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Charlie Peace #11
A Charitable Body
A Diamond Dagger Award-winning Author -- Yorkshire cop Charlie Peace's wife, Felicity, is thrilled when she's asked to help oversee Walbrook Manor, a recent gift to the nation. It's not long though, before both she and Charlie smell trouble. Walbrook has a lurid history of feuds and treachery that the family might better have kept to themselves. And when the wreck of a car and the remains of a woman turn up in a nearby lake, Charlie and Felicity are left to probe the sins of the past.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 3, 2012
7 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Robert Barnard
202 books89 followersAka Bernard Bastable.
Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.
Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.
Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.
Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.
Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.
Barnard lived with his wife Louise in Yorkshire.
Series:
* Perry Trethowan
* Charlie Peace
Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.
Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.
Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.
Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.
Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.
Barnard lived with his wife Louise in Yorkshire.
Series:
* Perry Trethowan
* Charlie Peace
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
April 3, 2012
Only giving this one 3 stars. It was interesting and I finished it. But I had problems with a number of things. The writing was just OK - and the dialogues juvenile at times. The author clearly knows a lot about 20th century British culture, but seemed to be packing too much of this knowledge in the story.
The biggest issue is that the protagonist began trying to solve the mystery before the crime was discovered. I think the author forgot the body had not yet been found. And the progression from that point was baffling. Chapters would start with "doing XXX was the obvious next step." Why this would be obvious to the reader is the true mystery.
I cannot recommend this one.
The biggest issue is that the protagonist began trying to solve the mystery before the crime was discovered. I think the author forgot the body had not yet been found. And the progression from that point was baffling. Chapters would start with "doing XXX was the obvious next step." Why this would be obvious to the reader is the true mystery.
I cannot recommend this one.
April 15, 2018
"'Everything in the garden is lovely,' said Charlie.
But of course that was before the discovery of the body."
Robert Barnard's A Charitable Body (2012) is quite a minor literary effort, and that's putting it quite charitably. To borrow a clichéd phrase, it has a lot to be modest about. This 'novel of suspense' - as promised on the cover - does not deliver much excitement. The characterizations are far from convincing, and even the Barnard's trademark feat - his plots usually have more interesting endings than beginnings - is missing. All in all, the novel feels like having been written solely to fulfill a contractual obligation to the publisher.
The Walbrook Manor in West Yorkshire, "one of England's minor heritage buildings" which had been sort of jointly owned by the Quarles and Fiennes families, was handed over - for financial reasons - to Walbrook Trust. The Manor is now a tourist attraction and the Walbrook Trust Board is running the project. The Board politics, animosities between its members, and Sir Stafford Quarles' (who chairs the Board) thirst for power dominate much of the early stages of the plot. A public concert is held at Walbrook: it includes a song cycle composed in the times of the First World War. This music item plays an important role in the mystery. (A question, though: why did the author consider it necessary to list every single piece performed at the concert? Space filler, I guess.)
We meet Felicity - the wife of Detective Inspector Charlie Peace - as she is invited to serve on the Walbrook Manor Board. This unsophisticated literary device allows the good inspector to get a lot of background information without having to resort to official means. It also allows the reader to see the plot from both sides: the "in" side, as from the Board's members perspective, and from the "out" side, the police procedural.
Perhaps the only really interesting aspect of the plot is Walbrook Manor's role in the 1920s and 1930s when it housed a sort of psychiatric asylum and also served as a venue for seminars held under the guise of peacemaking to prevent the outbreak of war with Germany. The participants in these seminars have been suspected of Nazi sympathies at worst and of trying to appease Hitler at best. The story goes on various tangents, some of them overly sensational and "colorful" such as a wartime brothel in London, and it does not hold the reader's attention.
This is quite likely the weakest of the eighteen novels by Mr. Barnard that I have reviewed on Goodreads.
One and a half stars.
But of course that was before the discovery of the body."
Robert Barnard's A Charitable Body (2012) is quite a minor literary effort, and that's putting it quite charitably. To borrow a clichéd phrase, it has a lot to be modest about. This 'novel of suspense' - as promised on the cover - does not deliver much excitement. The characterizations are far from convincing, and even the Barnard's trademark feat - his plots usually have more interesting endings than beginnings - is missing. All in all, the novel feels like having been written solely to fulfill a contractual obligation to the publisher.
The Walbrook Manor in West Yorkshire, "one of England's minor heritage buildings" which had been sort of jointly owned by the Quarles and Fiennes families, was handed over - for financial reasons - to Walbrook Trust. The Manor is now a tourist attraction and the Walbrook Trust Board is running the project. The Board politics, animosities between its members, and Sir Stafford Quarles' (who chairs the Board) thirst for power dominate much of the early stages of the plot. A public concert is held at Walbrook: it includes a song cycle composed in the times of the First World War. This music item plays an important role in the mystery. (A question, though: why did the author consider it necessary to list every single piece performed at the concert? Space filler, I guess.)
We meet Felicity - the wife of Detective Inspector Charlie Peace - as she is invited to serve on the Walbrook Manor Board. This unsophisticated literary device allows the good inspector to get a lot of background information without having to resort to official means. It also allows the reader to see the plot from both sides: the "in" side, as from the Board's members perspective, and from the "out" side, the police procedural.
Perhaps the only really interesting aspect of the plot is Walbrook Manor's role in the 1920s and 1930s when it housed a sort of psychiatric asylum and also served as a venue for seminars held under the guise of peacemaking to prevent the outbreak of war with Germany. The participants in these seminars have been suspected of Nazi sympathies at worst and of trying to appease Hitler at best. The story goes on various tangents, some of them overly sensational and "colorful" such as a wartime brothel in London, and it does not hold the reader's attention.
This is quite likely the weakest of the eighteen novels by Mr. Barnard that I have reviewed on Goodreads.
One and a half stars.
August 18, 2014
I have read other books in the Detective Inspector Charlie Peace series and have always enjoyed them. This entry is certainly not my favorite since the story is all over the place. I was not really sure where the author was going with the plot.
The story concerns a stately home that is now administered by a trust under the chairmanship of a relative of the family that once owned it. Most of the story is concerned with who is related to who and is there something shady going on in the trust. In the last third of the book, a body is found in a local lake and it is determined that it has been there since the war years. Is it connected with the family, is it murder,, and who is the victim? It finally ends with many questions unanswered and had me wondering what I had just read. In spite of all that, it is a nice little read but not up to the usual standard of Barnard's books.
The story concerns a stately home that is now administered by a trust under the chairmanship of a relative of the family that once owned it. Most of the story is concerned with who is related to who and is there something shady going on in the trust. In the last third of the book, a body is found in a local lake and it is determined that it has been there since the war years. Is it connected with the family, is it murder,, and who is the victim? It finally ends with many questions unanswered and had me wondering what I had just read. In spite of all that, it is a nice little read but not up to the usual standard of Barnard's books.
February 29, 2024
Mr B's vast experience with charitable establishments is fully in use here and I can testify that all the characters' personalities as depicted are entirely accurate based on my own experience from an all too young age.
While I normally enjoy Barnard's writing style this one got a little ploddy. And it's a little ridiculous at this point to term his works as 'suspenseful' as I use them regularly to trundle through at a nice, gradually paced read before bed. I wouldn't say they are soporific exactly, but as true 'suspense' tales give be the colly wobbles I would edit the claims to suspence firmly. (I have enough anxiety in my life I don't need to import more for so-called 'entertainment'.)
I'll still return to the late, thankfully prolific Mr Barnard and know that I shall enjoy good writing and a decent plot without the truly awful 'cosie' inflictions of more recent publishers' spillage. To each their own.
While I normally enjoy Barnard's writing style this one got a little ploddy. And it's a little ridiculous at this point to term his works as 'suspenseful' as I use them regularly to trundle through at a nice, gradually paced read before bed. I wouldn't say they are soporific exactly, but as true 'suspense' tales give be the colly wobbles I would edit the claims to suspence firmly. (I have enough anxiety in my life I don't need to import more for so-called 'entertainment'.)
I'll still return to the late, thankfully prolific Mr Barnard and know that I shall enjoy good writing and a decent plot without the truly awful 'cosie' inflictions of more recent publishers' spillage. To each their own.
July 5, 2019
Charlie Peace is in action again. This time his wife has been invited to be a member of the board of directors of one of Britain's Great Houses, part of the National Trust. The house has been turned over to the Trust like so many others, when the owners can no longer afford (or at least be bothered) to keep them up. In this case, two families have had ownership of the estate since the time of Queen Anne, but it's time for people to move on. A body shows up in an old luxury car in a nearby pond, and nobody is very sure who it is or why it's there. Charlie's wife is a much more active player in this one, which makes for a good story.
October 1, 2018
I liked the husband and wife team who do most of the investigation, and the plot was interesting (for a history buff and Anglophile like me( but convoluted.
For the work of an acclaimed author, the writing was shocking. Characters ask questions that should elicit “How dare you?” as a response and actually get answers. Worse, potential witnesses natter on to people they’ve just met and have no reason to trust. Events lead to other events and ideas lead to other ideas only because the plot requires them to do so.
Clearly this is not the first book in this series that one should read.
For the work of an acclaimed author, the writing was shocking. Characters ask questions that should elicit “How dare you?” as a response and actually get answers. Worse, potential witnesses natter on to people they’ve just met and have no reason to trust. Events lead to other events and ideas lead to other ideas only because the plot requires them to do so.
Clearly this is not the first book in this series that one should read.
January 21, 2023
Usually Mr. Barnard’s books are witty, acerbic, and fun to read. They also provide a solid mystery to involve the intriguing characters.
Here, however, the mystery part is the weak link. To quote Mr. Biden “there’s no there there.” We wander along with a clever mise-en-scene and then we stop.
Here, however, the mystery part is the weak link. To quote Mr. Biden “there’s no there there.” We wander along with a clever mise-en-scene and then we stop.
March 25, 2018
Not one of Barnard's best.
May 20, 2020
Not one of his best, and one I'd missed before. He's still my favorite author, but his characters felt a little flat in this story. Ordinarily, he is the best of the best of mystery writers.
January 10, 2022
I found it almost boring.
August 9, 2024
I gave up about a third of the way in. Too many boring conversations about nothing. I love some of Barnard's books, but this one is a dud.
April 9, 2013
One of the librarians at my local library is a great fan of police procedural crime fiction. She’s been suggesting books to me for weeks, but I haven’t felt like reading anything gritty, brutal, grim and bloody. She pounced on me with a grin last week. “Try this one,” she said. “It’s not a bit gruesome. You’ll enjoy it, it’s by Robert Barnard.” She was right and I did.
Robert Barnard has a long list of crime writing awards and life time achievement awards from both America and the U.K. He is a popular and prolific writer and 'A Charitable Body' is one of his novels about Charlie Peace. Detective Inspector Charlie Peace is a most unusual policeman. He is black, is happily married to a university lecturer who is white, and has a chubby little son he does not neglect because of his job. He works in rural Yorkshire, a place not known for its love of outsiders, and some of his colleagues are not flexible or broad minded when it comes to mixed marriages. Charlie is not fazed by all this. He likes using his brain to solve crime and that gives him satisfaction.
It is pleasant to read a crime novel without corpses and gut churning forensic details on every other page, and this novel is unusual in that the corpse is actually a skeleton and does not appear until half way through the story. 'A Charitable Body' is a novel where readers have to ‘listen’ carefully to the characters and unravel the motivations. The obvious clues are not the ones which help uncover whodunnit
Charlie is not involved officially to begin with. He becomes involved through his wife, Felicity. She’s a newly published, first time novelist and this makes her attractive to the trustees who invited her to join the board of directors on a charitable trust. The Trust runs a ‘stately home’, Walbrook Manor, an eighteenth-century mansion which has been sold to the Trust by the local family, gentry who cannot afford to keep it. In fact there are two related families, the Quarles and Fiennes families, who did not get on. More skeletons, this time the ‘hidden in the cupboard’ sort of skeleton keep being discovered as Felicity, and therefore Charlie, research the old family documents in the archive. One of these skeletons is the reason why there is a body in the lake. The discovery of the body brings Charlie officially on to the scene and once the car is discovered in the lake then identifying the body and who put it there becomes an intriguing puzzle.
Barnard is a smooth and accomplished writer. His style is simple, to tell a story well in good clear English, and he does. I shall certainly seek out more Charlie Peace books and look for more of Barnard’s other series. Do put his name on your list of must reads if you enjoy crime novels
Robert Barnard has a long list of crime writing awards and life time achievement awards from both America and the U.K. He is a popular and prolific writer and 'A Charitable Body' is one of his novels about Charlie Peace. Detective Inspector Charlie Peace is a most unusual policeman. He is black, is happily married to a university lecturer who is white, and has a chubby little son he does not neglect because of his job. He works in rural Yorkshire, a place not known for its love of outsiders, and some of his colleagues are not flexible or broad minded when it comes to mixed marriages. Charlie is not fazed by all this. He likes using his brain to solve crime and that gives him satisfaction.
