Gone to Her Death

Lloyd & Hill #3

by Jill McGown

When Diana Hamlyn's bludgeoned body is found on the playing field at the English school where her husband is deputy headmaster, detecting duo Inspecter Lloyd and Detective Judy Hill find a classroom full of suspects, including her grieving husband, his motley colleagues, and even the vice-hiding head master. Unfortunately, this fatal episode is not to be quickly resolved—until one small, sinister clue clicks into place.

Genres: Mystery, Procedural, Fiction, British Literature, Mystery Thriller, Ebooks, Crime

285 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Jill McGown (9 August 1947, Campbeltown, Scotland – 6 April 2007 in Kettering, Northamptonshire) was a British writer of mystery novels. She was best known for her mystery series featuring Inspector Lloyd and Judy Hill, one of which (A Shred of Evidence) was made into a television series. McGown wrote her first mystery novel after being laid off from the British Steel Corporation in 1980. She is sometimes credited as Elizabeth Chaplin.

Reviews

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to the other Jill McGown I read, I appreciated the critical, problematical approach to the gender order, while loathing all the male characters, even the ones who are supposed to be likeable. Thankfully I think men in real life are not all as awful as the ones in the book (even Lloyd for goodness sakes who is a co-protagonist).

I liked the way Judy is calm and intelligent, reflexive and learns from her interactions. I hate how she feels indebted to Michael and Lloyd and how Caroline feels indebted to Sam for entertaining the idea that she might want to sleep with him. There seems to be a consensus in the book that to males sex is an "appetite" that makes them lose control, and while this is mildly problematised it is also largely allowed to stand as a fact. All the male characters without exception have some misogynist and/or slut-shaming opinions (the irony of this is mildly hinted at) and most of them seem to think sexual harrassment is a valid interaction whereas a woman standing up for herself in the face of sexual harrassment is committing an offence.

I feel Judy is too mild and accepting in the face of all this.

Nevertheless the plot once again drew me in as it twisted and turned with red herring after red herring and to cosy Lloyd and Judy scene at the end is palatable- in fact most of the romantic content of the book while nauseating stops short of the TMI tendencies of more modern books. I preferred Judy's role in this book to the other one- Lloyd is superior and thinks he needs to "teach her" things and patronise her but she pulls the rug out from his theorising feet and finds the real answer. I also find it realistic how annoyed with each other they get (but still don;t understand why she stays with him as he is literally never for a moment pleasant or even basically respectful toward her).

I'll probably read more of these some time...if they turn up.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book with Lloyd and Hill. Strong female characters, good plot line, and I was wrong about who-dunnit.
I recommend this book as an excellent example of a British cozy.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tutte le volte che leggo la McGown mi domando perché gli autori di gialli siano trattati così male dall’editoria italiana. Per una Ruth Rendell, P.D. James o Elizabeth George che ce l’ha fatta ad arrivare ad edizioni più importanti, ci sono i McGown, W.J. Burley, Margaret Yorke, Deborah Crombie e ancora i Fredric Brown (!!), Reginald Hill (!!!!), che invece non ce l’hanno fatta, senza colpa, senza essere da meno. Eppure mi immagino che qualcuno li abbia letti, prima di pubblicarli nei Gialli Mondadori: è allora perché, perché non notare la differenza di qualità e non dargli una chance ad emergere dalla massa che spesso è mediocre?
La casa a editrice Polillo con I Bassotti, ha meravigliosamente portato alla luce, ritraducendoli finalmente, i gialli della Golden Age. Sarebbe ora che qualche editore avesse il coraggio di rivalutare e rilanciare anche gli scrittori degli anni 60/90 invece di rincorrere come pecore mode passeggere.
Passando al romanzo, la trama è solidissima, gli indizi sono disseminati ad arte, i dialoghi naturali, i personaggi vivi, riusciti. Qualcuno ha dimenticato di proclamare, tanti anni fa, Jill McGown la nuova regina del giallo.

[Adam Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second Jill McGown book. I am very glad I’ve discovered her!

This is a crime procedural investigating the murder of a deputy-headmaster wife in a private school. McGown does the characters Justin - and masterfully guides you through suspecting several people before the final powerful reveal.

