Rating: 
Summary: not as bad as it was made out to be
Review: This is my first bill slider mystery. Without having been prejudiced by other bill slider books, I enjoyed this one immensely. I agree that the ending is a bit rushed and can be improved upon. However, the dialogues are lively and witty; the characters are well-developed. (For a mystery, that is. After all, this is not supposed to be a "character piece.") What I found most amazing was how Ms. Harrod-Eagles can bring a character alive in a few paragraphs by a description of his mannerisms and his speech. I would definitely recommend this book for someone who has not read her other bill slider books.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: This is the eight Bill Slider mystery that I have read. I have enjoyed all previous seven books, but this one I found utterly confusing and worse, utterly boring. I found myself not only starting to skim the pages, but actually flipping pages. There were too many characters to keep track of, let alone care about. Harrod-Eagles fared better with her series characters: Slider, Joanna, Atherton, and Sue. They had some relationship issues that were interesting, but since this is a mystery book, I would expect the mystery part to be better than the relationship part.
Only die hard Slider fans should read this one.
Rating: 
Summary: 9th Bill Slider a little dull, but Joanna & Sue resolved !
Review: We've had to wait close to four years for the latest (Brit) Detective Inspector Bill Slider since "Blood Sinister", so we were delighted to get hold of this hardback and catch up on Slider and love-interest and roommate Joanna; his sidekick Atherton (and his new love interest, Joanna's friend Sue); and the gang at Shepherd's Bush PD. The plot gets going in a hurry as a dead body is discovered in a park; and we're off and running despite a paucity of clues in this entertaining police procedural. It takes an awfully long time and another body or two to head the good guys to the right solution, so the reading gets a little logy at times. Meanwhile, we learn Joanna did take the orchestra job over on the continent, so her live-in relationship with Bill is pretty cold -- phone calls and an occasional visit or two per month is causing its own share of frustrations for our ever so gentle leading man. Harrod-Eagles is a lovely writer who gets us inside the heads and hearts of our favorite characters. While they busily solve crimes, the leading characters become our friends and companions, and their relationships and affairs matter to us. Their skills at solving murders and other crimes are impressive, and generally the plots satisfy. This one is probably a tad weaker than some other entries in the series, but we do finally find out the status of Joanna and Bill, and Sue and Atherton. In all honesty, this novel will probably appeal to the author's faithful fan club; but read standalone without the previous eight as background, it would probably generate only lukewarm enthusiasm among the average reader. Hopefully now that some of the love-life stuff is resolved, maybe the zip will be back in the tenth entry to be released mid-year 2004. New readers might well just wait.
Rating:
Summary: 9th Bill Slider a little dull, but Joanna & Sue resolved !
Review: We've had to wait close to four years for the latest (Brit) Detective Inspector Bill Slider since "Blood Sinister", so we were delighted to get hold of this hardback and catch up on Slider and love-interest and roommate Joanna; his sidekick Atherton (and his new love interest, Joanna's friend Sue); and the gang at Shepherd's Bush PD. The plot gets going in a hurry as a dead body is discovered in a park; and we're off and running despite a paucity of clues in this entertaining police procedural. It takes an awfully long time and another body or two to head the good guys to the right solution, so the reading gets a little logy at times. Meanwhile, we learn Joanna did take the orchestra job over on the continent, so her live-in relationship with Bill is pretty cold -- phone calls and an occasional visit or two per month is causing its own share of frustrations for our ever so gentle leading man. Harrod-Eagles is a lovely writer who gets us inside the heads and hearts of our favorite characters. While they busily solve crimes, the leading characters become our friends and companions, and their relationships and affairs matter to us. Their skills at solving murders and other crimes are impressive, and generally the plots satisfy. This one is probably a tad weaker than some other entries in the series, but we do finally find out the status of Joanna and Bill, and Sue and Atherton. In all honesty, this novel will probably appeal to the author's faithful fan club; but read standalone without the previous eight as background, it would probably generate only lukewarm enthusiasm among the average reader. Hopefully now that some of the love-life stuff is resolved, maybe the zip will be back in the tenth entry to be released mid-year 2004. New readers might well just wait.
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