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Criminal Damage
Something murderous is about to happen in Middle Bardolph. The sunny village seems as neat and proper as the orderly life of Mrs Newton, the grey-haired widow in an impeccably kept house. Yet a trifle more scrutiny will soon reveal a darker picture of this picture-postcard existence ...one where acts of greed and obsession are about to turn Mrs Newton's prim life upside-down. Unknown to Mrs Newton, an ex-convict and some unsavoury associates are as near as next door, her recently jilted grown daughter is going murderously mad with grief, and her middle-aged son is so desperate for his inheritance he just may try to collect it prematurely. Any of the above could endanger an elderly lady's life, but there is something more. A most sinister secret belongs to Mrs Newton herself - and the truth will come out with perhaps deadly results ...
354 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
62 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Yorke
94 books50 followersMargaret Yorke was an English crime fiction writer, real name Margaret Beda Nicholson (née Larminie).
Margaret Yorke was awarded the 1999 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger.
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she later lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She was widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Her first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford Don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she wrote some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She was proud of the fact that many of her novels were essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers, who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, Yorke stated that characters were far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She was a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
Margaret Yorke died in 2012.
Margaret Yorke was awarded the 1999 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger.
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she later lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She was widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Her first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford Don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she wrote some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She was proud of the fact that many of her novels were essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers, who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, Yorke stated that characters were far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She was a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
Margaret Yorke died in 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 21, 2019
Margaret Yorke's work is an acquired taste that I never fully acquired, and so, when I saw this novel for sale (with its fabulous cover, by Merrit Deckle), I thought I should revisit her to see if my tastes might have changed after a gap of very many years. The answer is sort of yes . . . and no. I enjoyed Criminal Damage quite a lot, but at the same time I felt it was rather slight, as if it didn't really have a novel's worth of things to say. There's a late revelation that I think is intended to blow our socks off, but I'd picked up the occasional hints earlier and was expecting something of this sort.
*user swiftly checks* Yep: socks still on.
The widowed Mrs. Newton never stays in one place too long, shifting from house to house in order to make a living out of the profits she makes from selling each previous home. Now that property values have stalled, she's stayed in Middle Bardolph for longer than anticipated, although she's maintained her policy of not making friends in the town. She finds herself, though, drawn to change that rule after a chance encounter with scientist's wife Lucy Moffat and the discovery that other people, and their lives, can be of interest.
Mrs. Newton's life is plagued by her two ghastly adult children, neurotic Jennifer -- who's just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend and is taking it spectacularly Not Well -- and pompous bore Geoffrey, who's stuck with a grasping, unfaithful wife. Both Jennifer and Geoffrey are really interested in their mother only as a source of revenue.
In a way, though, this is also the story of Neil Smith, an ineffectual, none-too-bright young man who strayed in his teens and did time in reform school for it, but who's now determined to go straight. What Neil stupidly doesn't realize is that older brother Kevin is a crook, and potentially a murderous one . . .
As you'll gather from the above, Yorke's focus is on her characters, and the interactions between them; there's plot, all right, but there's not a whole lot of it in the earlier part of the book and it has a sort of "secondary" feeling, as if Yorke weren't much interested in it. (The strapline on the cover, "A Novel of Suspense," looks a tad silly, because there's little of it here: the novel's absorbing, I'd say, but not in any genuine sense suspenseful.) That feeling must of course be misleading because, as I said, she's acutely interested in the interactions between her characters, and it's those interactions that drive the plot. Perhaps what I'm trying to get at is that the most interesting parts of the plot are the ones that don't relate to Kevin's criminal activities -- the non-crime bits, in other words.
There's a lovely set piece, for example, when Jennifer encounters the ex-Army father of the woman her boyfriend dumped her for: he gently (and gentlemanly) talks her down from the near-crazed fury that she's been allowing to dominate her life. The longish scene is essentially all quiet conversation, but it had me rapt.
