Born Guilty
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- €11.99
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- €11.99
Publisher Description
A British PI finds a body in a box in this mystery with “a nice twist waiting at the end” (Kirkus Reviews).
As he leaves St Monkey’s after choir practice, private investigator Joe Sixsmith makes a heartbreaking discovery in the church graveyard: the body of a boy in a cardboard box. The police think it’s just another drug overdose, another homeless kid who’s become a casualty of the streets. But Joe can’t get this death out of his mind.
Though his casebook is already full, he’s intent on taking a look around Luton to learn the truth. But as usual, he has to elude his matchmaking aunt Mirabelle at the same time . . .
“Poking and probing among the village’s down-and-outs as well as its upper crust, Joe keeps at it until he discovers the shocking secrets of some of the town’s most prominent citizens. A blend of Chaplin and Clouseau, Joe Sixsmith is endearingly funny, but he also has an unerring knack for discovering some of life’s most serious truths in the midst of his bumbling misadventures. An outstanding read.” —Booklist
“Joe juggles clues, threats, and assaults with equal distinction.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Pictures of Perfection, 1994's Dalziel/Pascoe mystery, Hill conjured up a nearly faultless puzzle with virtually no crime and no dead folks. Less successful is this, the second in his series starring laconic, balding, middle-aged Joe Sixsmith, a black detective in the gritty English town of Luton. Joe has an old suit, an old cat, a young lover and an aunt who wishes he would settle down with a nice girl. Joe sings with the church choir, sips Guinness in a bar full of Gary Glitter fans and stumbles into cases. These involve a dead homeless boy, a high-ranking cop's wife accused of sexual harassment and a relative of Joe's girl who might just be a war criminal. Hill is lamentably slapdash with all three plot threads, and the whole thing quickly deteriorates into provincial coyness. Those who have never listened to Gary Glitter or been anywhere near Luton won't get many of the jokes-but, on the other hand, they can bless their luck, as both are truly grim. A petition demanding that Hill stick to Dalziel/Pascoe capers or the psychological chillers he pens as Patrick Ruell might be in order.
