Wake the Dead
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4.4 • 42 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A quaint English village's summer gala is interrupted by murder in this award-winning mystery series starring the mild-mannered Detective Inspector Thanet.
The Thaxden Fête is one of the highlights of the Sturrenden social calendar, and this year it promises to be better than ever. Local celebrities have descended on Thaxden Hall to raise money for the town hospice. The food is exquisite, the music lovely, and the company divine. Det. Inspector Luke Thanet and his wife are having a wonderful time at the party—until murder intervenes.
The victim is the mother of Hugo Fairleigh, local member of Parliament and organizer of the fête. An elderly woman who suffered a stroke just a few days before, she's an unlikely target for a killer, yet someone saw fit to hold a pillow over her face until she breathed no more. Suspecting the killer came from Fairleigh's own circles, Thanet begins investigating the MP's family, certain of only one thing: This party is over.
Written by the CWA Silver Dagger–winning Dorothy Simpson, Wake the Dead is a perfect English mystery novel: at once tightly plotted, understated, and utterly shocking.
Wake the Dead is the 11th book in the Inspector Thanet Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For every Ruth Rendell or P. D. James, Britain also can boast a lesser-known crime matron like Simpson, the extremely capable creator of the Inspector Luke Thanet series. In his 11th puzzle (after Doomed to Die ), Thanet's beat remains the town of Sturrenden, his milieu the upper middle classes, his sleuthing style understated and shrewdly intuitive--when he isn't beset by such family problems as his teenage daughter's posh new boyfriend. The inspector finds a diversion of sorts at a local fete hosted by the prominent Fairleigh family. But then death strikes: someone uses a pillow to suffocate the clan's tough old matriarch only days after she suffers a stroke. Suspects include the immediate family--a son in politics, a daughter-in-law mourning her baby's death, a timid sister--and the usual collection of odd servants beloved by British crime writers. Simpson offers only a handful of possible perpetrators and only a few murder options in a scenario limited to high teas, socializing and typically unruly British weather. Yet she works wonders within that narrow framework. Mystery Guild alternate. ( Nov. )
