Coffin Knows The Answer

John Coffin Mystery #34

by Gwendoline Butler

Coffin Knows the Answer by Gwendoline Butler released on Aug 25, 2004 is available now for purchase.

Genres: Mystery, Crime

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Gwendoline Williams Butler (aka Jennie Melville)

Gwendoline Williams was born on 19th August 1922 in South London, England, UK, daughter of Alice (Lee) and Alfred Edward Williams, her younger twin brothers are also authors. Educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read History, and later lectured there. On 16th October 1949, she married Dr Lionel Harry Butler (1923-1981), a professor of medieval history at University of St. Andrews and historian, Fellow of All Souls and Principal of Royal Holloway College. The marriage had a daughter, Lucilla Butler.

In 1956, she started to published John Coffin novels under her married name, Gwendoline Butler. In 1962, she decided used her grandmother's name, Jennie Melville as pseudonym to sign her Charmian Daniels novels. She was credited for inventing the "woman's police procedural". In addition to her mystery series, she also wrote romantic novels. In 1981, her novel The Red Staircase won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Reviews

[Norma · Rating 3 out of 5]

( Format : Audiobook )
"No death penalty now."

Police procedural set in London in the latter 1900s and John Coffin has worked his way up.to Chief Commander. As well as a paedophile case ongoing, the raped and mutilated bodies of young women are being found which seem in some way to be related to a stalker of Coffin's wife. The tale is mostly told through conversation between the various protagonists, and is this given an old fashioned feel, but the story itself just didn't work for this reader despite a good narration by Nigel Carrington.
A quick read of under six hours, this Audible is currently available to download for free through the Audible Plus programme.

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read the majority of Butler's John Coffin series and this is another nice little entry. Short, at 180 pages, these are books to read in conjunction with more serious tomes. Coffin is the head of the Second City police force......Second City is fictitious but is based on the Docklands area of London. In this adventure, a serial killer is at large, preying on woman who do not fit into a particular pattern.....at least it seems that way in the beginning. Killed, sexually assaulted, and dumped in alleyways and roadsides, there seems to be no clue that ties them together. And that clue doesn't show up until the last 20 pages of the book where the whole situation is wrapped up with the identification of the killer. It is not a very satisfactory ending since there is nothing to indicate the who and why of the murderer and a couple of sentences at the end of the book isn't much of a climax. This is not the best of this series by any means but still enjoyable.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

c2002 : And so did I - much earlier on than the detective. This book was a quick read but really not very good at all. I am surpised that it took the number of pages it did. Some of the plot just jarred. Not for me I am afraid.

[Gloria Mccracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 26th book about Coffin (and I think the last). They're all good, but if you like your mysteries tidily tied up with a bow, these are not for you. Coffin, the exalted police commander, and his actress wife, Stella Pinero, are complicated characters, and the books reflect this.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly the best Gwendoline Butler I have read to date. A great Who Dun it!

[Winston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok police procedural, but hard time investing in the main character, seemed a little too two dimensional.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: John Coffin, who now runs the Second City police department in London, seeks a killer preying on women.