Tuesday, March 02, 2021

The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

First Line: The two men have been standing there for eighteen minutes.
 
When a caregiver comes to Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur with what she believes is evidence that ninety-year-old Peggy Smith has been murdered, Kaur thinks Natalka is overreacting. It's not unusual for people of Peggy's age to die of heart failure, especially when she had a heart condition in the first place. But there are strange things going on. 
 
When Peggy's next-of-kin asks Natalka to help clear out Peggy's apartment, Natalka finds a wall of crime fiction... and each and every book is dedicated to Peggy. Then a gunman breaks into the apartment and steals a book. Soon thereafter the author of the stolen book is found dead. Now Harbinder is on board, and things begin to escalate. From a signing in a bookshop to a literary festival in Aberdeen to the streets of Edinburgh, Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur is going to come face to face with how authors can think up such realistic crimes.
 
~
 
As author Elly Griffiths says at the end of The Postscript Murders, this is a book about acknowledgments and about publishing, and I was happy to see Harbinder Kaur, a thirty-six-year-old gay Sikh police officer who lives with her parents, back for her second investigation. Joining her in the search for a killer is an interesting mix of characters: Natalka, an Eastern European caregiver who seems determined to have a mystery to solve; Benedict Cole, a former monk; Edwin, a former employee of the BBC who's on the far side of seventy; and the dead woman herself-- Peggy Smith, whose business card reads "Mrs. M. Smith  Murder Consultant." Peggy is one of those victims readers run across from time to time who is such a strong personality that she begs for more time in the spotlight.
 
The Postscript Murders will hold special interest for any reader who's attended a signing at a favorite bookshop or gone to a literary festival and watched panels of authors discuss various topics. If readers haven't attended these things, they will be given a good idea of what they can be like, and they may even be encouraged to attend one themselves.

I did find myself wrapped up in the mystery, in trying to deduce the identity of the killer, and the glints of humor that popped up made me chuckle, especially Harbinder's tendency to think of her investigative partner, Neil, as a small, stupid but lovable, woodland creature. It was a pleasure to find myself immersed in the publishing world, and I was hoping that her investigation would turn Harbinder into a reader but, alas, she'll have to be pried away from the games on her phone first.

Strong characters, strong mystery, strong setting-- all hallmarks of another enjoyable mystery by Elly Griffiths.

[If you're wondering about the book cover, I reviewed a signed UK edition which I will be giving away next week. Stay tuned!]

The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths
ISBN: 9781787477636
Quercus © 2020
Hardcover, 350 pages

Police Procedural, #2 DS Harbinder Kaur mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

11 comments:

  1. Oh, I was hoping you would really like this one, Cathy. I like Elly Griffiths' work an awful lot, and I give her a lot of credit for trying new things, doing new series, and so on. I like the way she draws her characters. Glad you saw that here, too.

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    1. I love her characters. They are usually what draws me into her story in the first place.

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  2. I really enjoyed the characters in this one. I wouldn't mind if Griffiths' went back and had a series with Peggy. Anyone with a card like hers deserves a series. This book was so different for the first book that had Kaur as a secondary character, but both books were great.

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    1. A series with Peggy would definitely be something that I'd want to read!

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  3. What a good review. I have this book on library reserve.

    And, coincidentally, a friend in Buffalo just sent me an email tonight, raving about this book.

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    1. I belong to a Facebook group for British mystery series, and I almost fell out of my chair when one member said she didn't like Elly Griffiths' writing. I mean, I knew there had to be some folks out there who didn't like her, but this is the first time I'd run across one!

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  4. I have not run across that opinion of Elly Griffiths' writing. In fact, a friend who is very picky about what she reads and doesn't like some authors I do, likes Ruth Galloway's books. I think it's because she's like a regular person with all the questions and anxieties of her job, men, childrearing.
    Well, many of my friends love Donna Leon's books, me included (and in fact, one sent me a note about the PP event with her on March 9), but above choosy friend, doesn't like Leon.
    So, something I learned a long time ago; there is no telling for people's reading taste, as is true of movies, etc.

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    1. Years ago, I read the first book in Donna Leon's series and couldn't figure out why everyone was so nuts about her, but since then, I've decided to give her another try. I just don't know when that will be.

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  5. I love Leon's books, but they're cerebral, lots of investigating and Commissario Brunetti's thinking. They're not action-oriented. It's human relations, reflections and deep thoughts about society in the past and today and the investigation. Culprits are figured out, but often they are not arrested because they're highly connected to an institution, etc. So justice is not meted out as they are in U.S. mysteries, even British ones. But, as Leon explains, in real life, the wealthy and connected often do so unprosecuted.

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  6. I loved The Postscript Murders and just put The Stranger Diaries on library hold. When I read that Peggy Smith called her son, Nigel, a "kulak," I was in.
    Have your read any of her Brighton series?

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    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed The Postscript Murders, Kathy. I read the first two or three of her Brighton series, and although they're good, they just didn't grab me like her other books have.

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