A Charmed Death

by Miles Tripp

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0931773849
• ISBN13: 9780931773846
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Critics Choice Paperbacks/Lorevan Publishing
• Length: 192 Pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent British mystery, with bonus Relationship insights

We count British authors Dick Francis [mostly Americanized now], Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, and P.D. James among our numerous favorite writers. Somehow the settings in England, the dialogue, the names of things, being mostly the same but slightly different occasionally appeal in much the same way Yankees like visiting the South (or vice versa) for a different taste of America, where of course the differences in fact are indeed few. We just happenstanced upon this story by Brit Miles Tripp and gave it a try.What unfolded in this fairly short (under 200 pages) but classic mystery was a compelling tale - one as much about suspicion between husband and wife as about the murder in question. When her husband Rodney Best all too conveniently stumbles across a dead woman while walking the dog while she waited in the car, wife Stella begins to wonder why he chose to drive, why he chose the route he did, why he stopped where he did to walk the dog. She hid these concerns from the police, who her husband was reluctant to call. Over the next few weeks, the interest he took in the case, followed by her detective work, drove wedges of distrust between them, to the point where Rodney finally confessed he was covering for someone else. This totally surprising twist to the plot merely set the stage for a wonderful story within the story about this someone else and their relationship with the dead woman. Near the end, a few more twists and turns reveal all. The permanent effect on the Best's otherwise still intact marriage gave us as much food for thought as the entertaining outcome to the whodunit per se.While maybe the book only took a couple of hours to read, author Tripp surely was skillful enough to craft a clever plot sufficient to maintain suspense until virtually the final page. Possibly more impressive is that he also was insightful enough to write his reflections on family relationships, intimacy, extracurricular affairs, and the like in such a way to fuel thought and introspection on the part of the reader. For a short little British mystery, not bad !