaj feminin puternic, care a fost judecată în mod nedrept, doar din cauza prejudecăților vremii. Grace a fost o femeie frumoasă, puternică și bună la suflet. Din păcate, cred că tocmai asta i-a adus sfârșitul. Anii petrecuți de ea ca infirmieră și ororile la care a asistat în vremea celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial au marcat-o și au declanșat practic un șir de evenimente ce au scăpat de sub control. Recunosc că finalul m-a surprins și, chiar dacă romanul nu a fost unul perfect (sunt câteva faze trase de păr), m-a convins să îi acord cele cinci steluțe.

[Merelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOved this book! So well written. Peter Robinson also writes the DCI Banks mysteries, but this book is a stand alone. A successful music writer for Hollywood movies decides to move back to his native Yorkshire, England. He buys an old country estate, & the mystery begins. The writing is so descriptive you can see the country, & the home. Main character is so very charming. This is an intelligent story, but has suspense too. A hanging occured many years ago by charge of the court, & the owner of the estate wants to find out if the lady was guilty of murder or not? Did she kill her husband? The quest is liken to a travel log, but more interesting, as all the places we go to interview folks who knew the lady hanged, a former owner of the estate. Loved it all, & highly reccomend to anyone likeing mystery, but a bit above the usual story!

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant change from the DCI Alan Banks novels.

In "Before the Poison" a writer of Hollywood movie scores returns to Yorkshire and buys an old house. He becomes interested in the murder that occurred there and the execution of the murderess.

I'm unsure as how to describe the book. It isn't a crime novel. It isn't a thriller. It's not even a ghost story, though it has a few spooky moments. It's just a gentle story about one man's search for the truth.

A gentle, absorbing read.

Recommended.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the death of his beloved wife Laura, Oscar-winning score writer Chris Lowndes returns to his native Yorkshire to wait for his wounds to heal. He buys, sight unseen, a rambling house in the remote wilds of Yorkshire, and settles in with his books, his music and his DVD collection. Soon, though, he becomes fascinated by the story of the Foxes, who lived in the house half a century ago. Ernest Fox was a cold, unpopular but highly respected general practitioner; when he died unexpectedly, his beautiful and much younger wife Grace was accused of murdering him by poison and in due course hanged. As Chris becomes increasingly obsessed by the case -- more accurately, by Grace -- he realizes that there was far more to the story than was ever made public . . .

This is one of those books that could have been written to half the length but, had it been so, wouldn't have been nearly so good. Chris, who narrates in the first person, is a bit of a whiner, a bit OCD, a bit self-absorbed. We learn what beers he likes to drink during his frequent trips to the pub, what novels he reads, the movies he watches (plenty of good UK noirish offerings), and the music he plays, whether it be classical (mostly) or jazz/rock (occasionally). He has excellent tastes in all these areas (and I was wondering throughout if, in terms of the latter, the novel was named for Marianne Faithful's 2003 album Before the Poison), but the particularization might seem a tad excessive. So might the pedestrian cadences, and the mundane pomposity, of Chris's prose. Here's a sample:

I realized that Christmas was fast approaching, and my guests would be arriving soon. I still had presents to buy. The rest was done -- tree, lights, tinsel, decorations, turkey -- and I was expecting a large delivery of Champagne and other fine wines within the next couple of days. But there remained the dreaded Christmas shopping. The weather forecast called for a major snowstorm within the next twenty-four hours, so taking advantage of the first clear day since I'd driven to see Louise in Staithes, I decided to head for York and get it over and done with. [page 270]

If you read this in isolation you might think that Chris is the most awful bore -- "the dreaded Christmas shopping" and "[t]he weather forecast called for" -- and in real life he might very well seem so. But, assuming we're prepared to sit back and let him tell his story at the rate he chooses, his narration very soon becomes mesmerizing. To be sure, we really don't need to know that the pint he drank in the pub while waiting for a friend to appear was Stag's Breath rather than generic bitter, but it's part and parcel of the man that he should tell us. The overall effect is that we enter his world, start to see things through his eyes.

Robinson also introduces quite lengthy excerpts from two different documents. One is the supposed Famous Trials account of the case -- where he captures the unctuous smugness of that series' authors quite perfectly -- and the other is Grace's own journal of her wartime experiences as a nurse in the Pacific theater, being bombed by the Japs and treated as vermin by far too many of the Brits. I'm not too sure Robinson catches Grace's voice quite as well as he does that of Famous Trials's Sir Charles Hamilton Morley, but the events described in her journal pack as much of a punch as do those in Robbie's account of the lead-up to Dunkirk in Ian McEwan's Atonement. What the extracts also do, if we're alert enough to pick up on it (I wasn't), is explain Grace's behavior around the time of her husband's death.

Grace, we find early on, had a lover very much younger than she was: Sam. It's easy to understand why she should have entered the relationship with Sam (although the discovery of it was probably the main reason that she was hanged): tied to an aloof husband who'd come nowhere near her since the birth of their child/his heir, she wasn't so much taking a younger lover as erasing twenty wasted years so she could, as it were, start over again -- so she could at last have the romance that time had stolen from her. As Chris discovers, the toyboy lover -- now an old man -- still worships Grace and the love they shared.

While that relationship seems just fine to me, I've far greater reservations about that the one that develops in the present between the sixty-year-old Chris and the gorgeous, eye-turning late-thirties Heather, the realtor who sold him the house. They first meet each other wshen she shows him around his blind purchase, and even then the sparks are flying. By the end of the book they're an item, although yet to acknowledge themselves as such to the locals. Yes, I'm sure such liaisons happen (I've seen some, and seen at least one very happy marriage result from one); but I get immensely uneasy about sixty-year-old writers depicting sixty-year-old males at whom fab younger babes can't help but throw themselves. It all smacks a bit of the kind of fantasy we were supposed to give up in our teens.

I think the book would have been better had Robinson omitted the Chris/Heather relationship; perhaps the intent was to mirror the Grace/Sam relationship. If so, I'm not sure it works. But it's just about the only thing that, for me, didn't work in Before the Poison. Otherwise, this is a wonderful Ruth Rendellish piece, with lots to recommend it.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I read one of Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks mysteries some years ago (In a Dry Season), I confess that I don't remember much about it, other than that it concerned a crime in the past. Before the Poison is a stand-alone, and what attracted me to it was that same kind crime-in-the-past setting. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch proclaims that Robinson is “The equal of legends in the genre such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell,” and it’s obvious from the first chapter alone that Robinson has more than a passing acquaintance with Rendell and her alter-ego Barbara Vine; I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he's read and enjoyed A Dark-Adapted Eye, A Fatal Inversion, and Asta’s Book. I like the fact that the elements are reminiscent of Vine rather than outright imitative, as is the case with the Australian novelist Kate Morton, whose style is so imitative of others that while you're reading her books (such as The House at Riverton) you have the persistent feeling that you've already read it somewhere else.

3/04: Engrossing and intriguing, but I wasn't quite satisfied by the resolution. Robinson spends time on and with several characters who then just drop out of the story. As the narrator is a composer, his knowledge of music came as no surprise, but I confess that I wearied of his endless litany of the name of every wine, beer or single-malt whiskey ordered and consumed by him and other characters.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first book I have read by this author. I picked it up after seeing it mentioned on Book Club Girl's blog and the premise sounded very interesting.

The narrator of the novel, Chris Lowndes, is a recent widower who makes a move from LA to England so that he can begin to heal from the loss of his wife. He moves into a house that used to be owned by Grace Fox who was hanged for the murder of her husband Dr. Ernest Fox. Chris makes it his personal mission to investigate the story of Grace and Ernest to see if Grace was indeed guilty of the murder of her husband. The chapters are told in an alternating pattern between the coverage of Grace's trial in a book and Chris's personal investigation. Later on we are able to read Grace's wartime diary written when she was a nurse in WWII in the Pacific and this is when the story held the most interest for me.

I enjoyed the historical fiction presented in the journal of Grace Fox but the rest of the book was a bit tedious and I was not compelled to keep reading. It seemed like an exciting premise but I found I didn't really care for the narrator Chris or his new lady love Heather. I also got tired or reading about Chris's constant quest for his next glass of wine. The final murky reveal of whether Grace was indeed guilty or not was a let down as well. In the end I am glad I finished the book but I wouldn't rush out to recommend it to anyone.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the Poison was a book chosen to be read for my mystery book club and is the first book that I have read by Robinson. I have to say that I really enjoyed this book and found it hard to put down. Most of the story takes place in England, but the main character does do some traveling in his search for the truth about whether or not Grace Fox murdered her husband. Robinson did such an amazing job with his world building that I could really picture these places and especially Kilnsgate. Robinson also delivered an interesting and compelling main character in Chris as well as made Grace a compelling character as well even though she dies on page one. The story is filled with many twists and turns which made it a great mystery. Overall this was a great read that I would most definitely recommend. I am also looking forward to reading more books by Robinson.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book was somewhat slow moving and not a book I would label as hard to put down, nevertheless it was chillingly real and beautiful. As I read, I, I kept thinking it reminded me of another book. I finally figured that book was Rebecca. I know Rebecca is a favorite of many and a majority would not agree, but for me it fit. It just made me feel like I felt with reading that book; finding a why and a what happened in the past with an enigma. This book will stay with me for some time. The only reason I did not give this book a 5 is the romance between the real estate agent and the hero of this story was somewhat far fetched.

[wanderer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Gothic novels; love British authors.

Most of the Gothics I've read (Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, the Brontes, and my favorite, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier) have female MCs. That's great with me, but I was pleased to discover a modern Gothic novel by a British male author with a male MC.

Before the Poison by Peter Robinson has all the things I like in a Gothic novel: creepy old house, atmospheric location, isolated MC, bad weather, old records and journals and rumors and gossip, bittersweet memories, and an unexplained death.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprising novel and far more effecting than I expected. I'm a fan of the DCI Banks series, but this departure from Peter Robinson was fascinating and builds to a surprising series of revelations. These stay in the mind for some time and leave questions that are relevant to all. This is not just a traditional crime novel, but something that reveals greater depths about the human condition and questions our thoughts on right and wrong.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a DCI Banks. It's about a Hollywood film composer who returns to his native Yorkshire in his retirement after his wife dies. Determined to write some real music, a sonata, he gets side tracked by the story of murder committed fifty years ago in the house he just bought. I just didn't care about the characters or the plot.