The Deepest Grave by Harry Bingham

First Line: Jon Breakell has just completed his chef d'oeuvre, his masterpiece. The Mona Lisa of office art.

It's been over a year since Detective Sergeant Fiona Griffiths worked her last homicide. She keeps track. Finally, the call comes: a local archaeologist has been decapitated, a crime that seems to harken back to Dark Age Britain and King Arthur. Then armed burglars begin raiding remote country churches. Fiona thinks she has the answers to all the questions surrounding the murder and the thefts, but the end game has yet to be played. It's a crime so audacious that it will test even Fiona's uncanny abilities.

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with another crime solver as brilliantly unexpected as Fiona Griffiths. In many ways, her personality and abilities match the great Sherlock Holmes himself, so much so that her superior officers in the Cardiff police force soon learn that their major task is to learn when and how to "cry havoc and let slip" this dog of war-- because she is utterly ferocious on an investigation. She has the focus of a laser and simply does not know when to quit. One of the reasons why Harry Bingham's remarkable creation stays so dynamic is due to Cotard's Syndrome (a rare mental illness in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that they are already dead, they do not exist). Believe it or not, this gives her voice a freshness, an immediacy that's addictive.

In many of the mysteries I read, I may briefly mourn the dead person, but then it's time to move on and become part of the investigation. Not so in this series. Due to her unique outlook, they are never forgotten. Fiona brings the dead with her; they look over her shoulder to see if justice is being done. I find their presence very moving. 

In The Deepest Grave, the author has written another wonderful, twisty mystery about the market for objets d'art. The book even features a showdown in which Fiona brings along Conscience and Violence as her two sidekicks. A fabulous main character and a wonderful story-- two things that I have come to expect from Harry Bingham. I am so glad that I found this series!
 

The Deepest Grave by Harry Bingham

ISBN: 9781409152798

Orion Books © 2017

Paperback, 464 pages

Police Procedural, #6 Fiona Griffiths mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Book Depository.


 

The Dead House by Harry Bingham

First Line: "Well?"

The corpse is in a remote location, with no marks of violence and looking very peaceful. But why is she there...why has no one reported her missing... and why is she wearing a thin white dress on a bitter October night? These are just a few of the questions that have Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths raring to take this case under her wing and solve it. She does like the unusual after all. And what could be more unusual than having a corpse without a crime and a second case that's a crime without a corpse? It's certainly worlds better than logging evidence and keeping all those spreadsheets neat and tidy for her superiors on the Cardiff police force. 

What Fiona doesn't know is that she's putting herself in line to be the next victim, but who are we kidding? Even if she did know, she wouldn't mind a bit. It's not like she hasn't been dead before....

I have been luxuriating in Harry Bingham's Fiona Griffiths series since the very first book, Talking to the Dead. Bingham's hallmark precision plotting and the most fascinating character in all of crime fiction are two of the major reasons why I am hooked on these books.

Here in The Dead House, Fiona is as brilliant as ever, and she's found a new detective inspector to impress/bewilder. It takes a very special DI to both recognize Fiona's incredible intuition and indefatigable desire to see the job through... and to know how to work with her to use those talents without forfeiting one's rank and job. Our Fi isn't the easiest person to deal with. 

If you are not a fan of caving, be forewarned: you're going to find yourself underground for extended periods of time. Since I do not "do" underground, I was feeling extremely jittery through these sections of the book (which means they are very well done). 

One of the things I love about Fiona and about Bingham's writing is that you never quite know what to expect (other than a fantastic read). One of my favorite parts of The Dead House was when Fiona finds a way to bring in her sister the interior decorator so she can help a grieving father. The police forces of the world may not have Life Reassembly and Home Decoration Teams... but they're a wonderful idea. Fiona is usually in such grim situations that it's nice to read a touching-- and funny-- scene like this.