[Katherine Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this series

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing!

I started it in the morning and was finished by the afternoon, I was unable to put it down. The author had me continuously re-evaluating my guesses throughout the book, which makes a change from some of the more obvious whodunnits that I tend to guess right straight away without much thought. Character development was really interesting too, not to mention the book's overall message.

What makes this book - and the series in general - interesting, is that the main characters are extremely flawed. However, while you start off disliking them, the author somehow finds a way to change your mind. This is done by making them human, causing the reader to understand and relate more to them, which results in a grudging liking.

I'd definitely recommend if you like fast-paced crime fiction with a good plot!

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This third Lloyd and Hill mystery, Gone to Her Death , is about the murder of the wife of the assistant headmaster at a third-rate (and bucking for fourth) public school. Any of the staff might be the murderer and while Hill investigates a string of petty thefts, Lloyd turns the spotlight on one person after another in a vain attempt to figure out what has been going on. Until finally light dawns and the most unlikely of murderers is identified. This book is the third in the series and is called Death of a Dancer in Britain, I have no idea why.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Diana Hamlyn's Promiscuity Is An Open Secret

"So when her beautiful, but bludgeoned body is found on a playing field at the English school where her husband is deputy headmaster, no one is terribly shocked. But rape? The consensus is that this can hardly have been possible in view of Diana's well-founded reputation as a tireless nymphomaniac.

"Detecting duo Inspector Lloyd and Detective Judy Hill are soon mired in a messy investigation that exposes shocking school scandals and implicates an ever-lengthening list of suspects. Near the top of it are Diana's grieving husband, his motley colleagues, even the headmaster, who is hiding his own secret vice. With such a class of possible perpetrators, and with their own uneasy love affair approaching a new crisis, Judy and Lloyd would like to make a quick work of this one. But no such luck -- until one small, sinister clue clicks into place."
~~back cover

I'm liking this series more & more. The plotting is vastly improved, as are the characterizations. Lloyd and Judy aren't easy people, nor are they easy for the reader to understand (at least I didn't find them easy.) But fascinating.

[Deb Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say? I became hooked on the detective duo of Lloyd and Hill in author Jill McGown's first installment in this series and only find myself growing more fond of them through each subsequent story in the series.

Expect a straight forward detective story, devoid of the often gory details that accompany some such tales. McGown concentrates instead on the investigation and the characters themselves, both Lloyd and Hill and the potential suspects they encounter.

[M W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good “who done it” but racist language unacceptable

Great story but entirely unnecessary use of N-word in the middle. That may have been acceptable in 1989 but this is a re-print, and removing that one sentence would have made no difference at all to the story. Sloppy editing by the publishers and not acceptable today.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been an interesting police procedural series from the 1980's, and 90's. While basically closed circle mysteries (a limited number of suspects), the murderer is both unexpected and fairly clued. The detectives' personal relationship adds interest, and there is dry humor. My library does not have the next few so I will need to decide whether to continue with later entries.

[Jan Whitmarsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant story !

Great storyline, characters and interactions....Jill writes amazing murder mysteries with just the right amount on mystery. Delve into this school of weirdness, where everyone can be a suspect.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading the Lloyd and Hill series. McGown was really hitting her stride by book 3. Interesting characters and insight into detective work.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a series and you get to have a well wrought mystery and see the ongoing characters evolve in the background.

[Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death of the duputy headmaster's wife on the night of the Sesquicentennial Ball at a minor-league boys' public school brings together the investigataive team of Inspector Lloyd and Judy Hill. Dianna Hamlyn's body has been found on the shcool's playing field, done in by a golf club. Lots of red herrings, but we finally find out the head boy, Matthew Cawston, did it when Dianna refused to have sex with him. He had been watching her have sex with almost anyone else. Her reputation as going after just about anyone was well known at the school. She comes on almost immediately to the new English teacher,Newby, who has come back after being in a bad auto accident that killed his best friend, He is almost instantly attracted to his friend's widow, Caroline Knight. A second death, that of the husband of Dianna, Hamlyn, a suicide, create's fear on campus, and parents start removing their kids. Judy and Lloyd appear to have the beginning of a nice relationship by the end of this first in a series.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book in the author's police procedural series (13 books) featuring Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd and Detective Sergeant Hill. I first came across this series in the early 1990s and have read them all at least once.

