The Spider's Web

Dr. Samantha Ryan Mystery #3

by Nigel McCrery

Dr Sam Ryan is a forensic pathologist who becomes involved with the parents of a teenage boy who was killed in a joy-riding accident. They believe his death was not what it seemed and only Sam believes them. She has to enlist the help of her nephew to track down the boy's killer.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Detective

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Nigel Colin McCrery was an English screenwriter, producer and writer. He was the creator of the long-running crime dramas Silent Witness (1996–present) and New Tricks (2003–2015).

Reviews

[Linda Branham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like Nigel McCrery's Det. Mark Lapsie novels - so decided to read one of his earlier novels - a Dr. Samantha Ryan mystery - my first of this series
Okay - finished it in one day - I like Dr. SAm Ryan too :)
Dr. Ryan is a pathologist who is asked by the family to do a 2nd postmortem on their son. Their son was "reported" to have been killed a car accident- a car that he presumably had stolen - and was supposedly drunk. BUT, the parents said that their son was very anti cars and did not drive ( he went everywhere on a bicycle) - plus he did not drink. Dr. SAm agrees to do the 2nd autopsy and finds evidence that proves to her that the son was murdered. However no one (the police) seems to believe her - and she has to prove it herself.
There are relationships in the story between people that were developed in earlier books that I haven't read - but the book still was good as a stand alone novel
I will have to see if I can track down the other books in the series

[Keri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery was 4 stars, but the main characters was 3 stars. I didn't like Samantha Ryan very much. She tended to use the people around her. Also what was up with her and Tom, then that strange epilogue. Was Tom just a playa or was Sam deluding herself? The interpersonal relationships of the book distracted from the overall book. I wish that McCrery would have just wrote a straight mystery and not tried to include any romance between Sam and anybody else...it didn't work for me in that way.

[Kyle Theobald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezed through this and found it very engrossing. McCrery is good at the grim, gnarly realism of crime fiction. Samantha Ryan, the protagonist who is a pathologist, concludes that a boy killed in a car crash has probably been strangled, goes the police to inform them it is a murder and they are basically like "improbable" isn't enough, unless it is "impossible" the death was accidental, they won't launch a murder inquiry because of pressure from higher ups about budget etc. so Sam has to spend pretty much the first half of the book doing the police's work for them and digging up evidence to convince them. It's a cynical but probably accurate depiction of reality, McCrery is a former police officer so wouldn't surprise me if he's drawing from some of his own experience there.

The only real sticking point is that McCrery clearly isn't, or wasn't at that time, very tech savvy, for instance he uses terms like "web page" and "web site" (sometimes with a space, sometimes without) interchangably to refer to the equivalent of an IP address, and "Net name" (usually capitalised) to refer to chat room usernames. This wouldn't bother me so much except that the internet becomes pretty central to the plot and the killer's MO so it gets a bit distracting. I guess I should maybe give him some slack with it being 1998.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a slow start a pageturner

[Dlora · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Spider's Web was a British version of Kathy Reichs' Bones series, and I didn't quite like it as well. Like Tempe, British Dr. Sam Ryan is a forensic pathologist who is single, sharp tongued, and not so good at relationships a lot of the time. She is convinced to redo her colleague's postmortem on a young teen who got drunk, stole a car, and crashed--an easy explanation of cause of death--but Sam finds that his hyoid bone was crushed, which is evidence of murder not accidental death. She gets on the wrong side of the law and her fellow pathologist with her conclusions, and so she starts her own investigation, which gets her into more trouble. I like the science and enjoyed the plot, but I found that McCrery isn't so good at developing relationships. Some good red herrings in the plot kept me guessing. But I probably won't track down the other books in the series to read.

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the plot of this book, but, as often is the case with male authors, I didn't think the relationship aspect was very well handled. Still the story of boy's dying under mysterious circumstances and view of village life in Britain very well done. (Had seen some of the "Silent Witness" series when living in England.)

[Michelle Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually do not care for British novels, but the protagonist is a forensic pathologist and besides, I can't resist a title like "The Spider's Web." Despite that great title and heroine, this book wasn't that great.

[Sin Tien Tan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is not bad in itself, it has its fair share of thrills and suspense. However, that is severely hampered by the lack of a good editing, the amount of erroneous punctuation and spelling is too damn high.