Murder By Fire

DI Hillary Greene #10

by Faith Martin

David Merchant’s body is found in a bonfire in his back garden. David was a publisher and devout Christian. Who would want to kill this seemingly very decent man?

DI Hillary Greene faces one of her most puzzling cases as she struggles to find anyone with a strong motive to kill the pious publisher.

Then, as Hillary unearths greedy business partners and an estranged son, her focus is diverted when a new team member is targeted by a vicious gang.

Hillary’s under massive pressure and will she finally crack? And if she does, where will she go from here?

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Procedural, Audiobook, Murder Mystery

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

Faith Martin is a pen name of English author Jacquie Walton, who is best known for her popular detective series, starring Detective Inspector Hillary Greene.

As Joyce Cato, she writes more classically-inspired 'cosy' murder mysteries, such as the Monica Noble mystery series.

As Maxine Barry, her latest romance novels are now available from Corazon Books.

As Jessie Daniels, her 'spooky' crime novel, The Lavender Lady Casefile came out in November 2017.

Reviews

[Phrynne]

The tenth book in the D.I.Hillary Greene series which is one I always look forward to reading.

Things are changing within Hillary's team. No one misses Frank Ross who has been moved on at last. His replacement is Mark Chang who has his own issues, and the other two members of the team are preparing to possibly leave for romantic reasons. On top of this the events from a previous book concerning Janine Mallow are threatening to reappear and someone is after Hillary's neck.

The mystery begins with a burnt corpse in a bonfire of books and belongings, and ends with a remarkable twist. Written in Faith Martins' excellent style, I enjoyed this book from start to finish, and am now in a hurry to get to book 11 to see what Hillary is going to do next.

[Brenda]

Murder By Fire is the 10th in the DI Hillary Greene series by author Faith Martin and once again I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hillary is a strong, determined character, always able to crack the case. Her solve rate is phenomenal and her team learned much from her. Now with Mark Chang, the detective replacing Frank Ross, on her team, Hillary could see he was keen, but nervous. And when, in the middle of a case, where a devout Christian was murdered and Hillary was hitting a wall, Chang was targeted by a Chinese gang, Hillary knew she had to put her mind to her colleague. Also with her other detective, Keith Barrington, off with the fairies most days, she wondered if she, as well as her team, was falling apart.

When Hillary had a "moment" at the end of the book - the only thing for me is - read the next book!! Recommended.

[Louise Wilson]

DI Hillary Greene - Book 10.

David Martin's body is found in a bonfire in his garden. David was a publisher and a devout Christian. Who would want to kill this seemingly decent man? DI Hillary Greene faces one of her most puzzling cases as she struggles to find anyone with a strong motive to kill the pious publisher.

This is a gripping whodidit. The twists keep us guessing. There is a lot taking place in this book. I never saw the surprise ending coming. This is quite a good series. I can't wait to read what happens in the next instalment.

I would like to thank Joffe Books and the author Faith MARTIN for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Linda Strong]

4.5 Stars


PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A REVISED EDITION OF A BOOK FIRST PUBLISHED AS “A NARROW POINT OF VIEW.”

In this, the 10th book of the series featuring DI Greene and her team, she's called out to investigate a murder. A not so nice guy has been bludgeoned to death and his body laid on top of a fire started with his large library of books.

She's struggling with this case. David Merchant was a publisher and devout Christian who judged the moral of most people around him. Although the neighbors, co-workers all admit to not liking the man, no one seems to have a real motive to kill him.

With all this playing on her mind, her team is falling apart. One of the team is being targeted by a brutal gang. Another of her team has to decide between being a detective or following his lover to a different country. Her supervisor who has a thing for her has admitted defeat and has asked for a transfer. Hillary isn't quite sure what she thinks of that.

Hillary’s under massive pressure and will she finally crack? And if she does, where will she go from here? She's going to have to make a life-altering decision soon.

This is a well-written novel, as I've come to expect from this author. It's exciting, full of little twists and turns that keep the reader guessing... and a surprise ending that you never see coming. This has become a favorite series for me. I highly recommend starting at the very beginning. Hillary Greene is an exceptional character and it's been a fun adventure seeing her grown and mature.

Many thanks to the author / Joffe Books / Netgalley for the advance digital copy of this crime fiction. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

[Cheryl (Super Slump)]

Not nearly as good as previous novels.
Rating only.