It is pleasant to read a crime novel without corpses and gut churning forensic details on every other page, and this novel is unusual in that the corpse is actually a skeleton and does not appear until half way through the story. 'A Charitable Body' is a novel where readers have to ‘listen’ carefully to the characters and unravel the motivations. The obvious clues are not the ones which help uncover whodunnit
Charlie is not involved officially to begin with. He becomes involved through his wife, Felicity. She’s a newly published, first time novelist and this makes her attractive to the trustees who invited her to join the board of directors on a charitable trust. The Trust runs a ‘stately home’, Walbrook Manor, an eighteenth-century mansion which has been sold to the Trust by the local family, gentry who cannot afford to keep it. In fact there are two related families, the Quarles and Fiennes families, who did not get on. More skeletons, this time the ‘hidden in the cupboard’ sort of skeleton keep being discovered as Felicity, and therefore Charlie, research the old family documents in the archive. One of these skeletons is the reason why there is a body in the lake. The discovery of the body brings Charlie officially on to the scene and once the car is discovered in the lake then identifying the body and who put it there becomes an intriguing puzzle.
Barnard is a smooth and accomplished writer. His style is simple, to tell a story well in good clear English, and he does. I shall certainly seek out more Charlie Peace books and look for more of Barnard’s other series. Do put his name on your list of must reads if you enjoy crime novels
October 28, 2013
This is probably the last novel by Robert Barnard who died 19 Sept 2013. Earlier in his career Barnard was known for the nastiness of some of his characters and the lack of happy endings. There was a gradual mellowing, particularly in his Charlie Peace novels,
Dexter "Charlie" Peace is a Yorkshire police inspector. His wife Felicity is a novelist and professor of literature at Leeds University.
Stately Walbrook Manor has been given by its owner to a charitable trust for use as a museum and art exhibition site. Felicity becomes a member of the Walbrook Trust Board which also involves members of the Fiennes and Quarles families, the former owners.
The wreck of a car and the remains of a body are found in nearby Haroldswater pool. How old is this body and does it have a connection to Walbrook Manor? Charlie and Felictiy get on the case which may have involved a lost work by Edward Elgar.
Dexter "Charlie" Peace is a Yorkshire police inspector. His wife Felicity is a novelist and professor of literature at Leeds University.
Stately Walbrook Manor has been given by its owner to a charitable trust for use as a museum and art exhibition site. Felicity becomes a member of the Walbrook Trust Board which also involves members of the Fiennes and Quarles families, the former owners.
The wreck of a car and the remains of a body are found in nearby Haroldswater pool. How old is this body and does it have a connection to Walbrook Manor? Charlie and Felictiy get on the case which may have involved a lost work by Edward Elgar.
January 20, 2012
It's delightful to have a return visit with Yorkshire police inspector Charlie Peace, though this outing seems to be devoted to his novelist-wife Felicity. Felicity joins the board governing a stately home, recently set up as a charitable trust by its former owner. The museum expert in charge of the board is the former owner's cousin, although there's some friction between the two branches of the family. There may be hidden secrets concealed in the past of the family--and even among the archives. Charlie comes into the picture when a body is found in a nearby pond, along with an expensive 1930's automobile.
March 12, 2025
Charlie Peace's wife Felicity is the lead detective on this case, at least until a body is found in a pond near the stately home/museum where she is on the board. There are many twists and turns as they try to determine what Sir Stafford Quarles' motives are in heading up the board, and then to overcome his objections to tying the death to the house. The connection goes back a good many years, and brings up questions about Sir Stafford's mother; and the revelations at the end are stunning.
3/25: just read this again, and I don't understand why these books haven't been made into a BBC series. Charlie and Felicity are an endearing couple, and the mysteries are so well done.
3/25: just read this again, and I don't understand why these books haven't been made into a BBC series. Charlie and Felicity are an endearing couple, and the mysteries are so well done.
February 25, 2012
I love Robert Barnard. So far so good.
