Dead on Arrival

Ackroyd and Thackeray #6

by Patricia Hall

Witness to a brutal murder in London's Docklands, Laura becomes entangled in the poverty and racism of the city's underbelly and goes face-to-face with those interested in hiding the reasons behind this bloody crime.

Genres: British Literature, Mystery

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Patricia Hall is the pen-name of journalist Maureen O'Connor. She was born and brought up in West Yorkshire, which is where she has chosen to set her acclaimed series of novels featuring reporter Laura Ackroyd and DCI Michael Thackeray. She is married, with two grown-up sons, and now lives in Oxford.

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't run across many people who have read Ms. Hall's books and that's too bad. This author writes a very good "British" police procedural while being topical. In this, the seventh Thackeray/Ackroyd/Mower mystery, DCI Michael Thackeray and Detective Sergeant Kevin Mower deal first with the disappearance of a young female student and then the murder of a successful businessman - both Muslim - in Bradfield. Laura Thackeray, ace reporter, witnesses the brutal beating to death of a Somali youth in the London subway by skinheads. The author treads her way through police apathy/racism, the "political correctness" of the political community in dealing with the solving of these crimes and the anger/fear within the immigrant community resulting from these crimes, extremely well .... all while maintaining the threads of the mystery in an engaging manner.

Now here's the but - character development. Initially in this series Thackeray,(dark past, brooding, man of few words), and Mower, (shallow womanizer), had the potential to become extremely predictable, one dimensional characters. Not so. Interestingly, and ironically perhaps, considering the author's background, Laura Ackroyd is the one who seems out of place/left behind as this series progresses - we spend a lot of time reading about her "outfits", shopping sprees, nail-polish selection, hair-dos, etc. - as well as her needing to be rescued on a fairly regular basis much like a B-movie actress. In a sense Laura has become extraneous or even a hindrance to the plot - hence the two star rating.

[Arlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laura Ackroyd has gone to London to clear her mind of her boyfriend and focus on her work. But -- As she gets off the train on her way to her friend's flat, she witnesses a murder of a young Somali boy. She gets caught up in the story and as she investigates is warned off by the police and frozen out by the immigrant community.
Meanwhile, back in Bradfield, her boyfriend, DCI Thackeray, is caught up in two other cases involving immigrants. One is a girl who has gone missing and the other involves the murder of a prominent Pakistani man.
A good read.

[Gary Van Cott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The author ramps up the tension in this book. I am getting a bit tired of the damsel in distress plot which she has been using. I was also disappointed in how she handled some of the characters.

[Linda Underwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

English murder mystery. Insp. Thackery and Journalist Ackroyd team together to solve a murder in the muslim community. Good.