A Coffin for Charley - Hardcover

Butler, Gwendoline

3.6

63 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312114664 ISBN 13: 9780312114664

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1994

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A series of strange murders, the disappearance of his niece, and a troubling threat to his new wife Stella become the ingredients to a new suspenseful mystery for London's Commander John Coffin.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Danger takes a thousand shapes for women in Butler's mythical Second City of London. Years after her childhood testimony identified Willie and Lizzie Creeley as murderers, Annie Briggs still lives in fear of the Creeley family. Now that Willie's stroke has won parole for him and Lizzie, Annie's terror, never far beneath the surface, is renewed with a shock when Creeley grandson Eddie drifts into South London. Has Eddie strangled and smothered ballerina Marianna Manners and Annie's trusting sister Didi to avenge his relatives, or on commission from Marianna's ``friend'' Job Titus, an MP even more independent than his party label would suggest? Before he can close the case of the dead women with the bitten-down fingernails, John Coffin, chief commander of the Second City Police Force (Cracking Open a Coffin, 1993, etc.) will have to establish whether the killer is the wraithlike ``Charley'' mentioned in Didi's notebook--the same man, perhaps, who's been watching both Annie and Coffin's own bride, actress Stella Pinero- -and cope as well with the disappearances of Annie's tenant and of his own well-heeled sister. An impossible tangle of mysteries, it seems, until a third murder throws them into unexpected relief.... By turns haunting, baffling, and breathlessly abrupt, another satisfyingly rich entry in this offbeat, underrated series. -- Copyright �1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Butler's John Coffin stories are somber, dark, and oddly disturbing, but there are few better authors in the police-procedural genre. Copper Coffin's latest case involves his new wife, actress Stella Pinero, who senses she's being followed by a mysterious watcher who could be harmless--or extremely dangerous. Then Annie Briggs, a disturbed young woman who's an admirer of Stella's, also reports being watched. When a young woman is found brutally strangled nearby, and when shortly afterward one of the apprentice actresses in Stella's repertoire company is also found dead, Coffin is fearful that the killer may be the same mysterious watcher who has been frightening Stella and Annie. As if Coffin doesn't already have a difficult-enough life, his niece is kidnapped, his sister disappears, and things are suddenly out of control. But trust the ever-steady, always-professional Coffin to keep his head and solve the multiple mysteries despite his personal involvement. In short, another successful police procedural from Butler for readers who enjoy literate, intelligent, thoughtful writing and the challenge of a bizarre and twisted plot. Emily Melton

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