A Bird in the Hand: The First George & Molly Palmer-Jones Novel

George & Molly Palmer-Jones #1

by Ann Cleeves, Seán Barrett (Narrator)

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now available for the first time in the US.

In England’s birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted—a murderer . . .

Young Tom French is found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they?

George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decides quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovers mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remains baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.

But as he and his fellow ‘twitchers’ flock from Norfolk to Scotland to the Scilly Isles in response to rumors of rare sightings, George—with help from his lovely wife, Molly—gradually discerns the true markings of a killer. All he has to do is prove it . . . before the murderer strikes again.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Audiobook, Birds, Animals

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands...


Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person's not heavily into birds - and Ann isn't - there's not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. Her first series of crime novels features the elderly naturalist, George Palmer-Jones. A couple of these books are seriously dreadful.

In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles. The girls have both taken up with Geordie lads. In the autumn of 2006, Ann and Tim finally achieved their ambition of moving back to the North East.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival's first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries.
Ann Cleeves on stage at the Duncan Lawrie Dagger awards ceremony

Ann's short film for Border TV, Catching Birds, won a Royal Television Society Award. She has twice been short listed for a CWA Dagger Award - once for her short story The Plater, and the following year for the Dagger in the Library award.

In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger replaces the CWA's Gold Dagger award, and the winner receives £20,000, making it the world's largest award for crime fiction.

Ann's success was announced at the 2006 Dagger Awards ceremony at the Waldorf Hilton, in London's Aldwych, on Thursday 29 June 2006. She said: "I have never won anything before in my life, so it was a complete shock - but lovely of course.. The evening was relatively relaxing because I'd lost my voice and knew that even if the unexpected happened there was physically no way I could utter a word. So I wouldn't have to give a speech. My editor was deputed to do it!"

The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine).

Ann's books have been translated into sixteen languages. She's a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 200

Reviews

[Icewineanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Birdwatching fanatics rule & take over the beautiful Norfolk coast in England. In short, one of the ‘birders’ is found lying dead in the marsh with his head bashed in. George Palmer-Jones along with his wife Molly (retired social worker) are on the case!
In addition to the murder there are other mysteries here; poison pen letters, secrets, jealousies, plus a missing witness who may hold the key to the murder.

Decided to go back & read this 1st book in Ann Cleeves very first series. It’s a fairly straightforward mystery, a bit slower paced in the beginning with quite a bit of information about birdwatching involving birds found mainly on the UK coast but the oddball characters caught my interest, and I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.
Highly recommended to birders everywhere & especially in the UK!
3.5 ⭐️

[Obsidian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drags here and there still solid

There's a lot about birds so be prepared for that. I enjoyed reading about George and Molly. Definitely will read book #2.

Full review:

So this was interesting. This is definitely Cleeves getting her feet wet with mysteries. Some of the descriptions are overly long and you start to get bored a bit here and there because the flow of the book sometimes just starts and stops. But I love the idea of a husband/wife mystery team and I thought how Cleeves wrote George and Molly was interesting.

"A Bird in The Hand" follows retired George Palmer-Jones. George used to work for the Home Office (doing very decidedly mysterious things) but feels a bit bored these days. Think an elderly Sherlock Holmes that's married. His wife, Molly, is also retired from social work and feels a bit restless. When George is called upon to solve the mystery of a birder named Tom French he feels himself interested despite himself. George is a birder and knows the ins and outs of it and some of the same people that Tom knew. It seems easy enough for him to make inquiries.

I loved George and Molly together. She's his Watson in a way, much better with people than George is. And though we hear mention of the two's children and grandchild, they are never seen. Instead George and Molly are able to just be and investigate with no issues. I liked their takes on the people they meet and the mysteries they unravel.

As I said above, the flow stopped and started, and there's so much talking about birds that after a while my brain started to tune it out.

The other characters in the book were interesting, Tom French reminded me of another character in another series that Cleeves wrote, that honestly ended up dead for almost the same reason it seems.

The ending was interesting and I didn't guess the murderer at all.

