Written in Blood: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Mystery (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mysteries (Hardcover))

Rating:
Summary: Underrated is an Understatement
Review: Caroline Graham may be the most underrated of the British mystery writers. In "Written in Blood" as well as "Death in Disguise," she has produced good puzzles and some of the best internal monologues of some of the most interesting and diagnosable characters ever to grace the pages of a whodunit. As a writer, she is comparable to Iris Murdoch in her ability to see the primordial ooze underlying all drawing room comedies. Her characters teeter on the edge of civilization and threaten to topple over through pure narcissism. What a delight: there we all are, the good, the bad, and the irrascible. That includes the good guys and the bad guys, though the bad guys are a bit worse than the others. I recommend her books to anyone who likes the British mystery genre and to anyone who enjoys a well-written comedy of manners...

Rating:
Summary: A Good Puzzle, but faintly depressing.
Review: I am a big fan of Caroline Graham, and I love her characters - Barnaby and Troy. This book has a pretty good puzzle. Some of the characters were quite well drawn, but I found the book faintly depressing. I wonder if the whole side bar with Brian was really necessary to the story? I found that part of the book quite distasteful actually. There comes a time when storylines like that one can be thought of as sensationalizing since they do not really add to the story. But other than that I enjoyed this book. The dust jacket says that Caroline Graham shows humour and pathos in her stories, and I think that is really true. Barnaby is a really appealing main character, and I want to continue to read in order to get to know him better.