A Ghost in the Machine

Rating:
Summary: Tradition, tradition
Review: I think you have to be steeped in the genre to appreciate this. It is not what it seems, and yet it is what it seems.
The traditional British cosy whodunnit resembled the commedia dell'arte in its conventions. Certain stock characters recurred. Only a limited number of occupations was allowed. Those who were not detectives were Anglican clergymen, doctors, lawyers, retired military men, domestic servants or independently wealthy. Women did not have jobs and those unmarried past a certain age were likely to be eccentric, albeit endearingly eccentric. The acquisition of large amounts of money, other than through inheritance, was rather suspect, and nouveau riche was a term of abuse. A chorus of the lower classes lurked in the background. Their speech (which was rendered phonetically, on the assumption that upper-class British English was standard) often contained amusing malapropisms. Some characters were experts in unusual subjects, such as Egyptology or insects (but nothing high-tech).
Above all was the setting. This was a village, isolated, and yet at the same time situated in southern England with access to London. It was old and picturesque. People lived in cottages or manors or vicarages (unless they were nouveau riche) and were passionate about gardening. Emma might have lived there.
The writing often contained clichés, stilted dialog, and telling-instead-of-showing, but this did not matter because the plot was carried along by engaging the reader to solve, by means of carefully placed clues, the mystery of who killed the character done to death in a bizarre way in the first chapter. (Violence was off-stage). Red herrings abounded. Just when a supect seemed the likely murderer he would be bumped off.
Writing this kind of novel today is rather like hand weaving. It is still done and the practitioner uses many of the old methods, but often wants to add a modern twist. A certain amount of self-parody is involved, and the modern reader is made aware that the writer has her tongue partly in her cheek.
Caroline Graham does all this beautifully. She even throws in pieces of bad writing (such as describing a minor character as "extremely wealthy") which I think are deliberate tributes to the stylized old form. The 21st century is allowed to intrude in the form of cell phones (mobiles) and supermarkets,and obscene language but we are shown that it it rather vulgar. The people who live in the projects (council houses) eat processed foods and fish and chips, while the people like us dine on fresh sea bass bought at the fishmongers and cooked with fennel.
Dennis Brinkley is a financial planner (not a solicitor, as Marilyn Stasio and the blurb say - a solicitor is a lawyer who does not do courtroom work) who collects medieval war machines, one of which kills him. (This doesn't happen until page 120). We are drawn, in the classic Agatha Christie mode, to suspect each one of a cast of characters in turn. Benny is Brinkley's elderly, angelic but slightly dotty, platonic girl friend, Andrew Latham is his incompetent unhappily married partner. Polly is the spoiled unscrupulous daughter of his neighbors, the Lawsons,who have inherited the house and money of their eccentric elderly aunt. Ava is a fraudulent (but is she really) spiritualist medium. Karen is her abused daughter. The closet transvestite George Footscray is her impresario.




Rating:
Summary: fine English village police procedural
Review: In the village of Forbes Abbot, Dennis Brinkley is the subject of much local gossip as he collects replicas of old war-weapons and torture devices of varying sizes. Paradoxically, one of the collector's war machines crushes him to death. The villagers believe that a freak accident occurred, but his best friend Benny thinks someone is getting away with a homicide.

The locals believe that Benny's contention is substantiated when psychic Ava Garrett insists she will ask Dennis to identify his killer at a séance she is hosting. However, before she can call on Dennis, an unknown assailant kills the psychic. Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy investigate the two homicides.

