Error of the Moon

Antony Maitland #3

by Sara Woods

From the back cover:

The General Aircraft company stood on the desolate Yorkshire moors. It was the perfect spot for a secret government project ... and deadly intrigue. Missing documents pointed to espionage, but a corpse added murder most foul to the high crime of treason. Working undercover as a new employee, Antony Maitland needed all the skills he learned as a wartime agent to find the traitor. The suspects ranged from the company's director to a very private secretary, but one murder after another quickly narrowed the field. Maitland decided that it was time to set his own trap to catch the elusive killer. Though if it failed, it would be his first ... and final mistake.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature, Espionage

170 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

(Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd)
UK (1922 - 1986)
aka Anne Burton, Mary Challis, Margaret Leek

Born in England, she was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Filey, Yorkshire.

During the Second World War, she worked in a bank and as a solicitor's clerk in London. Here she gained much of the information later used in her novels. Lana married Anthony George Bowen-Judd on April 25, 1946. They ran a pig breeding farm between 1948 and 1954. In 1957 they moved to Nova Scotia, Canada. She worked as a registrar for St. Mary's University until 1964. In 1961 she wrote her first novel, Bloody Instructions, introducing the hero of forty-nine of her mysteries, Anthony Maitland, an English barrister.

Her last years she lived with her husband at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Reviews

[☯Emily Ginder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 1963 during the peak of the Cold War. There is a dreariness in the novel that mirrors that time period. Antony Maitland is asked to determine who is revealing secrets to the Russians about a government project. Several members of the project are being killed. Antony takes his wife Jenny with him since it is a long-term assignment. Although she plays a small part in the finale, her presence creates more uneasiness for Antony.

This book has little legal procedures in it which makes it different from many of the other books in the series. Also, the normal cast of characters is missing, such as Sir Nicholas. I missed the constant arguing between Nicholas and Antony!

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book suffered badly from pacing issues, there was almost no action and the majority of the story was just characters talking to each other. And a lot of the conversations felt as if the characters knew what they were talking about but were unwilling to let the reader in on their content. There were a LOT of half spoken sentences and uncompleted thoughts throughout the book, making it really difficult for the reader to follow the mystery.

Most of the characters were barely two dimensional, and there were a couple that I'd have to keep referring back to earlier to remember who they were and how they fit into the story.

Ms Woods also committed the cardinal sin of keep information, learned by one character from the reader until the end of the book. Agatha Christie would be most put out with you, ma'am.

[Kathy KS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antony Maitland goes undercover with a case of espionage at a research facility. I'm going back and reading some of the series volumes that I seem to have missed in the past. Although the early volumes were written in the early 1960s, I find them interesting. Antony himself is complex and has a military past that still haunts him; his wife is supportive and sometimes helps with ideas that move his cases along.

[Lila · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are murders at a research facility and spies are suspected. It was hard to sort out the characters, the mystery, although set in England lacked much atmosphere besides some initial fog, and the women characters followed 1960s era stereotypes.