Review by Booklist Review
In this sixth meticulously plotted entry in the John Madden series (after The Death of Kings, 2017), Madden and his fellow Scotland Yard inspector Angus Sinclair, both retired, eventually end up stranded together in a remote country manor, most likely with a murderer. Sinclair takes the lead role in this case that begins with the suspicious death of a church organist. Sinclair calls in some of his former protégés and a German detective to assist him. Despite a heavy snowfall and his dodgy heart, he follows a lead that ends at the stately home of Julia Lesage, where Sinclair takes refuge. A full-fledged blizzard ensues, the phone goes out, the roads become impassable, two people go missing (along with Sinclair's heart medication) all the makings of a classic English mystery. A wild toboggan escape attempt from the axe-wielding murderer brings readers to an ending they will not expect. Post-WWII England comes to life in vivid detail, with an atmosphere so rich that readers will feel the cold seeping into their bones. An absorbing winter read for fans of well-crafted British procedurals.--Jane Murphy Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in post-WWII England, Airth's outstanding sixth John Madden mystery (after 2017's The Death of Kings) takes retired Scotland Yard chief inspector Angus Sinclair, a series regular, to Hampshire to visit friends. From his host, Sinclair learns that Greta Hartmann, the local church's German organist, drowned in a stream after slipping and hitting her head on a rock. The official verdict of accident is challenged by Greta's housemate, Vera Cruickshank, who refuses to believe that her close friend, who always forded the stream with great care, just slipped. Vera's argument impresses Sinclair, and his suspicions of foul play are strengthened when he learns that Greta was unsettled after a chance encounter with a man whose car had broken down. Given Greta's nationality, Sinclair considers the possibility that she recognized a Nazi war criminal, who subsequently killed her to keep her quiet. The suspense heightens once Madden, a shell-shocked WWI veteran, gets involved in the search for the murderer. Charles Todd fans will be pleased. Agent: Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary. (Jan.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An apparent death by misadventure evolves into a country-house scenario with three veteran detectives in play.Since Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair's retirement from the Metropolitan Police, he doesn't have much to do except mind his blood pressure. An invitation from his former supervisor, also in retirement and living in nearby Hampshire, offers a change of scenery and the chance to meet Ann Waites, a neurologist writing a book about criminal psychopaths and eager to pick Sinclair's brain. She's not the only one who can benefit from his experience; the local vicar has lost his organist, Greta Hartmann, who fell while crossing a stream and hit her head. But her landlady insists that Greta was always careful when she crossed the stream, and Sinclair performs his own experiment that strongly points to murder. Greta was the widow of a brave German pastor who stood up to the Nazis, and Sinclair wants to find out if someone from her past is her killer. Through Ann, he meets Julia Lesage, a champion downhill skier who was injured in an accident and confined to a wheelchair. When Sinclair's investigations strand him in a snowstorm, Julia sends her chauffeur to bring him back to her luxurious home. In the meantime, his erstwhile colleague John Madden (The Death of Kings, 2017, etc.) and his wife, who is Sinclair's doctor, return home from holiday with a mystery of their own: where is Sinclair? Madden calls on his ex-colleagues for help and meets Kriminalinspektor Hans-Joachim Probst, who briefs Madden about a con man with a link to Greta's death and a history of preying on rich, vulnerable women like Julia, who's snowbound with Sinclair and a potential killer, but no power and no telephone, in her own mansion. Madden and Probst have to fight both the clock and the winter weather in Madden's sixth deliberately paced procedural.As usual, Airth takes his sweet time setting up the plot before making the pages fly at last. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
