The Killings on Jubilee Terrace

Charlie Peace #10

by Robert Barnard

Vernon Watts may have been beloved by the millions of faithful viewers of the long-running soap opera "Jubilee Terrace" but his fellow cast members knew him for what he was -- an egotistical former music-hall performer whose untimely death in a pedestrian accident was not something to be universally regretted. Sadly, though, director Reggie Friedman soon fills the supposed void by asking Hamish Fawley, an equally unpleasant former member of the "Jubilee Terrace" troupe, to rejoin the soap. Hamish was never much liked. Now he's more obnoxious than ever.

The mood on the set is not exactly serene, a situation made worse when the police receive an anonymous letter suggesting that Vernon Watts's "accident" may in fact have been murder. Did one of his fellow actors push Vernon into the oncoming traffic?

Detective Inspector Charlie Peace faces tough challenges as he probes the make-believe world of skilled thespians to find a possible killer. With a cast of suspects who are trained to emote on cue, Charlie will need all of his policeman's instincts if he's to avert further tragedy.

Writing with his usual acerbic wit and penetrating insight into human foibles, acclaimed master of mystery Robert Barnard gives us another winning entry in his magnificent body of work.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature, Fiction, Crime

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Aka Bernard Bastable.

Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.

Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.

Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.

Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.

Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.

Barnard lived with his wife Louise in Yorkshire.

Series:
* Perry Trethowan
* Charlie Peace

Reviews

[Rog Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit disappointing as usually I like Barnard's books. I felt it was a bit rushed and certainly had not been proof read. For example a minor character starts off as a uniformed police constable then a few pages later Barnard refers to him as a sergeant then a few pages later he has become a Detective Constable! Having said that I did not figure out who the murderer was even though with hindsight there were clues had I but registered them.

[Marfita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Egos run wild in a soap opera filmed in Leeds. Inspector Charlie Peace goes to the production company prompted by an anonymous letter to investigate the seemingly ordinary accidental, if tragic, death of a cast member. Then everything goes pear-shaped.
I thought the unpleasant characters just a bit two-dimensional. They can't be normal (as opposed to psychopaths). Bet, wife of one of the actors and occasional character on the soap opera herself, is so unabashedly horrid I can't believe her. At least when talking to the police she could have tried to exculpate herself other than it being just the way she was. Total slut, unbendingly unvirtuous wife, and uncaring mum. Her character is echoed by two younger women as well. It's just that they weren't married or had any children yet.
Maybe I'm just too naive.
The ending, though, brought a tiny tear to my eye.

[Rachael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Soap operas are a staple of British television. We're also rather partial to detective stories. This book combines the two for a bland and boring mystery that you definitely can't class as a thriller. I got the impression the author knew enough of pop culture related to both topics but did not know much about what goes on with them behind the scenes. It was confusing to keep track especially when switching between character and actor names that could refer to the same person and switching perspectives. Everyone was so one dimensional too. Even the crime solving was dull to read about. Some language used is quite outdated, borderline offensive - when checking, I was surprised it was first published in 2009 because it felt older than that.

[Terry Steinborn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily the most disappointing of the Charlie Peace books. Two members of the cast of a successful British TV soap opera are murdered in an arson fire. Unfortunately, the characters in this book all have two personas - the "real life" one and the one created for the soap opera. It is extremely difficult to keep all these personas and their inter-relationships separate and by the time I had read 2/3 of the book I really didn't care and was quite tired of it all, so I just gave up. Certainly I have many more interesting and entertaining books to read to waste any more time on this one. Hopefully Barnard will return to form on other of his many books.

[John Hardy · Rating 1 out of 5]

DI Charlie Peace #8. I have read two others, one a 3-star, one a 4-star. This one was simply awful. I don't think a single character lifted itself off the page for me. All I could get in general is that, in the TV industry, sex sells - and buys.
A character starts as a Superintendent and later is referred to as a DCI - careless editing.
Rating 1.0

[Janna MacLean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite a confusing read to keep track of the 10+ characters, each with 2 names. I found the book unenjoyable for the first half, but started to get into it near the end. The ending is a clever twist that you probably wouldn’t expect until the last chapter.

[J.C. Ferguson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't keep reading this one. I guess it was meant to be humorous, but the very shallow characters didn't make me laugh. I quit when the police arrived on the soap opera set.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book - too many characters (with their "real" name + their "soap opera" name) so you are constantly wading through who is who. I gave up.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guessed the ending almost immediately, but Barnard's tricky exposition had me second-guessing my conclusion several times over the course of the book.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Ordinary people leading ordinary lives, which sometimes [...] get caught up in extraordinary events."

This definition of a TV soap comes from Robert Barnard's The Killings on Jubilee Terrace (2009), a mystery novel whose plot is set among the cast, directors, and scriptwriters of a fictional soap opera on British TV, called Jubilee Terrace, a not-so-subtle allusion to the long-lived Coronation Street series. The Killings is not a good book and, in fact, I was more than once about to toss it when struggling through the first 20 or so pages (and I am not a tosser: in my recent memory only two books out of well over a thousand infuriated me enough not to finish reading). The beginning of the novel takes a lot of goodwill to get through: the author introduces all 17 characters in short, intermingled snippets of prose and dialogue. Eventually the plot emerges, but it is quite boring until almost the end, when it momentarily picks up, only to get tangled in preposterous twists at the very end.

DI Charlie Peace from the Leeds CID appears at about one fifth of the novel: he is investigating an anonymous letter regarding the death of one of the actors in the show. The letter implies that the death that had been thought accidental might have been a murder. The plural in the title of the novel suggests further killings and indeed, they are delivered as promised.

The psychology is infantile and cartoonish: not a single character feels like a real person; they all are tired clichés. Mr. Barnard attempts to add a value to the novel by exploring the phenomenon of soap actors confusing their own lives with those of the characters they play but he is unconvincing in trying to portray the merging of their real personae with the TV ones. The effect is ludicrous: while the author lampoons the implausibility of the show's plot he manages to get even more implausible in his own plot. If he planned it this way, I am too obtuse to enjoy his subtle joke.

Close to the end of the novel, one can find two interesting passages: one is just a few sentences long and concerns the Romanian-born wife of one of the main characters. This is the only fragment of the novel that I have found realistic. The other interesting passage refers to a rather rare sexual deviation, but - although captivating - the theme does not match at all the light, chatty tone of the novel. About a page worth of interesting material in a 250-page novel is a rather low yield.

A disclaimer is needed: I am enormously biased against TV programs, in particular against TV shows, and in most particularly particular against soap operas. Only reality shows are farther from reality than soaps.

One and a quarter stars.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two awful actors die in quick succession on the TV soap "Jubilee Terrace". The actors, that is, not the characters. Both of them actively tried to make life horrible for their fellow cast members. Also, it looks like an awful actress was meant to die too, in the arson fire. We're not sure, because the actress who did die looked like another awful actress in the making. Someone might have been cleaning house, to make life more pleasant for the cast who were left. Or there might have been specific motives, such as blackmail or terrorization.

I liked this mystery because I like cozies. Inspector Peace and his family make a good background, and so do the day-to-day maneuverings of plotting a soap. Inspector Peace, with a new son, is sympathetically interested in the several fathers in the case.

Fortunately the publishers have provided us with a list of the cast and the characters they play. This helps a lot, because the narrative reflects the identity confusion when actors play the same character for years running, by sometimes calling the person by his/her real name and sometimes by the character name. The author did this to remind us that we can't be sure what some of the people are really capable of.

[Gowri N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am usually a fan of Robert Barnard, but this one felt overcomplicated. It had too many characters and the characters they play on screen, with the author really blurring the lines between the two. This made it hard to keep track of who hates/likes/is married to whom. The ending was fine but I'd lost most of my interest by then.

[Candy Wood]

Seems as though I must have read other Robert Barnard mysteries featuring DI Charlie Peace, but I don't remember them and would expect to if this one is typical. Jubilee Terrace is a TV soap, reminiscent of EastEnders or Coronation Street but set in Leeds. The police don't get involved until quite a way in, and keeping the large cast and their onscreen personae straight was a bit tricky for bedtime reading. But I'd still recommend it to anyone who likes British police procedurals, or who is interested in what goes on behind the scenes of a TV soap. Simon Brett used to do this sort of thing from the actors' perspective--Barnard's approach is more traditional, switching from the actors' viewpoints to a firm emphasis on law and order. At the same time, it's up to date with a diverse police presence, mobile phones, and suggestions of an international sex trade, not to mention a gay character who is not played by the cast's gay actor.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I've read many of Robert Barnard's excellent mysteries, this is the first of his Charlie Peace series I've sampled. I hadn't even realized Peace was Black! In this book, an anonymous letter sends him to make inquiries about whether the death of a TV soap opera star was really an accident. A lot of the book is spent setting up the various characters in the TV show (it's one of those British evening soaps like EastEnders or The Archers) and their relations with each other and their families; this part is just as much fun to read as the actual "mystery" segments, which really begin when another of the soap's characters is killed and the suspects are legion. I saw the ending coming from a fair ways away, but in this case, getting there was more than half the fun. Strongly recommended.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting behind-the-scenes look at the making of a long running soap opera, with the expected rivalries and backbiting among the cast. They are actors, after all, but some, like Hamish Fawley, plays the part of himself as an especially hateful and condescending person. No surprise when he is murdered, although the method used takes another life as well. Charlie Peace must observe the goings-on during and after filming, and can't be everywhere at once, so it is fortunate that PC Hargreaves (in plainclothes) is available. With his keen sense of hearing and his ability to tie things together, he turns out to be an asset in the solving of the murder.

3/25: Charlie has an uncanny knack for knowing when someone is lying, and it comes in handy with such a large cast of characters. I enjoyed this just as much the second time.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh-out-loud funny, as I rightfully expect Barnard to be. (I also expect it of Pratchett, who didn't come through much on the book I read immediately after this one, Unseen Academicals.) Another similarity with Pratchett is the way he takes on a particular area of endeavor, and this one, soap operas, is a winner. The mystery is, as often the case with Barnard, close enough to a Christielike whodunnit (80%?) to be disappointing in its failure to come the last 20% of the way. You gotta put the red herring closer to the middle if you want the final twist to feel twisty. Still, fun and very well-written, as usual.

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another short book by Barnard starring Charlie Peace as the investigating officer. This time a member of the cast of Jubilee Terrace a television soap similar to Coronation Street, is murdered along with a female bit player. The interesting facet of this book is the description of relationships of the long-term cast members whose real lives are intertwined with the parts they play. There is not much of a mystery nor much page time given to Charlie Peace......but it is a quick read and is typical Barnard.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hamish Fawley is the least-liked actor ever to appear on the long-running soap opera "Jubilee Terrace"--at least among the other actors. When he's brought back on a short-term contract, he does his best to insult and upset all of the cast members. But when he and another person are brutally murdered, Leeds Detective Inspector Charlie Peace is hard-put to sort out the actors, who tend to confuse themselves and the others with the roles they play on the show.

[Kay Robart · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novel has many characters, and they are so one-dimensional that I found it difficult to keep them straight, especially as most of them are called by two names, their character’s name and their own. I found The Killings on Jubilee Terrace only mildly interesting, even though it has a difficult solution.

See my complete review here:

http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/t...

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

We have two sets of characters here, the real ones and the characters they play on the soap opera. As one can imagine this causes confusion and slow going in the beginning. They are also some of the most unlikable people in mystery fiction. However the suspense is good and the ending satisfying.

[Sarah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it, he did delightful characters as always. In fact, we spent so much time with the cast I would have liked to spend a little bit more time with the main character and his family. It was just a short read, though; so it wasn't like there was a lot of room to spend with all the characters.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amusing procedural from Barnard, starring Inspector Charlie Peace, who is investigating a thoroughly nasty murder among the cast members of a British soap opera.

Great characters, terrific snarky dialogue and lots of snippy asides about puerile television.

Read this in two sittings.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another good Charlie Peace mystery. The characters are all actors on a soap opera. There is an accidental death, then more deaths that are definitely not accidental. Charlie investigates and the fun begins. This is one police detective with a slightly jaded outlook.

[Trawets · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the characters in this who-dunnit by Robert Barnard are cast members of a TV soap-opera set in Leeds.
The killer, revealed in the last few pages, came as a surprise, but there was little other exciement.

[Laurie (Kwiltreader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little confusing at first because of the cast of characters...or I should say casts of characters...of the novel and of the soap opera. But after that, an enjoyable read, especially behind the scenes soap opera dirt. Will read more.

[Jamie]

5-5

[Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Difficult to keep track of who was who because each person is two...a 'real' person and a soap opera person....confusing...

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Latest by my favorite author. A British soap opera is rocked by the death of a member of the cast.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good British mystery by Barnard. It involves the actors in a popular soap opera. As in one of the previous books I read by the author, there is a surprise ending.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

just ok