Malice Downstream

Rating:
Summary: For British police procedural fans and fishing enthusiasts
Review: At the present time Chief Superintendent Erskine Powell of the Metropolitan Police Force of New Scotland Yard is recovering at home from a leg injury while pursuing a murderer. Bored and lonely he decides to take his college roommate up on his offer to do some fishing in the picaresque Hampshire village of Houghton Bridge. While there, Erskine catches some excellent trout and gets acquainted with many of the townsfolk.

A few days after his arrival, one of the nominees for the Mayfly Fishing Club, Richard Garrett, is found murdered. Even though he is completely out of his jurisdiction, Erskine can't help but do some independent investigating and learns that the villagers think the victim got what he deserved. It is generally believed that Richard got a local girl pregnant and abandoned her. Erskine concludes that Maggie didn't commit suicide as is commonly believed but was murdered by the same person who killed Richard. Now he must figure out who acted so maliciously from a plethora of suspects.

Fans of British police procedurals and fishing enthusiasts will really enjoy reading MALICE DOWNSTREAM. The tone and mood of the book is very dark and gothic with the brooding protagonist behaving more like Heathcliffe. The story line flows as smoothly as the waters of the River Test where much of the action takes place and the support cast adds local color to the plot. Graham Thomas is a talented writer who deserves kudos for his portrayal of a driven individual.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: For British police procedural fans and fishing enthusiasts
Review: At the present time Chief Superintendent Erskine Powell of the Metropolitan Police Force of New Scotland Yard is recovering at home from a leg injury while pursuing a murderer. Bored and lonely he decides to take his college roommate up on his offer to do some fishing in the picaresque Hampshire village of Houghton Bridge. While there, Erskine catches some excellent trout and gets acquainted with many of the townsfolk.

A few days after his arrival, one of the nominees for the Mayfly Fishing Club, Richard Garrett, is found murdered. Even though he is completely out of his jurisdiction, Erskine can't help but do some independent investigating and learns that the villagers think the victim got what he deserved. It is generally believed that Richard got a local girl pregnant and abandoned her. Erskine concludes that Maggie didn't commit suicide as is commonly believed but was murdered by the same person who killed Richard. Now he must figure out who acted so maliciously from a plethora of suspects.

Fans of British police procedurals and fishing enthusiasts will really enjoy reading MALICE DOWNSTREAM. The tone and mood of the book is very dark and gothic with the brooding protagonist behaving more like Heathcliffe. The story line flows as smoothly as the waters of the River Test where much of the action takes place and the support cast adds local color to the plot. Graham Thomas is a talented writer who deserves kudos for his portrayal of a driven individual.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Anglophile's Delight!
Review: With his estranged wife on sabbatical in Canada and himself very much at loose ends (still recovering from a leg injury that he sustained during his last investigation), Detective-Chief Superintendent Erskine Powell agrees that a vacation in rural Hampshire with a few day's fly-fishing under close to idyllic conditions might be just what the doctor ordered as a morale-booster. Therefore, he's more than happy to accept when his old Cambridge roommate, Jim Hardy, calls out-of-the-blue and invites him to visit his bed and breakfast in picturesque Houghton Bridge on the River Test, home base for the Mayfly Club...the world's oldest and most exclusive fishing club...whose by-invitation-only membership changes only with the death of a current member. Powell's arrival on the scene coincides with an opening in the Club's roster, but the three candidates in contention quickly become two when Richard Garrett, a controversial young man whom the village holds responsible for the suicide of pregnant local beauty, Maggie Stewart, seven years earlier, is found murdered in a downstream weir. His plans for a care-free vacation curtailed by the official investigation, Erskine decides to take a busman's holiday and quietly conduct his own unofficial one, but, by doing so, he also puts his own career in jeopardy since the essentially clueless local authorities clearly do not welcome his interference. As is always true in Graham Thomas' novels, there are a plethora of fascinatingly viable suspects with motives aplenty, and the more he involves himself in the affair, the more he realizes that the placid surface of the village like the river that surrounds it can conceal deep and deadly currents. When he finally makes his cast, the killer rises to the bait only to slip the hook until fate takes a hand through a clever twist in the plot which, in the best tradition of classic British thrillers, allows appropriate justice to be meted out and Erskine to move on to new possibilities in his life.

I'm an Anglophile down to my fingertips and love British procedurals. For me, Graham Thomas' beautifully-crafted novels are almost as good as actually being wherever he chooses to set them. In addition to being simply a crackerjack of a good mystery and an utterly grand read that allowed one of my favorite sleuths plenty of scope to exercise his deductive talents, "Malice Downstream" captured the essence of rural England in loving detail and served as a delightful introduction to the mystique behind the sport of fly-fishing. I can hardly wait for the next book in this wonderfully satisfying series which I devoutly hope will again include spunky Jemma Walker among its cast of characters. She has the potential to brighten Erskine's life almost as much as she did mine.