Through the first four books in this series, I have awarded each one an A+/five stars. I knew that, sooner or later, that rating streak would have to end, and it does here. The Dead House is a "mere" A/four-and-a-half stars because there were two things that were just a bit over the top for me. One was the medieval aspect of the mystery's solution which I can't say anything more about. The other occurred when Fiona calls a friend to come and witness a potentially dangerous arrest. But four A+'s and one A in five books? This means you really need to get your hands on this series and read each book, preferably in order because you need to know why Fiona is so unique.

You can thank me later.
 

The Dead House by Harry Bingham

ASIN:B01GYJHBSY
Sheep Street Books © 2016
eBook, 500 pages

Police Procedural, #5 Fiona Griffiths mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased from Amazon. 

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Bingham

First Line: Rain.

Fiona Griffiths has been tasked with two things: passing her sergeant's exam with flying colors and logging evidence to help fill in for someone on medical leave. She couldn't be less concerned about her exam, and the monotony of evidence tracking is driving her around the bend. In desperation, she goes to her boss and is given a big stack of cold cases-- anything to keep her quiet.

But as Fiona goes through those cold case files, she begins to piece the tiniest of clues together. A marine engineer found hanged in a locked apartment. A security guard found dead at the base of a cliff in Wales. Artwork that's stolen and then mysteriously returned. What connects the three? Only Fiona believes they are connected, and in her usual inimitable style goes about piecing the facts together to prove that she's right. Her investigating is going to bring her right into the heart of darkness, and her journey is going to be the ultimate test of her mental toughness.

Whenever I see those "all-time favorite" book lists, I avoid them like the plague. I just don't feel like putting all the books that have touched me deeply into an organized and rated row. (Yes, it is a lot like asking a mother to name her favorite child.) However, if someone asked me to name the best mystery series being written today, without hesitation I would say Harry Bingham's Fiona Griffiths. To date, there are four books, and I have given all four the highest possible rating. I can't say that about any other author I've read.

Yes, the setting of Wales adds texture and richness to the books. Yes, the mysteries are some of the most intriguing you'll ever come across. Yes, the pacing draws you inevitably forward, faster and faster. You have to know what happens, and you have to know now. But the best and brightest thing about Harry Bingham's superb series is the main character, Fiona Griffths.

At one time Fiona suffered from Cotard's syndrome, a rare mental illness in which an afflicted person holds the delusion that they are dead, either figuratively or literally. Fiona is one of the brightest people you'll ever run across, but Cotard's syndrome has colored every aspect of her life, and most especially in the way she interacts with other people. As can be seen in This Thing of Darkness, Fiona now has two superior officers who--though they may not really understand her-- can see her almost limitless potential as an investigator. To the best of their ability, they are now trying to groom her for bigger and better things. Will Fiona cooperate? Your guess is as good as mine.

I will warn you that this book does contain scenes of torture, and they do involve Fiona. They are tough to deal with but not impossible because we see these scenes through Fiona's eyes... those eyes that do not see the world as we do. There are also scenes of humor that bring needed warmth and laughter to the book, as when Fiona and Inspector Watkins conduct an interview together.

As different as Fiona is, she can also be very familiar. When she says, "Just when I see a barrier saying Do Not Cross, I have an almost overwhelming impulse to cross it," I understand because I've felt the same way many times.

Harry Bingham is the first writer who's been able to write scenes that take place on board ship that made me seasick, so be forewarned. He also made me nervous about a purchase Fiona made-- an uneasy foreshadowing of what's to come in book five, The Dead House? Unfortunately I'll just have to wait and see.

If you haven't read any of the books in this series, I urge you to do so, and you need to start with the very first book, Talking to the Dead.  If you do that, Fiona will make sense-- and then you will be as hopelessly hooked as I am. Fiona Griffiths is as wild and wonderful in her own way as Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander is in hers. I can't recommend Fiona-- or this entire series-- highly enough.
  

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Bingham

eISBN: 2940152156331
Sheep Street Books © 2015
eBook, 576 pages

Police Procedural, #4 Fiona Griffiths mystery
Rating: A+
Source: Purchased from Amazon.


