MAXWELL’S BACK, AS MURDER COMES TO SLEEPY LEIGHFORD.
Are the two things connected? Well, yes and no. Teenage girls are being picked up on the seafront and two of them are found dead. DI Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell has barely set foot on her old patch before she is up to her jet-lagged neck in somebody else’s tragedy.
The prime suspect is Bernard Ryan, Deputy Head at Leighford High, and Mad Max is soon riding to the rescue on White Surrey. But can he pedal fast enough before another girl meets the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place?
The eighteenth in the Peter Maxwell series, after the family sabbatical in LA, shows that the old sleuthing skills are still there with a vengeance and that the Maxwells are one of the most formidable crime-fighting duos in modern crime fiction.
Meirion James Trow is a full-time teacher of history who has been doubling as a crime writer for seventeen years. Originally from Ferndale, Rhondda in South Wales he now lives on the Isle of Wight. His interests include collecting militaria, film, the supernatural and true crime.
Involving. Much Name Dropping, Funny. Silly, sometimes. Characters wonderful.
Love the characters, especially the main ones...love the relationships they have with one another. This one is tough subject wise...murders And attacks on young girls and women for a perpetrator-type we have not read about or seen in media very much this time. Sometimes these folks get away with their heinous deeds just because the people who are around them are not paying attention...and that is why they get away with it so long...or for such a Kong period of time. T?his one is rough to read...but I think it happens more often then any of us realize for many ....we don't want to know...reasons. We all feel so Guilty about these crimes happening we often do not see to it that the children and young people are properly protected... Well written with caring and sensitivity. This author does not preach or blame or criticize ...just explores and explains why abuse can happen and can go way to far. Love the humor in the daily lives of the characters he created, love how they interact b with one another...makes a tough story we need to know about, acknowledge, came pay attention to.. When and where we can. I love these books and hope to finish the series...have read up to book 10 and back from book 22 to book 17...We'll see...Highly recommended...
I am a huge fan of the Mad Max series, and have read them all to date. I have to say this one was a bit of a disappointment. Max's wit and wisdom are to the fore as always, as is his welcome refusal to be politically correct - would that all our children were being educated in Max's style! However, the plot itself is pretty thin and there is never really any doubt who the villain is. The ending is particularly contrived and the murderer's motivation is weak. The suspense and the climax hinge on a string of missed messages and the day is saved by an equally unconvincing coincidence. Trow can do much better than this, let's hope for a return to form in the next one.
The Peter "Mad Max" Maxwell books never fail to delight and this one's no exception. I held back on reading this because MJ Trow hasn't written a Maxwell book for several years but, joy of joys, he's just released another which is already on my shelf and waiting to be read.
Read this for the wonderful characters and the witty prose.
Excellent story with all the usual characters. The Maxwell family is back from the USA. And Jackie is thrown into a case involving murdered 14 year old girls. The book is fast paced. Worth reading.
I've spent all afternoon tossing up between giving this book a 3 or a 4 star rating. Crime Dramas have to be one of my favourite genres and this book slotted right into that genre. At some points the main characters habit of always having to know the latest gossip got to me but it ended up proving quite helpful! The author did well at keeping me guessing on the identity of the murderer but I did miss that "OMG" moment you have when the story takes a big turn you never expected. Overall a great book to pick up and read when you want something easy to read that isn't a soppy romance and packs a bit of a punch!
I enjoyed this. The author actually made me wonder who the perpetrator of the crime was, almost up to the last page. I' d actually rather enjoy working with Peter Maxwell. Though I think he might have a hard time in the current climate.