Having re-tested the waters, so to speak, I now view Yorke far more favorably than I have in the past. I won't be going to any great effort to track down more of her books, but I'll most certainly be open to picking them up should they cross my path.
*user swiftly checks* Yep: socks still on.
The widowed Mrs. Newton never stays in one place too long, shifting from house to house in order to make a living out of the profits she makes from selling each previous home. Now that property values have stalled, she's stayed in Middle Bardolph for longer than anticipated, although she's maintained her policy of not making friends in the town. She finds herself, though, drawn to change that rule after a chance encounter with scientist's wife Lucy Moffat and the discovery that other people, and their lives, can be of interest.
Mrs. Newton's life is plagued by her two ghastly adult children, neurotic Jennifer -- who's just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend and is taking it spectacularly Not Well -- and pompous bore Geoffrey, who's stuck with a grasping, unfaithful wife. Both Jennifer and Geoffrey are really interested in their mother only as a source of revenue.
In a way, though, this is also the story of Neil Smith, an ineffectual, none-too-bright young man who strayed in his teens and did time in reform school for it, but who's now determined to go straight. What Neil stupidly doesn't realize is that older brother Kevin is a crook, and potentially a murderous one . . .
As you'll gather from the above, Yorke's focus is on her characters, and the interactions between them; there's plot, all right, but there's not a whole lot of it in the earlier part of the book and it has a sort of "secondary" feeling, as if Yorke weren't much interested in it. (The strapline on the cover, "A Novel of Suspense," looks a tad silly, because there's little of it here: the novel's absorbing, I'd say, but not in any genuine sense suspenseful.) That feeling must of course be misleading because, as I said, she's acutely interested in the interactions between her characters, and it's those interactions that drive the plot. Perhaps what I'm trying to get at is that the most interesting parts of the plot are the ones that don't relate to Kevin's criminal activities -- the non-crime bits, in other words.
There's a lovely set piece, for example, when Jennifer encounters the ex-Army father of the woman her boyfriend dumped her for: he gently (and gentlemanly) talks her down from the near-crazed fury that she's been allowing to dominate her life. The longish scene is essentially all quiet conversation, but it had me rapt.
Having re-tested the waters, so to speak, I now view Yorke far more favorably than I have in the past. I won't be going to any great effort to track down more of her books, but I'll most certainly be open to picking them up should they cross my path.
January 5, 2014
This is the second Margaret Yorke novel I have read, and I am a fan. She has a way of setting up what in other hands might be an interesting suspense premise, and, without sacrificing tension, turning it into a deeper examination of all the interesting characters she's created, so that when their lives intersect, you aren't waiting for some kind of crazy twist or reveal, but instead a hope that the characters have learned about themselves and will go forward happier and wiser. I would not have expected to enjoy a suspense author with such a gentle touch so thoroughly. I look forward to reading more of her work :-)
August 20, 2009
Always enjoy Margaret Yorke, and this book no exception. Especially nice as we are in the midst of upheaval with a move and then planning return to Phoenix. Cozy mystery a great antidote.
March 2, 2022
The writing was consistent. I liked the in-depth view into the characters' psych. Jennifer was a very disturbing character, but I enjoyed reading her parts.
What disappointed me was the ending and the lack of... Resolution. It felt like a bunch of loose threads that was tied up just because the author got tired of writing. On the last page, I actually thought some of the pages must have fallen out because of the way the story abruptly ended.
What disappointed me was the ending and the lack of... Resolution. It felt like a bunch of loose threads that was tied up just because the author got tired of writing. On the last page, I actually thought some of the pages must have fallen out because of the way the story abruptly ended.
August 14, 2023
Margaret Yorke reveals the base emotions of her characters, their thoughts of good and evil, and their sympathetic side and their malevolent side. Sometimes we learn something about them and by virtue of that, ourselves.
May 18, 2009
I couldnt put this one down!!
October 1, 2015
I love MS Yoke's books
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews