A Touch of Mortality - Hardcover

Ann Granger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747215790 ISBN 13: 9780747215790

Publisher: Headline, 1996

Synopsis

When Sally Caswell persuaded her scientist husband Liam to move from London to the quiet of rural Oxfordshire it was in the hope of a more peaceful existence. But so far the move has led to nothing but discord. Liam's sabbatical book project is not going well so, frustrated and isolated, he quarrels incessantly both with Sally and with their next-door neighbour, the crotchety pensioner Bodicote whose unruly goats are a constant source of contention. But then a mysterious package arrives that gives the couple real cause for anxiety. It appears that Liam is being targeted by animal rights activists, though Superintendent Markby, in charge of the investigation, is not entirely convinced. Liam has many enemies, Bodicote amongs them, and it seems to Markby that Liam's cantankerous old neighbour is hiding something. The more Markby investigates, the more his unease grows - as does that of Meredith Mitchell, Markby's girlfriend and an old friend of Sally Caswell, for Meredith suspects Sally is far from well. Then a body is found ...

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is now permanently based in Oxfordshire.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Brilliant, cranky scientist Liam Caswell and his wife Sally have moved to Oxfordshire from London. Their tiny house in the village of Castle Darcy abuts that of elderly eccentric Bodicote, who keeps goats and is far from neighborly. Not far away, however, lives Sally's longtime friend Meredith Mitchell, now on leave from her London Foreign Office job (A Candle for a Corpse, 1996, etc.). Meredith, hearing rumors in the village of something amiss at her friend's cottage, arrives there to find Sally in shock but uninjured after the explosion of a letter bomb in the morning mail. Superintendent Alan Markby, Meredith's part-time lover, is put in charge of the case, which appears to be the work of animal-rights advocates opposed to Caswell's research--the basis of the book on which he's interminably working at home. There is a local animal- welfare group headed by Yvonne Goodhusband and her unkempt son Tristan, but Markby's investigation is stymied until Bodicote is found dead in his yard, seemingly by accident, and Sally, with Meredith's timely intervention, survives an attempt on her life. Unimaginative police work in this hodge-podge of a story- -burdened with an excess of goat lore, wooden dialogue, daft but dull characters, and scarcely a glimmer of suspense. A letdown from the best of the author's previous outings. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0747215790
• ISBN 13: 9780747215790
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 249