CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE: An Inspector Quantill Mystery.

When an elderly couple disappears only one week after the husband signed for his pension, Inspector Quantril begins his investigation but finds it hampered by misleading information from well-meaning townfolk.

Radley's ( Death in the Morning ) latest engrossing English village mystery has a new twist: her redoubtable Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill and capable Sergeant Hilary Lloyd work mainly at the tale's start and finish, their presence effectively framing the intriguing personal history of a rural postmistress/novelist. Quantrill and Lloyd investigate the disappearance of an elderly couple, Ziggy and Gladys Zrzecszczuksp ok, really , dubbed "the Crackjaws" by their neighbors in Byland, Suffolk. After years of regularly cashing pension checks and purchasing provisions, one day Ziggy fails to pick up his usual groceries. Postmistress Janet Thacker comes under suspicion when she insists that she cashed the checks as usual for Ziggy that day, though no one else remembers seeing him. Investigations center on the text of a novel penned by Thacker, the story of a life of disappointment and thwarted talent. But is the novel more than a fiction? Quantrill and Lloyd must find evidence to prove suspicions raised by their reading of a moving portrayal of village life that is anything but charming and cozy. Mystery Guild alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the admirably risk-taking but highly uneven Radley (This Way Out, 1989, etc.): a book that begins and ends as mystery yet consists mostly of a village girl's atmospheric but suspense-less memoir. In the dreary little Suffolk village of Byland, an elderly couple--Zygmunt and Gladys Krzecszczuk--has disappeared from their wretched, isolated hovel. Suicide? Murder? A trace of blood on the floor suggests foul play to Inspector Quantrill and Sgt. Lloyd. And they're suspicious about village postmistress Janet Thacker, who was the last to see Zygmunt alive--but has neglected to tell the cops that she grew up right next door to the Krzecszczuks. So Lloyd filches the manuscript of Janet's unpublished autobiography, which is then printed in full. Devotees of gritty coming-of-age fiction may find Janet's sad 1960's story--oppressive poverty, mismatched parents, nasty relatives, ugly family secrets, academic ambitions, first love (lesbian), and disillusionment in London--modestly absorbing. Mystery-lovers will be annoyed and exasperated, even if part (a small part) of Janet's memoir does eventually help the police figure out what happened to the Krzecszczuks. One of Radley's less successful experiments, though undeniably rich in grimly convincing details of depressed village life. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Not so much traditional British procedural as character study, the latest Inspector Quantrill mystery dwells on the psychological motivation of a major suspect in the disappearance of two elderly village inhabitants. As Quantrill and Sergeant Hilary Lloyd reconstruct the last days of the pensioners, they question various locals, but the bulk of what they learn comes from a neighbor's revelatory autobiography, so action is limited. Mainly for series fans.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.