[Grandma Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outstanding narrator. This wasn’t my favorite book by Ann Cleeves, however I do plan to continue with the series. I loved the bird watching group. The characters were interesting. I didn’t figure out who the murderer was, so that was enlightening.

I was blessed with an audio ARC. Thank you, NetGalley. The opinions expressed are my own and unbiased.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've tried a couple of British author Ann Cleeves Shetland and Vera crime series and my wife and I love both of the TV series based on the books / characters. A Bird in the Hand is the first book in her George & Molly Palmer-Jones series.

I readily admit that without even reading a book in this particular series, for some reason I thought it would be a cozy mystery series. But I was wrong. There wasn't a lot of violence and it wasn't all that edgy but it still had a bit more to it than your regular cozy mystery. (Note: that doesn't mean I don't like cozy mysteries too... phew! I don't want anyone to be mad at me.)

George Palmer-Jones is an ex-civil servant retired from the Home Office. His position isn't really defined but he seems to be able to get information from the cops and others. His wife Molly was an ex-social worker who has some excellent moments in this story. George is a bird-watcher and follows them around the UK trying to find rare birds. Molly, while not that interested in the bird-watching part so much, enjoys the discussions and meeting people.

On the Norfolk coast, a bird watcher Tom French is found dead and it's determined he was murdered. George is asked by the father of young Adam Anderson, another birder, to investigate and find out who murdered French, to see if he was killed by another birder. So George and Molly agree to take on the investigation.

It's all very fascinating. Ann Cleeves knows how to spin a yarn. She peoples her stories with interesting characters and her story moves from one character to another, always moving back to George and Molly. George travels over England from their home, to Norfolk, to the Scilly Isles as he tries to get more information. Molly follows him but also stays in Norfolk, meeting people and gathering her own information.

I enjoyed the easy pace of the story. I enjoyed getting to know George and Molly and I enjoyed the mystery. It is a gentle story, as I mentioned, with not a lot of action. But at the same time there is an element of menace, as we meet characters who fear for their lives. Who is threatening them? There are interesting incidents and I like how Molly takes charge in a specific incident near the end. There are many suspects and I was satisfied with the ultimate resolution. I liked this introduction to George and Molly and I look forward to reading more birder mysteries. (4 stars)

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author’s first published book. Although readable not a patch on her later novels. I was lucky enough to meet Ann Cleeves at an author event and she told me it was “rubbish”. I love such brutal honesty but think rubbish is a bit strong.

[Mallory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this one and I liked the narrator a lot. He did a good job bringing some life to this story. This is the first in the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series and it was interesting, but it lacked a little something. The ending was not particularly believable. It was a very slow story until the very end when it wrapped up faster than it seemed it should. There was some good potential in the characters and I would be open to reading more in this series as I imagine like many firsts it can only get better from here. George is asked to help investigate the death of Tom, a local bird watcher. George is part of the bird watching community and he agrees and jumps into investigating. There were more details in some places than I wanted, but it was overall a decent mystery.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent mystery by one of my favorite mystery writers, Ann Cleeves (author of the brilliant Vera Stanhope series). A murder in the local birdwatching community of Rushy has a retired couple looking for answers. Less detailed, sharp, concise and delineated than the Vera Stanhope series. Still, an enjoyable read for those who are interested in anything Ann Cleeves has written.

[Karen]

I love Ann Cleeves' Shetland series, but so far am not finding any of her other series very good at all. Couldn't get through this one -- stopped about halfway because it wasn't interesting or good reading.

