The Diamond Rosary Murders: An Inspector Angel Mystery by Roger Silverwood
| The Diamond Rosary Murders: An Inspector Angel Mystery by Roger Silverwood | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: A solid enough plot let down by editing issues. | |
| Buy? No | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 224 | Date: December 2012 |
| Publisher: Robert Hale | |
| ISBN: 978-0719807336 | |
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Detective Inspector Michael Angel found himself very busy in December 2011. First, it was the report of a body seen behind a local hotel but it had disappeared before Angel arrived. There was a suggestion that the girl had been involved in the theft of a rosary belonging to Mary Tudor. Before long he also had to deal with the death of local brewing millionaire, Haydn King who was found face down in his swimming pool - but two days before he'd told Superintendent Harker that he'd been tormented by a persistent nightmare that he died face down in his swimming pool. All this happened before the body count started mounting.
It's the nineteenth Inspector Angel story but the first time I've met him and it was reassuring to find that the book read perfectly well as a stand-alone, although I did fear that there might have been a slight spoiler for an earlier book at one point. If you are determined to read them then chronological order might be the way to go. The series is set in fictional Bromersley in South Yorkshire - you can tell which part of the world you're in because the men all call each other lad.
Dialogue is wooden in places but the plot is solid and imaginative, with some neat, satisfying twists. Male characters are reasonably well drawn but the females are two dimensional at best, falling into the 'good woman' end of the spectrum - or the criminal. In terms of a light read this wouldn't matter but the book is badly let down by the copy editing which should have eliminated several problems. You have the sense of an author who isn't really in touch with modern technology but has done his best to accommodate it. Unfortunately, this leaves us with a pile of emails (including junk) on a desk, waiting to be answered.
Worse still, at one point Angel is driving a silver Mondeo, which metamorphoses into the BMW which he drives resolutely up Marion Road. Moments later and on the same road, it is again a Mondeo. At the point when I should have been on the edge of my chair with the tension of the chase, I was howling with laughter. Add in uncorrected typos and spelling mistakes and the book became a frustrating read.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
For more Yorkshire crime we can recommend Peter Robinson's Chief Inspector Alan Banks novels or the Charlie Priest books by Stuart Pawson. We've also reviewed Angel and the Actress by Roger Silverwood, which was a little better.
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Diamond Rosary Murders: An Inspector Angel Mystery by Roger Silverwood at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Diamond Rosary Murders: An Inspector Angel Mystery by Roger Silverwood at Amazon.com.
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