 

The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham

First Line: I like the police force.

Things are going rather well for Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths of the Cardiff, Wales, police force. For once she feels as though she may have a shot at living on planet Normal. Until the box she ticked on a form stating she was interested in undercover work comes back to haunt her. 

Working undercover as a payroll clerk and an office cleaner, Fiona Griffiths is now Fiona Grey. She's had to give up her old life entirely in order to infiltrate a criminal gang, and when she's finally accepted as one of them, she's totally alone and vulnerable. And the most unpredictable person you'll ever run across.

Quite simply put, I love this series. Three books featuring Fiona Griffiths have been published so far. I've read all three, and I've given all three the highest rating possible. I've never done that before, and it will probably be a long time before I do it again.

My passion for this series has everything to do with the marvelous character Harry Bingham has created. Fiona Griffiths has Cotard's syndrome, a rare mental illness in which the afflicted person is deluded into thinking that they are dead, either figuratively or literally. This affects everything about her. Her behavior. What she eats. If she eats. The way she views the world. What she thinks of other people. Everything. What Fiona wants most in the world is to be a citizen of the planet Normal, and she has to work hard at it. She has to remember to say the things that her boyfriend expects to hear, for instance. 

She's a by-the-book supervisor's nightmare. On the Cardiff police force, she's usually given work that's performed alone because she works best that way-- even if she has grown tired of it. If you begin reading the series from the beginning (Talking to the Dead)-- which I recommend you do-- Fiona's going to seem downright weird. But there's something appealing about her. Perhaps it's because she tries so hard to be normal. Before you know it, you realize that Fiona's stopped being weird; you've actually grown to care about her and to want her to succeed.

The plot of The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths is guaranteed to tie you into knots. The absolute worst thing a person with Cotard's syndrome can do is to work undercover, but that's exactly what Fiona does-- for months at a time. As I watched her begin to melt into her undercover persona, I actually became worried. This book-- and the entire series-- is something that you can easily lose yourself inside, just like Fiona Griffiths is losing herself in Fiona Grey.

The gang she finds herself working for puts her through incredible security measures, and her isolation grows steadily since the only person she has any real contact with is Vic, the extremely violent security specialist for the villains. Fiona's own unpredictability adds to the suspense and to a very real feeling of danger. You never know what she's going to do. Has she just done something incredibly stupid that's ultimately going to get her killed? Or has she just done something brilliant that will convince the bad guys that she's completely under their thumb?

Yes... you can read this book as a standalone if you must, but I don't recommend it. If you're looking for an excellent characterization and tightly woven, exciting plots, you deserve to read every single Fiona Griffith book. Fiona deserves it, too. She's brilliant.
 

The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham

ISBN: 9781409140924

Orion Books © 2014

Hardcover, 442 pages

Police Procedural, #3 Fiona Griffiths mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham

First Line: Cardiff Prison. September 2010. "Welcome."

Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths welcomes the call about illegal dumping in a Cardiff, Wales, suburb; it saves her from another dull weekend. What she doesn't expect is to find a severed human leg-- complete with a high-heeled shoe-- tucked away in a garage freezer. The police are able to identify the body part as that of a young woman who went missing five years earlier, but just as Fiona starts to get inside the murdered girl's head, another body part is found, and this one belongs to a male. As more body parts are found, the media begin whipping themselves into a frenzy, and-- contrary to the evidence-- Fiona is convinced that these two victims are connected in some way.

My first encounter with DC Fiona Griffiths was in Harry Bingham's Talking to the Dead, and it became one of my Best Reads of 2012. Love Story, With Murders is now one of my Best Reads of 2014, and it has everything to do with Fiona... Fi. 

While in her teens she suffered an unusual sort of breakdown, and it has colored everything in her world: how she relates to people, how she thinks, how she copes with stress. She's almost the idiot savant of the Cardiff police force-- one moment disobeying orders and haring off to do something extremely foolhardy, and the next moment putting totally disparate clues together to crack a case. Reviewers have likened her to Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander, and they are similar in their strange intelligence, but where Lisbeth radiates hostility, Fi is often endearing-- especially once you know the truth about her breakdown.

Love Story, With Murders continues the story of Fi's reintroduction to the normal world. She's got a man in her life now, and she works to remember to do all that "boyfriend stuff" that he expects. You can almost chart her progress as the pages turn, and it makes you feel good. She's also developing a rapport with her boss, Rhiannon Watkins, a woman so disliked that she could be "the first murder victim with over a million plausible suspects. A group that would include every one of her CID colleagues." Watkins can see flashes of Fi's brilliance, and Fi always seems to ignore the superficial to see things in people that normally go unnoticed. Boyfriend, boss... and family, for Fi's father also becomes part of the investigation, which is both a worry and a help to the young detective constable.

The case is a true puzzler; however, I was so wrapped up in watching Fiona put the clues together that I made no attempt to solve the crimes ahead of her. Bingham has combined an absolutely brilliant characterization with a finely constructed mystery-- for the second time in a row. Love Story, With Murders can be read as a standalone, but if wonderful characters are one of the main reasons why you read, why deny yourself the pleasure of even one paragraph of Fiona Griffiths' story?

Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham

ISBN: 9780345533760

Delacorte Press © 2014

Hardcover, 400 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Fiona Griffiths mystery

Rating: A+

Source: NetGalley 

Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham

First Line: Beyond the window, I can see three kites hanging in the air over Bute Park.

The crime scene is a sad one: a woman killed after a short life ruined by drugs and prostitution... and her small six-year-old daughter lying dead beside her. The only thing that marks this crime scene as unusual is one small piece of evidence. Why would a drug addicted prostitute have the debit card of a very wealthy man who's been dead for months?

Police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, has more important cases to focus on, but there's one person who can't let this one go: young Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, who's got a reputation for being odd. She can become intensely focused on certain aspects of an investigation, and she doesn't always pick up on social cues. And everyone has heard about that two-year gap in her past.... (Psst! She had a breakdown. Mind-- you never heard it from me!)

Even though she has to get called on the carpet by her superior officer and told that she must do as she's told (no ignoring bits of the investigation that bore her, no haring off on some wild idea that she's gotten), Fi Griffiths has all the hallmarks of a brilliant, intuitive investigator. Told to check out the dead man's credit card and nothing more, Fi rapidly heads off on her own investigation because she's positive that dead little six-year-old has something important to tell her.

From the very beginning, Fiona Griffiths grabbed my attention and my sympathy. Throughout most of the book, her mental state is dealt with mostly by hints and innuendo, but the deeper she dives into this investigation, the more obvious it is that something is very wrong with her. From her flashes of insight and her way of putting clues together, to the way she counts the backwards and forwards "if's" in her name, to the way she tries to begin a relationship with a fellow officer, Fiona is an endearing-- and sometimes maddening-- creature.

She tries so hard to come down to Planet Normal-- to know when to laugh and how to smile at the right times-- that I couldn't help but want to get to know her and help her. So many times throughout the book, Fiona's thoughts would sing across the page and make me smile in recognition... or make my heart break. This is one incredibly memorable character, and I have to know more about her.

The fact that she's involved in a complex and dangerous investigation doesn't hurt one bit either. I couldn't put the pieces of it together and had to rely on Fiona's intuition to get us through. On his website the author states that he's working on more books in the series, and that is very welcome news. One thing that I would hope for in the future is that Fiona learns a bit of caution. The way she plows ahead into danger without waiting for backup-- although it fit the situation-- would mean that she would have a short life expectancy in the real world. Since she's a compelling character who's grabbed my interest in both hands, I want her to live for a good, long time.

Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham

ISBN: 9780345533739

Delacorte Press © 2012

Hardcover, 352 pages

Police Procedural, #1 in the Fiona Griffiths series

Rating: A+

Source: NetGalley