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very good read - the first in a series of eight “birder” books all written between 1986 and 1996. I knew next to nothing about birding before but this book brought me up to speed quickly – the vocabulary, the lifestyle, and the passions – which of course laid a solid foundation for a good mystery. The only flaw is that I felt a bit “shut out” at some point – that if I had more information I could also have figured out “who dunnit”. Considering this was a first-time effort that small flaw is easily forgiven in the overall enjoyment of the story and I look forward to enjoying the rest of the series.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ooh, an early Ann Cleeves book, that might be interesting.... I'm just writing this note to myself to remind myself next time I think that again! This just bored me, I couldn't make sense of the characters, why George was called on to investigate the death, what the issue was. There were some good characters but I found the whole thing jumbled up and the bird watching scene which I'd expected to find interesting didn't really come to life for me at all. Sorry! I don't usually review DNFs but I wanted to leave myself a note to remember that I didn't enjoy this.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be the perfect book for me and I'd be the ideal reader for it:

- love the crime genre
- love the Vera and Shetland tv shows
- been meaning to read an Ann Cleeves novel for ages (see above)
- a bit of a bird nerd (though not a twitcher)

How wrong I was. I felt the writing was flat and the actual story barely credible. I found George unlikeable and the idea that he would just accept a private detective job out of the blue, let alone one asking him to find a murderer, totally unbelievable. And where were the police in all of this?

A big disappointment for me. I know it was early days in Ann Cleves' writing days, but it has totally put me off reading a Vera Stanhope or Jimmy Perez book in case it ruins my love for those characters. I'll stick to the tv I think (never thought I'd say that).

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book by Ann Cleeves and the first in a series featuring bird watching sleuth George Palmer-Jones. It is very different to her later books, quite tame and reminded me of Margery Allingham or Agatha Christie. Difficult to date, almost like its set in the fifties but there are modern references. Her later books are much more gutsy and exciting. I didn't particularly like George but would give the series another go.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

At times the writing is terrible - too many adverbs and poorly constructed sentences.
And the characters were dull and two dimensional.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was prepared to like this book - I like mysteries and I like birdwatching, both of which are contained in this story.

However, I found far more things to dislike about it than to like, unfortunately.

First and most serious, the writing style. Heading in the general direction of Hemingwayesque, I found it much too detached and abrupt for my taste. Too much telling, not enough showing and too many perspective shifts, including within chapters, something I find offputting and amateurish.

Then, the characters. None of them particularly likeable, including the detective.

A lesser niggle was the timely disappearances of characters whenever their input would have provided useful information. In fairness, this is a frequent device in detective novels but in this one it seemed overused and poorly done.

And then, a small peeve - the implication, threaded through the book, that women are not interested in birdwatching, unless they’re too weird to get a man. This irks me, on several levels.

The denouement was also disappointing - the murderer’s motives were lazy plotting in my opinion. In fact the whole thing just seemed poorly conceived and badly put together.

I don’t think I shall bother to read anything else by this author unless I’m seriously short of reading material.

[Coco · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not get past the first few chapters, the george and molly palmer series are quite unlike her other series. I have read another two in this series but dislike the settings of bird watching/twitching. Another reviewer says that these are the settings for the george and molly palmer series. George and Molly Palmer are a retired couple. I found the settings and george and molly palmer boring. I will give up on this series.

[Sue Harris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having enjoyed Vera & Shetland on TV I thought I would try this, the first of a series involving George & Molly Palmer-Jones.
George is an elderly birdwatcher and Amateur Sleuth, unfortunately, there was too much bird watching for me so I gave it up halfway through.

[Kelly Callaghan · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

Is there a particular jargon to birdwatching? There must be as I didn’t understand what was being spoken about. Tom French, a birdwatcher, is found dead. George Palmer-Jones investigates, while also doing around the countryside spotting birds.

[patrica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing

Felt it was dragged out and boring. I didn't finish as had lost interest . Although I am a fan of Ann Cleeves this was disappointing .

[Kati Crane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just can't. This is no Jimmy Perez we're dealing with here, and all of Cleeves's detailed description of birders and twitchers and the beauty of England can't make me care who killed Tom.

[Robert Ogle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Ann Cleeves work, but this one is a dud. I only finished it out of pure respect for her. A murder based around a group of twitchers with too many characters and too little action.

