Sleeping Pretty

DCI David Fyfe #2

by William Paul

A pretty young fortune-teller lies cold and dead on a rock in the middle of a Scottish loch, having foretold her fate in a magazine article. An older man besotted with her hangs from a rope in a nearby cottage. His widow falls into the arms of the dead woman's father, an undertaker who touches cold flesh and changes the features of a corpse. The editor of the magazine, who is the brother of the clairvoyant's lover, embarks on a vodka bender. The dead woman's estranged husband is caught 'entertaining' when the Edinburgh police come to call. With agile dialogue, Paul unravels these tangled relationships in less than 200 pages, in the latest case for less than wholly moral Edinburgh DCI David Fyfe (Sleeping Dogs), who works here with the short-skirted, sexually demanding Moya McBain. Unfortunately, there's little room left for local color, or for a credible plot. This one starts with a half-boiled red herring and then jumps towards a conclusion that blurs into a stream of ailing bodies being rushed to the infirmary, where the bewildered Fyfe, with two black eyes, tries to keep a head and body count.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

188 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Born and brought up in the east of Scotland, William Paul is a former journalist who now earns a living in digital communications but reverts to old-fashioned reporting most weekends by covering rugby matches in both print and digital format.

He's been writing since an early age - somewhere in the attic is a picture of a fresh-faced youth with his first royalty cheque - and sees no reason to stop now.

He got married along the way, has two sons and grandson Aidan to cope with.

His ideas for books come at him from all angles and sometimes he finds it difficult to get all that stuff down on the page before it fades, morphs into something entirely different or simply vanishes from his unreliable memory. Wherever and however ideas end up - on the page or in the bin - they just keep coming.

.

Reviews

[Denise Zendel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edinburgh’s Detective Chief Inspector David Fyfe is a brilliant, middle-aged police detective with a fondness for the easy way out. “Not a soul suspected that he, a respected detective chief inspector of police, was a common thief. His past record made interesting reading. But what worried Fyfe most was that it didn’t worry him at all.” He’s still tied to the Fraud Squad, cut off from major cases because of that lax attitude toward policing. A Superintendent from Inverness taps him to work on a “difficult case” murder in the Scottish Highlands being overseen by a young, female officer who the powers that be think may not be up to the challenge. Due to a surplus of false leads and mushrooming victims, the investigation gets more and more dangerous.

Minuses: It took the author nine chapters to bring Fyfe into the story, almost losing me, but I was on the elliptical at the gym and didn’t want to pick a new book. Plus, I really liked Fyfe from the first book and I kind of wanted to see how this story went.

Pluses: The relationship between Fyfe and the DI was interesting, with some long term potential, if he can just figure out what to do with his ex-wife, whom he is back in a relationship with. His dogs (a mother/daughter Black Lab duo) are back on the investigative trail with him. The writing is tight, the dialogue snappy, and the story held my interest all the way through (at least from the point where Fyfe joined the plot. And yes I know the book needed those eight chapters to bring the story along, but I would have structured it differently).

I do plan to read book three in the series (I purchased the Complete DCI Fyfe Mysteries Books 1- 5) and then decide about continuing after that. I’m having trouble reconciling my fondness for flawed characters with Fyfe’s getting so much enjoyment out of his bad acts. But there’s just something bout him that makes me want to know more.

[Andrea Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick fun read. Getting used to this authors style and his characters in this 2nd book. David Fyfe has the means to retire but is hanging on to his resignation letter for now. He's called upon to be out of Edinburgh to oversee a colleague dealing with a murder. On arrival, he is informed that the case is solved after a prompt confession. When he hears the name of the confessor, it seems the case is not so open and shut.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

DCI Fyfe, always looking for the quiet life is happy to leave Edinburgh to head north to Loch Maree to oversee a possible murder/suicide investigation run by DI Moya McBain. Unfortunately it is not as straightforward as he hopes.
An entertaining crime story

[Alan Main · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gets better and better

[Robert M. Galbraith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun read that made me chuckle and kept me guessing. I am going to get the first book.

[David Stimpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

2nd Book and really not convinced. Simple story that seems to like the characters thinking about each other than getting on with solving the crime .I will Finnish My interest in this series now

[Julie Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ok story… I just don’t like cheats!