A Fatal Attachment (Charlie Peace Series #2)

by Robert Barnard

Overview

A celebrity scholar in a small village tears her nephews from their immediate family and raises them in an atmosphere of cruelty. As old Lydia Perceval plans to destroy yet another group of impressionable young children’s love for their parents, the list of those who would have her die grows longer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476737294
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	04/09/2013
Series:	Charlie Peace Series , #2
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	325,406
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Robert Barnard (1936-2013) was awarded the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Nero Wolfe Award, as well as the Agatha and Macavity awards. An eight-time Edgar nominee, he was a member of Britain's distinguished Detection Club, and, in May 2003, he received the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement in mystery writing. 

Editorial Reviews

A veteran crime writer with seven Edgar nominations, Barnard ( A Scandal in Belgravia ) here crafts another gem. Supt. Mike Oddie and Det. Charlie Peace of the West Yorkshire Police are in the village of Bly investigating the strangling of Lydia Perceval, 50ish author of bestselling ``shapely, aesthetically satisfying'' biographies. A cold manipulator, Lydia had alienated her nephews Gavin and Maurice from their parents, married the brother of the man she loved (and ended the marriage when her husband didn't measure up to her high standards) and had lately cultivated the two teenage sons of a sick mother and workaholic father. She'd even decided to leave the new boys some money before she was murdered. Oddie and Peace must work through the stories of the locals (a spooning couple see a bearded stranger near Lydia's house) and Lydia's kin (the ex-husband newly moved to a nearby farm; her sister Thea, still devastated by Gavin's death in the Falklands war) to trace the murderer. The book's pleasure comes from Barnard's easy use of police procedures, his subtle characterization and his eye for village color. Lydia is a delicious monster, and the ambiguous ending delivers an extra kick. Readers Digest Condensed Books selection; Mystery Guild main selection; paperback rights to Avon. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Barnard's new contribution evidences the same excellent plotting and characterization seen in A Scandal in Belgravia ( LJ 7/91). This time, his psychological study centers on a wealthy, highly intelligent, but condescending popular biographer who tries to direct the lives of two teenaged village boys. Lydia's first attempt to mold young lives--those of her own two nephews--ended unsuccessfully, and so does her new attempt: someone murders her. Chief among the suspects stand her sister and alcoholic husband, her surviving nephew, a wimpy ex-husband, and the boys' ineffectual father. Up to the usual high standard.

Library Journal

YA-- The author of The Skeleton in the Grass (Thorndike, 1988) has written another page-turner. Lydia Perceval has always controlled the men in her life, from her former beau, to her n'er-do-well ex-husband, to the nephews to whom she is so devoted that she usurps her sister's role as mother. Just as it seems that she has lost her power, two boys enter her life. Intelligent and friendly, they soon become her pet project. In fact, when Lydia is murdered, they are surprised to learn that she had not yet placed them in her will, while investigating superintendent Mike Oddie observes that her former boyfriend is not at all surprised to be her sole heir. The deeper Oddie delves into Lydia's past, the more he realizes that there was nothing simple about any of her ``attachments'' and that any one of them could have led to her fatal end. Combining the psychological probing of a Ruth Rendell story with the class tensions of a P. D. James mystery, Barnard creates a unique form of suspense novel. It's an excellent introduction to a prize-winning writer.-- Catherine Clancy, Boston Public Library

School Library Journal