[Anie · Rating 1 out of 5]

A slog. First Cleve's book that's been a disappointment

[Anneliese Tirry · Rating 3 out of 5]

**(*)
Dit is het eerste boek van An Cleeves en je voelt aan alles dat ze nog haar stem zoekt. Het verhaal stremt wel eens, af en toe gaat het wat stroef, het komt allemaal wat traagjes op gang.
MAAR, het heeft wel tot het midden van het boek geduurd tot ik ging kijken naar het jaar van publicatie. Ja, 1986.
Het leven was toen ook gewoon trager en omslachtiger (daarom niet slechter!) dan nu met alle digitale gebruiksvoorwerpen die we hebben, en anders dan de waan van de steeds snellere dag waarin we nu leven. Er werden brieven geschreven en flink geroddeld in het verhaal, maar er was nergens een computer of GSM te bespeuren in heel dat boek.
En ik miste het ook niet. Prompt speelde het verhaal zich voor mij af in de interieurs die ik ken van in het magazine Home and Garden of ook World of Interiors dat ik elke maand kocht in die jaren.
Het verhaal kabbelde voort, maar werd toch nog spannender en op het einde was er toch een andere moordenaar dan ik had gedacht.
Zo zie je maar.

[Catherine Rowntree · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my giddy aunt! I had high expectations of this book as I’ve heard great things about Ann Cleeves. Please don’t read this book it’s hideous. You can’t write a book and then have a murderer with no motive suddenly talking to himself and killing people.
The plot was weak. The characters unlikeable and usually I’m quite interested in birds, but if I hear the word ‘twitcher’ again I’m going to start twitching myself.
Holy cow it was bad.
I’m going to need some therapy before I try another of Ann Cleeves’s books. I’d be keen to know if any of her books are page turners.

[Sally Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather disappointed with this book as I like previous series the author has written, it was as if she decided to attempt to emulate Agatha Christie. Usual tragic story but not a lot of substance , it tries to build up mystery and tension but doesn’t. I will not read more gesturing this amateur detective.

[Beverley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book disappointing which was surprising as I usually enjoy Ann Cleeves. The characters were shallow, there were too many red herrings and the ending just fizzled out.

[Alice Hewitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not a 2, it's a 2.5.

It's just not Ann Cleve's best work, but it was her first novel and I'm glad I read it.

[Jennifer Litchfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a wonder that publishers persevered with Ann Cleeves after this terrible debut. But it’s just as well they did, otherwise we would never have been blessed with the Vera Stanhope series.

One of the joys of reading whodunnits is to be able to see at the end of the book how the author has masterfully directed your attention away from incidents and conversations that are key in revealing the killer’s identity. In A Bird in the Hand the last few pages introduce that the killer has been hearing voices in their head, and that’s why they killed. That’s it. That’s the entire raison d’etre for the murder. Deeply deeply unsatisfying.

The best that can be said for the book is that it’s an interesting forray into the competitive world of birdwatching (twitching), and many of the bit players are nicely characterised in very few words. That’s it, though. Definitely not one to add to the bookshelf.

[Ellie Rhodes · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I have read constantly for all my life and this is one of the worst. It wasn’t even all the bird stuff. It was just plain BORING. The author herself described it as RUBBISH and I must agree. There was so little to advance the plot. A birdwatcher dies and two people, one of them a true birdwatcher, “investigate” the murder. It was really just birdwatching with an occasional mention of the dead guy’s name. So basically a birdwatching book into which a murder was inserted and badly done at that. I never did figure out who killed him or why but I assume it had something to do with birdwatching.

[Vicky Hutchings · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like the Shetland books and had read one of the later George and Molly novels (very Agatha Christie) but have only just downloaded the first of the G and M novels on to my kindle. I shall not finish it. The actual writing is awful and at times reads like a series of notes. Sentence after sentence beginning with the same word. As a subeditor in a previous life, my imaginary pen was hovering. I see other readers were bored. Me too - soooooo bored I don't feel like making the effort to plough on to find out who the killer is. Glad that she continued writing, but amazed she was encouraged to.

[Kurt J.Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a big Ann Cleeves fan, but his was a terrible book. I was interested in the bird watching angle, but I never warmed to George or Molly. It was all I could do to finish the book.