Skeleton at the Feast (Yorkshire) Review

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(More customer reviews)DCI Michael Thackeray is sent back to Oxford, to the college where he'd studied, while his superiors work out what to do with the disaster of a case he left behind. Back at Yorkshire, his detectives try to get on with their lives and cope with the death of one of their own. All is not well at Oxford. His college, which has always hidden its crimes, has continued to do so but a missing professor, the professor's missing girlfriend, and considerable missing money compound Thackeray's old memories of a murder that took place when he was a student.
Author Patricia Hall balances the Oxford mystery with the case of a 13-year old girl who was raped and beaten back in Yorkshire. Reporter, and Thackeray's girlfriend Laura serves as a bridge, spending weekends in Oxford with Thackeray and working on both cases.
Virtually all of Hall's male characters are damaged, trying to make a life for themselves despite the loss of so much. Thackeray has never recovered from his years at Oxford, and now must relive that terrible time and the cover-up that he has never forgotten. His sergeant, Kevin Mower, is slowly self-destructing out of grief for the loss of his love. Strong women, Laura, her grandmother, and DC Val Ridley provide the strength to keep the males moving.
Hall's writing is vivid and American readers are likely to enjoy her judicious use of Yorkshire dialect. The mysteries themselves are fairly anti-climactic, however. In particular, the the Oxford murders seem a little too disconnected. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop--but it never did. Likewise the Yorkshire mystery was quickly resolved once Thackeray returned to the job--so quickly that I wondered why it took so long in the first place. SKELETON AT THE FEAST is interesting and thought provoking, but needs a bit of sharpening to be a really compelling mystery.

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All Creatures Great and Small (20th Anniversary Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)James Herriot was a country veterinarion who lived in Yorkshire before (and after) World War II. His stories are funny, heartwarming, sad, and highly educational. And after reading this, you will either want to be a vet or be very grateful that you aren't one.
The book opens (after a brief chapter taking place several months later) with James arriving in Yorkshire, to be the assistant to the eccentric but kindly Siegfried Farnon (yes, that is his name). He becomes accustomed to Siegfried, Siegfried's mischievous younger brother Tristan (yes, that is his name), and the gruff, kindly farmers who eke out a living in the Yorkshire Dales. Pampered pooches who are spoiled rotten, savage pigs who chase Tristan around the farm, a nightmarishly strict secretary who drives Siegfried up the wall, James's car-with-no-brakes, cows running on three cylinders, a sadistic vet who makes James wear a rubber bodysuit, and an elderly, immensely wealthy widow who adopts a pig. And through this, James falls in love with the beautiful Helen Alderson and worms his way into the trust of the farmers.
James Herriot (real name, James Wight) was truly a one-of-a-kind man. He let readers into his head throughout the book, where the cows kick him across the yard, farmers often treat him as an interloper or a nuisance, and his boss gives contradicting orders from one day to the next. But he never loses his drive or his love of animals. (Okay, he hates some animals, but only as individuals) He even lets the readers see him at his worst, when he's humiliated by some recalcitrant livestock, and one horrible scene where he and his date show up drunk and mud-smeared in front of the girl he adores. (Not to mention when Tristan got him to use very feminine-smelling bath salts) But don't think that all of these stories are funny or romantic -- quite a few are aggravating or outright sad. James didn't soften the blows at all.
The people around James are just as fantastic: Siegfried, his weird but genial boss who can kick Tristan out of the house and forget about it overnight; Tristan, the mischievous anti-scholar who usually manages to keep out of trouble; and Helen, who seems a little too saintly at times (which isn't surprising, since James married her). There are a lot of details about surgery and stuff like that that will gross out the squeamish, but at least you'll learn a lot of medical trivia. (For example, what is a torsion?)
It's sweet, sad, funny, romantic, dramatic. "All Creatures Great And Small" (and its four sequels) is a fantastic read for all ages.

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Twenty years ago, St. Martin's Press published a volume of memoirs by an unknown Scottish veterinarian named James Herriot. Its title was All Creatures Great and Small.Within a year, the book had become recognized as a masterpiece. In the two decades that have followed, James Herriot has become one of the most universally loved authors of our time.Now, as we celebrate the publication of Every Living Thing-- the country vet's fifth book of memoirs-- St. Martin's is proud to reissue the book that started it all. Its pages, now as then, are full of humor, warmth, pathos, drama, and James Herriot's unique, richly justified love of life. His journeys across the Yorkshire dales, his encounters with humans and dogs, cows and kittens are illumined by his infinite fascination and affection, and rendered with all the infectious joy of a born storyteller.As one reviewer wrote," If you ever loved a friend, human or otherwise, this is the book for you."

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All the Colors of Darkness (Inspector Banks Mysteries) Review

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(More customer reviews)Peter Robinson's books are always worth reading. I've enjoyed all of his Inspector Banks mysteries and was looking forward to number 18. Of course all the major characters are back as are the locations in the fictional Yorkshire Dales towns his fans have come to feel so familiar with. This latest entry in the series takes Inspector Banks back to London for much of the story, and Robinson tries some new subject matter, including a homosexual relationship and international terrorism, neither of which comes off very convincingly.
In All the Colors of Darkness an openly gay theatrical figure is found hanging from a tree, and the body of his mysterious lover is found badly mutilated. Robinson uses and acknowledges plot elements and themes from Ian Fleming's 007 novels, Hitchcock's North By Northwest, and even Shakespeare's Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library). Overall it just seemed a little too over-the-top for my taste. Even more disappointing are a tangential plot about thugs in the East Side Estate and an extraneous Al Qaeda attack.
If you are reader of the series, then you will want to read this one and see what happens to the continuing characters. If you are new to the Banks series, I'd say start at the beginning with Gallows View: The First Inspector Banks Mystery or with a better entry in the series (my personal favorite is still In a Dry Season) or even with his standalone thriller The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense.

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