Only Living Witness - Hardcover

Forsythe, Malcolm

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0727855204 ISBN 13: 9780727855206

Publisher: Seventies Pr, 2000

Synopsis

Book by Forsythe, Malcolm

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

When Helen Forman decides to remodel the house her father Eddie gave her, the builder uncovers a corpse murdered 25 years ago. At first, Chief Inspector Millson and Sergeant Scobie think the murder has nothing to do with the current occupant. A closer look at the blueprints, however, shows that it occurred while Helen's aunt and uncle, Piers and Mary, lived in the house with three teenaged foster children. Was the corpse one of the children? The answer is not easy to find: Helen and her siblings never knew Piers and Mary Forman, and now they're both dead. Even her father, now suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was estranged from Piers throughout Helen's life. What's needed is a second corpse, and one obligingly turns up, naked and drowned, at Dengie Flats. With some help from a peeping Tom, Scobie traces a yacht spotted just off the beach the night of the murder to Greg Henderson, who leases it to Helen's brother Bobby--and has another, more intimate connection to her family. Then Bobby and the yacht are blown up, leaving his stepmother, though not his wife, grieving. Days later, Eddie is suffocated. In the end, the last living witness to the 25-year-old murder turns up, and Millson just manages to keep her from being the last victim.Forsythe's American debut under his own name, as much soap opera as mystery, collapses under a surfeit of red herrings, illicit sex, and selfish twits. By the time the least likely character is neatly revealed as the murderer, few readers will care. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

While building an addition in Great Yeldham, near the English Channel, a contractor uncovers a 50-year-old skeleton. Detective Chief Inspector George Millson and Detective Sergeant Norris Scobie are assigned the case. As more crime erupts, Millson is caught between a romantic attraction to Helen Forman, the owner of the home where the skeleton was found, and the likelihood that she is withholding key evidence. This solid police procedural offers an engrossing pace, a difficult mystery, and a cast of full-bodied characters (the relationship between Millson and his teenage daughter is particularly rich). The supporting cast is also strong: the Forman family is among the most disagreeable, suspect-laden menages in recent crime fiction. This series is one of a growing category of lesser-known but reliable and entertaining British procedurals. When readers have exhausted the big names, give them Forsythe along with Sally Spencer, Betty Rowlands, and J. M. Gregson. John Rowen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Seventies Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0727855204
• ISBN 13: 9780727855206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214