No one does the English village police procedural better than Caroline Graham consistently accomplishes them. Her latest Barnaby and Troy triumph is a fabulous tale that ironically uses newcomers (Mallory and Kate Lawson and their daughter Polly) expecting a serene quiet change from London to introduce readers to Forbes Abbott and its eccentric residents that includes the late Dennis. The action is limited and the dynamic law enforcement duo does not appear until half way through the book as the oddball local characters take center stage with their goings on. The investigation is top rate, but it is the eccentricity of the villagers that make for a fantastic cozy-like tale with some profanity and one of the dead being a mangled bloody corpse.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: a fantastic read
Review: Lovers of old fashioned British police procedurals (the ones where there is plenty of character development, and where the novel dwells more on the personal stories of the characters involved rather than on the police detectives and the sometimes too gruesome investigation at hand) can rejoice: Caroline Graham has penned, after an absence of a few years, another Chief Inspector Barnaby mystery novel. I loved the Chief Inspector Barnaby mysteries when I first started devouring them almost a decade ago, and I loved the TV dramatizations of the series (alas only available on A&E now and then), so I was truly excited when I noticed "A Ghost in the Machine" sitting on the shelving cart. "A reprint?" I wondered, only to realize that it was a brand new mystery novel that I had yet to read! My excitement paid off: once I started the book, I found it difficult to put down. This, in spite of the fact that I had gotten used to the more streamlined police procedurals, where the crime is committed in chapter one, and the police investigation starts off almost at once. Caroline Graham's novels involve a different kind of approach: one in which the village life and the quiet and intimate lives of the denizens of that village are examined, and where a small event or arrival of a new person to the village signals the onslaught of devious and more sinister happenings. DCI Barnaby and his trusty sidekick, DS Troy only really came into the picture almost halfway through the book. Not that one ever feels impatient with the slowness at which the police investigation part of the mystery at hand gets off the ground. On the contrary: how on earth could you feel impatient when there are all these village characters and their own personal stories and worries to get involved with? Intriguing, suspenseful and simply chockfull of characters that suspiciously, "A Ghost in the Machine" was a compelling and absorbing read. So, if you're a lover of a more old fashioned approach to the mystery novel, the one where the village and the villagers are the stars, and where the author really gets into the personalities and motivations of characters involved, you're in for a treat, and really should not miss "A Ghost in the Machine."

Rating:
Summary: The traditional British who-done-it is alive and well.
Review: The traditional British who-done-it is still alive. It's complete with totally unexpected events (He got done in with his own authentic torture device.), amazing characters, and above all the quaint British tiny, tiny little towns. I don't suppose you'd be reading this if you weren't familiar with Caroline Graham's Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries. But if you are a fan of them like so many others, they you won't be dissappointed. It's easy to see why the Sunday Times of London called her, "Simply the best detective writer since Agatha Christe."

The story, you know it already: a gruesome murder, a wild set of characters done with depth and humor, the Chief Inspector and his trusty sidekick chasing down conflicting leads. The real question: Winter's coming, and the snow, the fireplace is ready. Do you wait to snuggle down with a book you know will be good, or do you gobble it down immediately.

Rating:
Summary: Bloody Marvelous!
Review: This is yet another fine murder mystery featuring DCI Barnaby and his off-sider, Sgt.Troy.In the small village of Forbes Abbot, Dennis Brinkley, a quiet,unassuming financier, pursues his rather bizarre hobby of drawing up plans for and constructing medieval war machines, massive structures used for breaching fortress and castle walls and for hurling huge rocks and boiling oil on hapless citizenry. Dennis' old friend, Benny Fayle lives nearby with Mallory and Kate Lawson, the new owners of a large house, left to them by Bennys' late employer, and is happy to be about to introduce them to Dennis at a dinner party. When Dennis doesn't arrive, his body is subsequently discovered in his studio with his head crushed by a ball from one of his war machines. Another dimension to the plot is added by the Lawsons' daughter Polly, badly spoiled from childhood by her father and overly cocky about her abilities as an investment advisor. Add yet another fascinating character in the person of Ava Garrett, a theatrical psychic fake who capitalises on her small daughters' abilities, to con gullible people out of money, and you have a totally absorbing read and one which I can really recommend, especially to lovers of crime and mayhem in small English villages.