Don't Leave Me: A Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mystery

by Clare Curzon

Overview

When Daniel Winterton's ambitious wife, Caroline, went missing from their country home, leaving a little daughter in the charge of her nanny, Mike Yeadings was involved as a sergeant in the investigation. He had hopes that the case would advance his career, however Caroline and her current lover were traced to the Canary Islands, where the trail abruptly ended.

Eight years later the case is brought back to Detective Superintendent Yeadings' attention. This time Winterton's daughter Julie, now eleven years old, has vanished. The circumstances of her disappearance are immediately suspicious and Winterton is distraught.

Yeadings' Thames Valley team-DI Mott, Sergeant Beaumont and Rosemary Zyczynski-work to uncover the lonely child's secrets and probe the movements of eccentrics on the periphery of the Winterton's circle. Has Caroline at last returned to claim her abandoned child? Or has Julie been snatched for some far more sinister purpose?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466822481
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/01/2002
Series:	Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mysteries , #15
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	251 KB

About the Author

Clare Curzon lives in Buckinghamshire, England. She is the author of nearly thirty novels and has also written under the pseudonyms of Rhona Petrie and Marie Buchanan.

Clare Curzon has written and published more than thirty novels, under that name and as "Rhonda Petrie" and "Marie Buchanan." Her previous work has taken her to many European countries, but now she lives and writes at her home in Buckinghamshire, England.

Editorial Reviews

When Julie, the young daughter of well-to-do writer Daniel Winterton, suddenly vanishes in this winning police procedural from British veteran Curzon (Cold Hands), Thames Valley Supt. Mike Yeadings has little doubt that all is not well on the Winterton home front. Eight years earlier, he helped investigate the disappearance of Winterton's wife, Caroline, and he's been unsatisfied with the results ever since. The deeper Yeadings digs, the more certain he is that another look into Mrs. Winterton's case may well shed light on Julie's disappearance. The author masterfully intertwines the old case with the new, and the outcome includes enough clever twists to keep even the quickest-thinking readers scrambling for clues right alongside the police. As usual, Curzon lays a rock-solid foundation for her supporting cast. Yeadings's wife, Nan, offers intelligent insight plus palpable glimpses into the superintendent's home life, while Hook, Caroline's brother, is both to be pitied and suspected. Even though this and previous Yeadings mysteries are self-contained, longtime fans will appreciate the connective tissue that links past books and hints at crimes yet to come. Newcomers will want to get their hands on earlier works featuring Yeadings so they, too, can follow the development of this sharp-witted detective. (Feb. 18) FYI: Curzon's Guilty Knowledge was the winner of the 2000 Herodotus Award for the Best First International Historical Mystery. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Years after a rich woman disappears, her daughter also vanishes under suspicious circumstances. Superintendent Mike Yeadings consequently reopens the earlier case and searches for clues in both. A solid British procedural; for all collections. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Now that 11-year-old Julie Winterton has been reported missing to the Thames Valley police precinct, Detective Superintendent Mike Yeadings (Cold Hands, p. 18, etc.) is reminded of events eight years ago when Julie's father, fiction writer Daniel Winterton, had reported his wife Caroline's disappearance, along with a sizable share of their joint bank account. She was traced to the Canary Islands, in company with handsome neighbor Barry Morgan, and eventually the case was closed. In this new crisis Mike enlists the help of Detective Sergeant Rosemary Zyczynski, routinely called "Z," who interviews Julie's one-time nanny Katy Anson. No help there. Nothing daunted, Mike tracks down Caroline's brother, Clifford Hook, who turns out to be an administrator at Craythorpe Park Hospital, a psychiatric facility. Seemingly near a breakdown himself, Hook relies heavily on assistant Len Grover; certainly he's in no shape to shed any light on Julie's disappearance. Not until a gratuitously injected and lengthily described bank robbery does a highly improbable revelation from the past lead the way to Julie's rescue. Mike is as likable as ever, but the plotting here is beyond bizarre: unconvincing first to last. Not one of Curzon's better outings.

Kirkus Reviews