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A review by margaret21
Before the Poison by Peter Robinson
3.0
A clever story from Peter Robinson, a stand-alone that's not part of the Inspector Banks series.
Following his wife's painful death, composer Chris Lowndes returns from America to his native Yorkshire, buying, unseen, a rather remote house near Richmond. It turns out to have been the home of Grace Fox, hanged in the 1950s for murdering her husband.
The plot unfolds by the device of interspersing first of all a contemporary description of the trial, and later, Grace's own war time diaries (she was a nurse) with Chris's own tale: he becomes almost obsessive in wishing to discover te 'truth' about Grace's story.
As an investigation into this long-put-to-bed murder, it's involving and interesting. Chris's own developing love affair with Heather, and his detailed summaries of the music he's playing and the wine he's drinking are less so. He seems to have the leisure and the means to follow his whims at a moment's notice, and doesn't come over as a sympathetic person. But it's a good yarn, and one from which I learnt quite a lot about the role of nurses in the Far East during WWII.
A good page-turner.
Following his wife's painful death, composer Chris Lowndes returns from America to his native Yorkshire, buying, unseen, a rather remote house near Richmond. It turns out to have been the home of Grace Fox, hanged in the 1950s for murdering her husband.
The plot unfolds by the device of interspersing first of all a contemporary description of the trial, and later, Grace's own war time diaries (she was a nurse) with Chris's own tale: he becomes almost obsessive in wishing to discover te 'truth' about Grace's story.
As an investigation into this long-put-to-bed murder, it's involving and interesting. Chris's own developing love affair with Heather, and his detailed summaries of the music he's playing and the wine he's drinking are less so. He seems to have the leisure and the means to follow his whims at a moment's notice, and doesn't come over as a sympathetic person. But it's a good yarn, and one from which I learnt quite a lot about the role of nurses in the Far East during WWII.
A good page-turner.