[Paul]

I read this novel published under its name, "Murder by Fire" (first published as "A Narrow Point of View"). I really enjoy the Hillary Greene series—I've given all previous books 4 or 5 stars. Books 7, 8, and 9 in this series were perhaps the strongest; I found them wonderful. But this was a jarring departure—the detectives (and the narrator) reveal a pretty ugly prejudice against a certain class of people (to reveal it would be a spoiler), and it left a very bad taste in my mouth. It's poorly executed, too; so much that it doesn't seem real. Even if the DI had this prejudice, there would certainly be members of her team that wouldn't, and the person against whom the prejudice is raised is barely more than a caricature and doesn't object to the prejudice in any sort of realistic way. (The murder itself is shown, a first in the series, and it's clear that the victim would never talk to the killer in that way; it's a device simplty to throw readers off the scent.) The subplots are somewhat interesting, although the issue in DC Barrington's personal life seems forced. By far the weakest Hillary Greene novel yet—I think the narrator's "narrow point of view" is at issue far more than the murder victim's.

[Julia Buckley]

I find these books compulsively readable. I only wish that Hillary Greene had more dimensions and that we could get a sense of her personal life. Yes, her job is her main priority, but the one meager love affair the author allowed her was not at all satisfying and made her seem mean. It would be nice to know more about her motivations.
Otherwise, a very fun series.

[Elaine Tomasso]

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of Murder by Fire, the tenth police procedural to feature DI Hillary Greene of Thames Valley Police.

David Merchant, a religious author and publisher, is murdered in his home then burned along with his most treasured possessions on a bonfire in his garden. Due to his rigid morals and habit of voicing them he was not a popular figure but even so Hillary and the team have a hard job uncovering the perpetrator.

I thoroughly enjoyed Murder by Fire. Like all the novels in the series it is an undemanding but gripping read as the reader tries to work out whodunnit. Over the course of the series I have been able to guess a fair few of the killers but this one had me beat and I loved the clever, surprising solution when it came. The novel had me gripped from start to finish as I followed all the twists.

The novel is not only about the murder enquiry but follows the lives of the detectives as well and as Ms Martin is not content to rest on her laurels with good characterisation she constantly moves them forward, sometimes in surprising ways. I find their lives and the twists and turns in them as compulsive as the main plot. Hillary is still dealing with the aftermath of Mel Mallow's death and his wife Janine's subsequent actions. It causes her to take a long, hard look at herself. In the meantime new recruit, Mark Chang, is seen by a new gang as an opportunity and they bring pressure to bear on him. There are changes afoot for the other team members as well. It's all very intriguing.

Murder by Fire is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

[Kathy]

Yet another enjoyable read in this series as it again depends on the ability of a gifted investigator to untangle events that led to the burning of books plus body of religious yet judgmental man. The police dynamics add to the intrigue as some try to even old scores and others must resign themselves to being rejected as possible love interests. Changes in personnel bring new blood and prepare the way for others to exit. Since it becomes clear that Hillary Greene has come to the end of her career and prepares to leave, one must immediately start the following book in the series.

[Ira Therebel]

The main story is absolutely great. Which is why I am so disappointed that there wasn't much of it and it was overshadowed by the side stories I really had little interest in. One could do so much more with the main mystery and make it more exciting.

I loved the ending. But the book isn't for nasty leftists. Please stay away from it both for your own good and not to ruin it with your whiny reviews. the murder in this book wasn't portrayed like a victim instead of the person that was killed which in our times really will upset the woke crowd. My spoiler wasn't so much of a spoiler but could give some clues so I rather hid it.

[Chautona Havig]

Okay, I feel like an idiot. I should have called it. It was so obvious! EXCELLENT distractions, Ms. Martin!

I'm also excited (should I say chuffed?) to see that this isn't the last one like I assumed!

[Janice]

I was so intrigued by the ending of this novel that I went straight onto the next in the series and forgot to add my review of this one ! Only later did I realise that I had appeared to miss out the tenth in the series. Another puzzling case with a strange solution which I would never have guessed. Lots of threads again both in solving the murder and in the police team's relationships. It is so easy to get straight into the story and to keep on reading.

[Donna Maguire]

https://donnasbookblog.wordpress.com/...

Anyone who follows my blog will know that I am a massive fan of Faith Martin's books and I eagerly look out for her next release.

I really enjoyed the plot for this one and it flowed on really well from the previous book. This book is fine as a stand alone as the author covers the back stories but if you do want to read the whole series you need to do it in the order they have been released or you will get spoilers as the books run tightly in sequence.

I was totally engrossed in this one and loved it. The writing style was great and I loved the pace. 5 stars from me - Another excellent addition to the DI Hillary Greene series!!

[Heather]

This was an incredibly disappointing read in multiple ways. First and most importantly, there are very overt and repeated transphobic perspectives. I had hoped that at the end, Hilary would show compassion and understanding (not endorsing murder but recognizing the situation the character was in) toward the trans character. Instead, she repeatedly misgendered, dead-named, and used terminology outdated even in 2010 when this was first published. The trans character was a caricature based on ridiculous stereotypes.

