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Bartlett and Boase #1
Empty Vessels
Book One in The Bartlett and Boase mysteries by Marina Pascoe.
Meet Inspector George Bartlett and Constable Archibald Boase in their first investigation together. In the closing months of 1921, Bartlett and Boase have a missing girl on their Falmouth patch. Before long they find themselves drawn into a murder investigation when another girl is found dead on a local beach. We met the Pengelly family, unwittingly drawn in through their daughter’s involvement with the prime murder suspect and find ourselves involved in mysterious goings-on at Penvale Manor, secret meetings in the middle of the night and a race to prevent more deaths. Add spoilt twin heirs, blackmail, and strange, unexplained activity aboard the St Piran and this all makes heavy weather for Bartlett and Boase. Deception and disguise come together in the final spectacular and surprising showdown when the killer is revealed.
Meet Inspector George Bartlett and Constable Archibald Boase in their first investigation together. In the closing months of 1921, Bartlett and Boase have a missing girl on their Falmouth patch. Before long they find themselves drawn into a murder investigation when another girl is found dead on a local beach. We met the Pengelly family, unwittingly drawn in through their daughter’s involvement with the prime murder suspect and find ourselves involved in mysterious goings-on at Penvale Manor, secret meetings in the middle of the night and a race to prevent more deaths. Add spoilt twin heirs, blackmail, and strange, unexplained activity aboard the St Piran and this all makes heavy weather for Bartlett and Boase. Deception and disguise come together in the final spectacular and surprising showdown when the killer is revealed.
- GenresMystery
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 2, 2011
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6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 28, 2020
It will be very good for author to remember that story narrated happened exactly 100 years ago and transplanting todays worldview, sensibilities and political correctness in that time is just plainly stupid. I am prepared that in cozy mystery it will be many improbable (and some impossible) things happening but in this one there are just to many of them. Ad to all that clunky pacing and promising book gone down the drain.
December 31, 2017
A young girl goes to work at a big mansion where the son gets her pregnant and the father subsequently commits her to the workhouse. Just one of many time-worn tropes used in the plot. It is hard to judge if the author is just unoriginal or deliberately trying to be anachronistic. In any case, the whole adds up to a story devoid of meaning.
April 25, 2019
This seems like a cozy series I would enjoy, but it needed a LOT of polish. The chapters were all askew as well as the pacing in general.
I really don’t know what to say.
I really don’t know what to say.
November 11, 2016
This superficially written cosy mystery explores a fictional murder in 1920s England. Several plots intersect and combine to the resolution of the book. The author tells rather than shows what the characters are experiencing, and without the confession of the murdered the two featured police protagonists would likely not have solved the case at all. Also, given the number of characters, it was confusing for the author to use similar names, such as the surname Williams for two unrelated individuals, as well as a Wilson. I also found the names Pengelly, Pendennis, and Penhaligon difficult to keep straight.
There are several issues that I found too improbable to accept:
Archie Boase served in WWI and is a police constable, but is so unsophisticated that he can't understand what he is feeling when attracted to a woman named Irene. Neither does he feel it necessary to investigate suspicious noises coming from supposedly abandoned boats in a cove, but rather decided to go home to bed.
The murdered woman was adopted and unbeknownst to her has a wealthy twin sister, who shows up after her death.
A mother and father are devastated that their has been Inexplicably missing for weeks and is presumed to have to met with foul play, yet shortly after she recovers from amnesia, she is returned to them, and they unconceredly allow her to work late and return home in the dark unescorted.
While following up a clue re this same missing woman, the two policeman travel some distance to investigate a lead, but when the man they question doesn't recognize her name, they leave. Only then does it occur to the Inspector that she may be using an alias and perhaps he ought to show his possible lead her photograph . . . which he is carrying around with him!
Frank Wilson claims to have been in love with the victim, Ivy Williams, and planning to start a new life with her, and then accepts an offer to murder her for money, which when the time comes he cannot commit. Knowing this, Ivy's twin sister begins a relationship with him.
As a reader, I'm prepared to suspend quite a bit of my disbelief when reading escape fiction, but Empty Vessels was too big of a stretch for me.
There are several issues that I found too improbable to accept:
Archie Boase served in WWI and is a police constable, but is so unsophisticated that he can't understand what he is feeling when attracted to a woman named Irene. Neither does he feel it necessary to investigate suspicious noises coming from supposedly abandoned boats in a cove, but rather decided to go home to bed.
The murdered woman was adopted and unbeknownst to her has a wealthy twin sister, who shows up after her death.
A mother and father are devastated that their has been Inexplicably missing for weeks and is presumed to have to met with foul play, yet shortly after she recovers from amnesia, she is returned to them, and they unconceredly allow her to work late and return home in the dark unescorted.
While following up a clue re this same missing woman, the two policeman travel some distance to investigate a lead, but when the man they question doesn't recognize her name, they leave. Only then does it occur to the Inspector that she may be using an alias and perhaps he ought to show his possible lead her photograph . . . which he is carrying around with him!
Frank Wilson claims to have been in love with the victim, Ivy Williams, and planning to start a new life with her, and then accepts an offer to murder her for money, which when the time comes he cannot commit. Knowing this, Ivy's twin sister begins a relationship with him.
As a reader, I'm prepared to suspend quite a bit of my disbelief when reading escape fiction, but Empty Vessels was too big of a stretch for me.
February 8, 2023
Brilliant book really enjoyed reading it and it certainly kept you wondering who the murderer was now looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews