Stone Dead

DCI Neil Paget #2

by Frank Smith

A corpse is found in the well of a cottage belonging to Peter Foster. Foster fears the body is the ex-husband of his girlfriend. Then his girlfriend mysteriously disappears and the true identity of the corpse adds a strange twist to the convoluted crime, which Paget is called in to investigate. Publishers Weekly calls this novel instantly gripping and wonderfully perplexing. Martin's Press.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction

253 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Frank Allan Smith was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and went to England at the age of six. He was educated there and went to work at the age of 16 in Bletchley Park, the wartime station where enemy communications were being decoded with the aid of the famous Enigma machine (although he had no knowledge of that until many years later). Returning to Canada in 1948, Frank worked for Alberta Government Telephones (now Telus) in Calgary and Edmonton until retiring in 1983.

He began writing in the 1960s. The theme of the first five books, beginning with Corpse in Handcuffs, was espionage in the Cold War years, but when that came to an end he moved on to police procedurals featuring DCI Neil Paget and DS John Tregalles.

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, old-fashioned British police procedural - I enjoyed it tremendously.

[Kirsty Darbyshire]

This is a book I bought just for the setting, a police series set in Shropshire was something I had to try out and the reviews weren't bad either. So I was a bit disappointed at the lack of scenery details, other than the mentions of various small towns we could have been anywhere in rural Emgland. And the back cover thinks it's set in Hertfordshire anyway, so it very well may be set across the county border.

My main problem with this book was that there were too many police people. I never did get the male characters straight or figure out the rank hierarchy. I figured out the female police staff and thought one of them, a forensic technician, was the best drawn character on the investigating side. The miscellany of characters drawn into the investigation were much better drawn and I think it's a pity that the skill that was shown in creating these individuals didn't stretch to what I thought were the rather generic policemen.

For the most part I thought the plot was good and the author dug into the suspects lives, uncovering layer after layer of hidden motives, very realistically. The weak point was a subplot involving one of the policemen. I thought this could have been used to develop the police characters and the fact that one of them was caught up in it should have had a knock on impact to the main investigation.

A short but well formed book but one where many things could have been a little better polished really. I'll probably try another in the series sometime as I think these are marks of a first book rather than a bad writer.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really twisty plot, with lots of suspects with reasonable motives, but it was a bit too tortured for my taste. The language was a bit stilted, but the characters were well drawn. Looks like there are lots more in this series, but I do prefer a more fluid style.

[Tex · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's nothing like a good old English mystery to get me relaxed. This was was billed as a "village mystery", but it was not a cozy type, but more of a twisty-turny type. I liked it.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't realize this series had been around so long..how did I miss it? Now I have to see if I can find the others.