Second, the mystery was lazy, giving you the answer at the beginning and proving the book to simply be a vehicle for moving character arcs forward (which was mostly fine, although the partner of the one gay character is based on cliches about gay men), and for her transphobic viewpoints.

I had been enjoying this series as solid if nothing groundbreaking, but this one has left such a bad taste in my mouth that there's no way I can continue it.

[Tony Hisgett]

There was certainly a lot going on in this book, maybe a bit too much. I presume the author is trying to give the story more breadth with so many subplots focused on her colleagues, but after a while I find this just takes away from Hilary’s story and she is why I read these books. I should add that I’m all for knowing about the rest of the team, it’s just that for at least half of the book I found the lack of Hilary in it a bit frustrating.
Things improved in the second half and Hilary became more involved. I must admit I also worked out what was going to be the twist in the plot and this actually made the investigation more interesting.
I enjoyed the second half of the book, until the last page. I would have given the first half two stars, the second half, without the last page, five stars.

[Cindy]

The original title of this book, A Narrow Point of View, is an apt description of the victim in this murder mystery. It also describes some of Hillary's uncompromising views. For a book published in 2010, it reads as homophobic. Worse was its depiction of the transitioning character Victor/Vikkie. It was clear to me that this was the same person from the first time we met them. In other words, the mystery was not much of a mystery; Hillary was not at all sympathetic to how Victor/Vikkie was treated by their father in terms of motive; the burning of the body by a different person seemed rather odd yet was seemingly forgiven by Hillary?

The series story arcs moved forward quite a bit (unlike Martha Grimes' detective series!), which would be, in my opinion, the only reason to read this one.

[Zoe Miles]

My only issue with this book is the way the trans character was portrayed... It irked me that the author changed their pronouns once they were revealed to have previously been a male. Referring to them as 'he' and using their birth name when throughout the whole book they'd been a 'she'. I know it comments on how its discussed in the police, but it would have been nice for one of the characters to correct someone else on the pronouns or something just to give a little nod that it's widely accepted in today's day and age even though the trans character's father did not accept them. In the end it portrayed the trans character as completely unstable because they 'just wanted to have the gender affirming treatment and would stop at nothing to get it' when so clearly at the beginning the murder was done in pure rage at not being accepted, not because they wanted money for treatments!

[Ann]

Enjoyed this book but wouldn't call it gripping

[Shelley Ann]

The transphobia in this book is so bad that I can't bring myself to finish the series, even though I was quite enjoying it.

[Amanda]

This is the tenth book in the bestselling series featuring DI Hilary Greene and written by Faith Martin. It’s also the tenth book that I have read and the tenth book that I have absolutely and totally loved, but more about that in a bit.
DI Hilary Greene is a dedicated police women, who has a lot of experience. She was married to Ronnie Greene, who was a bent policeman and who died not long after he was found out. She has had something of a love life but nothing serious and nothing lasting any length of time. She still attracts the men and her superior has a thing for her, but she doesn’t want to know. At least there is one more positive thing for Hilary in this book because she has finally managed to get shot of DS Frank Ross, who was a sexist, racist, homophobic waste of space, who was good friends with Hilary’s late husband. DI Greene is still mourning the loss of her close friend DCI Philip ‘Mellow’ Mallow, who was murdered in a previous book. Mellow was married to somebody who used to work in Hilary’s team and who has just had a baby. I got the sense that Hilary was getting tired of working in the police and I thought that she was in desperate need of a break. ‘Murder By Fire’ also sees us learning more about Hilary’s history and what happened in her past. The murder victim in this case is called David Merchant and he was a publisher as well as being a devout Methodist. However ,the more I learnt about his behaviour and about him, the more I could understand why somebody had bumped him off. He goes about his business but doesn’t hesitate to complain about anything and everything and enjoys rubbing people up the wrong way. Thank goodness I didn’t have to live next to him. Who murdered David Merchant and what was their motivation? Will Hilary manage to apprehend the murderer? What does the future hold for DI Hilary Greene? Well for the answers to those questions and more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
Whenever I pick up a book written by Faith Martin, I just know that I am going to be in for one heck of a rollercoaster read. That was definitely the case for me with ‘Murder By Fire’. The story hits the ground running and maintains the pace throughout. The writing style is such that you can’t fail to be drawn into the story and before you know it you are totally immersed in the investigation. I found that I just had to keep on reading to find out how the investigation was going to conclude and to see what was going to happen to Hilary. The characters are so well described that you could almost believe that they were real. I found that I began to really care about Hilary and I felt like she was a friend, so of course I felt very defensive of her and at times I wanted to jump inside the pages to sort out whoever was upsetting her. ‘Murder By Fire’ is one of those books that took me through a whole wealth of emotions and by the time I finished the book I really felt as though I had been through the emotional wringer. ‘Murder By Fire’ was certainly a page turner for me and one of those books that is impossible to put down. I didn’t realise how quickly I was advancing through the book until I looked up and realised that I had read 40% of the book. I had mixed feelings about finishing the book because on the one hand I was pleased to discover who the murderer was and how the investigation concluded but on the other hand, I was disappointed to finish because I was enjoying the story, the writing style and the characters so much that I just wanted the book to continue.
I absolutely loved reading ‘Murder By Fire’ and I can’t wait to read what comes next from Faith Martin. Faith Martin has to be one of my favourite and must read authors. I would wholeheartedly recommend this author and the series featuring DI Hilary Greene to anybody and everybody. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a well deserved 5* out of 5*.

[Books 'n' All Promotions]

This is book 10 in the 'Murder' series. It would be helpful to read these in sequence as this book discusses the aftermath of Book 9 but it should work as stand alone.

A bible pushing publisher is found burning on a bonfire of his own books in his own back garden and Hillary is on the case. Not many clues and although the man was not liked by many there are not many suspects. The case becomes very tangled as the team try to follow the few leads they have.

Add a new team member being bullied into the mix along with the repercussions from book 9 and Hillary is struggling to cope with all the issues being piled upon her. Keith Barrington also has his problems and with Danvers keeping his distance it seems everything is falling apart.

However, first job is to catch the murderer so onwards and upwards …..

Very believable, flawed characters that develop very well over the course of the book with enough twists and turns to ensure the reader keeps turning page after page…

Another brilliant addition to the series with an absolute shocker of an ending,

[Ted Tayler]

"A tangled web"

The Hillary Greene novels never disappoint. The characters outside the police station, whether criminals or law-abiding citizens are always convincing. One of the highlights for me is Faith Martin's acutely accurate observation of people and places that surround her.
We've grown accustomed to the various mix of police personnel with whom she shares her quest to solve yet another murder mystery. Different players move in and out of focus, some are either killed off or they move on to pastures new. That's life.
In this tale, many of the familiar elements were on show. A new arrival, DC Chang was introduced with a story thread that involved Chinese thugs. Just for once, this felt less convincing than in previous books in the series. As for the murderer, well I won't spoil the fun, but it wasn't the hardest matter to work out given the character of the victim.
Every long-running series has a hiccup. Not quite 5* this time, but still a must-read for Hillary Greene fans.

[Cherry London]

Hillary and her team with new inclusion are at it again, once more her unique style of crime solving embraces you, she is astute and steadfast, with the firm belief that her job comes first and it must be done without exception. In this latest she had some personal truths to look at and come to terms with, but first getting the job done is first on the agenda, and this one was a doozy, a psychotic killer on the loose and the Chinese mafia muscling in on one of her men, they soon learned the hard way why she is the best in her field.

[Joanna Larum]

This is the tenth book in the Hillary Greene series and, although it's possible to read it as a standalone, the reader would then miss so many details of Hillary's life and the people who work with her, that I recommend reading the others first.
Having read the others, I now look on Hillary as a real person and I feel her highs and her lows. I can't wait for the next one to come out because she has reached a turning point in her life and I need to know how she copes with all that has happened to her. In this novel, she is not working to her own high standards and she knows this and worries what turn she should take next.
The story itself is so well-written. I can see David Merchant, the killer's victim, and I can hear his sanctimonious statements as he pontificates at all who come across him. I'm not surprised he ended up dead, although his manner of dying isn't one I would recommend. Hillary's team members are also at turning-points in their lives with one being targeted by a criminal gang, one having to decide if he should give up policing to follow his lover and one deciding if she should marry her titled swain. I love Faith's characters and her plots. Together, they make an unputdownable read which I would recommend to all. Five stars aren't enough.

[David Campton]

Another holiday jaunt to Kidlington join DI Hillary Greene and her team tackle another case, with the repercussions if the previous 2 episodes still rumbling on. Personally I thought that this case was more obvious than most, and not everything is resolved by the end, but it was a diverting read.

[Laurie]

This author really keeps you reading with a cliffhanger at the end of each book. This is a great series.

[Linden]

A murder victim has been found in a bonfire in his yard. Could his estranged son or business partner be responsible? There’s a lot more personal drama in this book than earlier ones: Hillary and Vane, Barrington and his boyfriend, Chang and gangs. And the murderer’s identity is unexpected.

[Sheila Howes]

Another cosy mystery from Faith Martin. This time the team are investigating a man who has been cremated on a bonfire. This can be read as a standalone.

[Jacqueline Murphy]

Really enjoyed this book, looks like I'll have to go back to the beginning of the DI Hillary Greene saga cos I am hooked.

[Greta Halliday]

Another exciting adventure in the career of DI Hillary Greene. There are the usual twists and turns, mystery and intrigue that we have come to expect from this fantastic author. A must read for all crime fans. Thanks to Joffe Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book.