This is the third time I have read this and it is even better than I remembered. It is over twenty six years since I last read it but a few pages in I spotted the clue which revealed the killer's identity. A bit odd my remembering the killer but it did not stop me enjoying reading this again. A woman is found murdered and possibly raped in the grounds of a private school for boys following a dinner dance. There are only a few suspects so much of this book is about the characters and the relationship between Lloyd and Hill who come across as real people.

A very clever plot with better writing than most of the books I have read this year (2025).

The edition I read this time was part of the omnibus "A trio of murders".

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill come together to solve the rape and murder of the deputy head master's wife at a second-rate English public school during a ball. What happens when there is a long list of suspects and the murder weapon from years ago turns up missing? I have to say that I have trouble following police procedurals sometimes; although it was well-written and I did like it.

This is the third book of Scottish author Jill McGown's Lloyd and Hill Series. Also known as Death of a Dancer. I give it an A+! Ms. McGown passed away in 2007.

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of this series but still a good read. Taking place in a boarding school, Lloyd and Hill are investigating the murder of a teacher's rather free-wheeling wife. Almost everyone is a suspect and the character development is well done. Toward the conclusion, the story gets a little cluttered with "where were you" and "what were you wearing" clues........but the final solution is satisfactory. And the private life of Lloyd and Hill moves forward romantically without getting in the way of the overall storyline.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story centres around a death at the St. Valentines Day Ball at a small failing boys school populated with the kind of oddball staff who make mystery novels fun. The book is full of interesting relationships from those among the staff to that between Judy Hill, her boss Lloyd and her husband Michael which portrays the way that people manipulate one another especially well.

An interesting series, I'm glad I have plenty more to read.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lloyd and Hill are a police couple with both similarities and differences to Deborah Crombie's Kincaid and James. They are not based in London, for one thing. This fine series sadly came to an end with McGown's death a few years ago. In this book, Lloyd and Hill investigate the rape and murder of a teacher's wife.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a neat little English mystery. I enjoyed it except for the last couple of pages where the author got up on her soapbox about what animals men are and no woman is ever safe. The story is definitely written from a feminist point of view; The male characters are all shown in a very poor light and the women in a very positive one. But the story itself hangs together pretty well.

[KDawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several things about this book I liked: characters were fun, main character correcting everyone's grammar (always appreciated), and a mystery that I didn't figure out until the end! However, I had some issues with the POV switching mid-paragraph between characters. It took quite a bit of getting used to...and I'm not sure I actually ever did get used to it.

[Carolyn (in SC) C234D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy this series; have read several, not necessarily in order. Lloyd and Hill are good characters, often complementing each other. The plot is involved, but not confusing. It is an English police procedural that was published in 1989 but doesn't really seem dated, depending on human investigation and deduction rather than technical devices. Glad I have more of these to read.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This got two stars because the plot was interesting. I found the two main characters uninteresting. Their personal lives were of no interest to me and to be honest once they started arguing with each other I skipped over those conversations as they added nothing to the book. The idea that his name is so horrible no one knows what it is just
smacks of imitation al la Morse and Columbo.

[Elaine Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this author as a Kobo recommendation and I am hooked. Interesting continuing characters in Lloyd and Hill and well formed, complex players in each of the three titles I've read.
Following the twist and turns as they deal with evidence tampering and false testimony in Gone to Her Death (which I read as Death of a Dancer) provided a most satisfying read.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

RATING: 2.75

[Karen (Living Unabridged) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have done without the romance novel type descriptions of one character's fantasy world. Otherwise a good English whodunnit with memorable characters and good plotting.

[Gary Van Cott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonably good. Along the same lines as the previous book with some advancement of the relationship between the two main characters.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am enjoying this series and the author has a wonderful way of drawing you in to the characters and their obsessions. well done.

[JenniferB]

Good plot but annoying writing style, old fashioned.