Unfortunately, it didn't pick up and it didn't have the usual Barnard magic. Some of his relatively recent mysteries haven't been that good as mysteries, but I so love the atmosphere he creates that I am OK with that. This one lacked any kind of interesting atmoshphere. I usually love Charlie Peace. Here he was insipid--as was his wife. I didn't care about the mystery--very uninteresting. Where is Barnard's biting wit and satire? His compassion for his protag? I didn't see it. It should have been a DNF.
Unfortunately, it didn't pick up and it didn't have the usual Barnard magic. Some of his relatively recent mysteries haven't been that good as mysteries, but I so love the atmosphere he creates that I am OK with that. This one lacked any kind of interesting atmoshphere. I usually love Charlie Peace. Here he was insipid--as was his wife. I didn't care about the mystery--very uninteresting. Where is Barnard's biting wit and satire? His compassion for his protag? I didn't see it. It should have been a DNF.
May 7, 2012
I've been reading this series about a black British policeman, named Charles Peace and his wife,since the beginning, and I like it.
I found out something interesting, though, while reading a book about Scotland Yard/The Metropolitan (London) Police. Charley Peace was a famous criminal, dark skinned (though not black.) He played the violin and lived a good life; but most nights he was out burgling the neighbors.
I found out something interesting, though, while reading a book about Scotland Yard/The Metropolitan (London) Police. Charley Peace was a famous criminal, dark skinned (though not black.) He played the violin and lived a good life; but most nights he was out burgling the neighbors.
April 28, 2012
Oh my goodness. Yawn. Over a hundred pages in and still no body has been found. This just didn't go anywhere, just a bunch of talking and set up to what, I'll never know. DNF. Two stars for being in an English historical house. The author must have sat on some boards and had some kind of axe to grind because I can think of no other reason why a novelist would expound on the formation of the governing boards of a charitable trust, in what is advertised as a murder mystery.
October 15, 2012
I've read several Barnard books in the past and recall liking them. This one was quite disappointing. It seemed to be missing parts of the story development, relied to much on characters remembering trivial details told to them many years in the past, and finally the plot ending was, to the extent I followed it, pulled out of thin air and highly unlikely to boot. Finally, though I finished the book, it did not hold my interest.
January 15, 2014
This is a pretty good series. Charlie Peace is a police inspector in Yorkshire. His wife Felicity is asked to join the board that oversees the Walbrook Manor, a stately home that has been donated and opened to the public. She begins to look into the history of the estate and soon finds herself involved in family intrigue. When a body is found, Charlie is also on the scene to get things resolved. This was a good read but got a little dry in places.
September 24, 2012
A good mystery by Barnard. Started me on a whole track of looking at all of the mysteries this man has written - a ton! So this was a good introduction - a bit droll - some lovely English characters. And a mystery based on some world war III goings-on among some nasty people - too many of whom are related.
January 27, 2013
I have a good time with Robert Barnard books, especially the comfy satire. In this case, an old family manor has been turned over to a trust and managed as a museum. Now that an antique automobile complete with body has been found, DI Charlie Peace must discover whether the old family feud descended to murder.
February 18, 2014
I liked some of the characters in the book but didn't particularly like the plot. I've heard that others books by this author are better. I know the author died in 2013. This was published in 2012. Sad that there won't be any more. I'd give another one of his books a chance. Sad I didn't like this one better.
July 26, 2016
An English country manor house mystery, a sex scandal, a husband and wife detective team... what's not to like? It was so boring that I almost didn't finish it. But since I always finish any mystery I start, I plowed through. Maybe a Brit would have appreciated all of the obscure references to now dead politicians, artists, and minor aristocracy, but I just found it boring.
August 2, 2013
A real disappointment. The usually-splendid Barnard delivers a dull book. All talk, talk, talk, and about an incident over seventy years old. Weakly-plottted, slender characterization, and a just plain stupid conclusion.
November 11, 2013
Had to look up sticky beak, never heard that before. And not sure about peculation, but I really had fun with this Charlie Peace mystery. His wife, Felicity, played a major role and I liked her a lot.
November 1, 2015
Barnard tells a good story even without exciting events to sustain interest. This story is more convoluted than most. I may have to read it again to grasp all the details he provided into the "mystery".
January 5, 2012
The last few books, including this one, have been disappointing.
February 19, 2012
A plotless story about an old English manor house. Witty writing, but all the characters sound the same. Could have been told in ten pages.
March 11, 2012
Classic family problems with added class warfare.Stlish writing without surprises.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews