Payback

Thames Valley Mystery #21

by Clare Curzon

New York:: St Martin's Minotaur, , (2008). Very good in a near fine dustjacket (lower corner of several pages creased).. First US printing. A mystery featuring Superintendant Mike Yeadings of the Thames Valley Serious Crimes Squad. 315 pp.

Genres: Mystery

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Eileen-Marie Duell Buchanan (1922-2010) was a British author who specialized in writing literature belonging to the mystery, suspense, or detective genre. She wrote under a number of pseudonyms, including Marie Buchanan, Marie Duell, Clare Curzon and Rhona Petrie. She studied French and psychology at King's College in London.

Reviews

[Catherine Woodman]

I really like this series, but this one had a few too many twists in the plot for my taste. One 1/2 brother (Sandy) is targeted for a hit-and-run but the other 1/2 brother (Warren) gets mistaken for him. Sandy is the older, illegitimate, less successful brother, and he decides to take on the persona of the sibling who is in the hospital in order to hide. And gets entangled into a mess that Warren is a part of. He gets discovered by Warren's friend, Fiona.....who actually falls for Sandy, continues to aid and abet his deceptions, and has a secret of her own...and another sister/sister disappearance gets underway...when the review talks about a web of deception they omit the fact that a number of them share genes. I found the book a little disjointed as well, although that might just be my reading of it. I would read another in the series (not like the Stephanie Plum series, which I have seriously and sadly given up), but not highly recommended--if you haven't read another one of this series I would start there.

[Mascanlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a new series to me. I usually love British procedural but this one I just plowed my way thorough in determination to finish. Don't know if it was the plot, the police characters or the characters in this volume. Not a bad book but it just didn't grab me and hold my interest. So now I have to decide if I want to search out another book in the series and give Superintendent Yeadings and his team another chance.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm looking for a new mystery series but this won't be it. It wasn't badly written but was too breezy and superficial for me.