The Coroner

by M.R. Hall and Matthew Hall

Book Overview

When lawyer Jenny Cooper is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she s hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0330458361
• ISBN13: 9780330458368
• Release Date: January 2013
• Publisher: Pan MacMillan
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.1" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Three well-woven threads; a very good debut book!

First Sentence: The first dead body Jenny ever saw was her grandfather's. Jenny Cooper spent 15 years practicing child-care law, but a serialized cheating, emotionally abusive husband and subsequent divorce, a missing year from her childhood, resulted in an emotional breakdown and severe panic attacks. She's beginning to put her life back together and has been appointed local coroner in the Severn Vale District Corner, inheriting the office, and it's rather resentful clerk, from recently deceased Harry Marshall. Two of the cases she also inherits are those of a young boy and a teen prostitute, both dead of apparent suicide, both of who spent time in a youth penal facility, and who knew each other when younger. Jenny begins to suspect Harry of negligence, at best, and possibly a cover-up for murder. I have often read about coroners, but never really understood their role, responsibilities and the extent of their authority. How nice to finally find an author who not only focuses on that role, as pertains to the UK, but makes it really interesting. I was particularly struck by the protagonist's observation that "After just four days as coroner she was already the earthly representative of fifty traumatically departed souls." The scenes at the inquest were as well done as any trial scene I've read. I am so impressed with Hall's writing. There are three major threads to this story; Jenny's emotional issues, her dealing with a possible new relationship and the case on which she is working. Hall weaves these three threads evenly and perfectly, and in such a way that you see the character gain strength and develop as the story progresses. I like seeing a male author write realistic, female characters, and Jenny is an interesting character. In spite of her issues, you know there is strength there and she will survive. It is also nice to see a male author write a male character who isn't the knight on a white charger. Jenny's neighbor, Steve, may be her new relationship, but he has growing of his own to do. All the characters were real, whether likable or not, and for some, you felt their angst. I was particularly struck by the father of a dead girl, "We blame the teachers, the police, the politicians, every last God-dammed one of those self-righteous bastards who spend their lives telling other people what's best for them but can't tell right from wrong." How heart-felt and timely a statement is that? There were some minor weaknesses. As can happen, because Hall lives in the area in which the book is set, the sense of place was not as strong as I, a "foreign" reader, would have liked. It was necessary for me to resort to the internet in order to find out where the book is set and what the area looks like. There were a couple rather large coincidences and predictable threads, but it was still a very good, engrossing read that kept me up until 2 a.m. to finish the book. Hall's next book, "The Disappeared" is already on my

Dark doings in local government!

Are there any professions allied to the police left for thriller writers in which to set their heroes or heroines? We've had any number of cops of all shapes, race, sizes, sexual persuasions, degrees of sobriety, degrees of mental turmoil; both male and female, married, unmarried, divorced or bereaved, in addition to just plain old pathologists, forensic pathologists, forensic psychologists, forensic archaeologists, paraplegic criminologists, graphologists, and the list goes on. Now it's the turn of the good old coroner to enter the limelight and crusade for the cause of justice. And this isn't some crusty old bloke in pin-striped trousers but a youngish forty something and still sexy woman. Naturally, she couldn't be a well balanced, happily married mum with two equally contented kids: this time, rather than being well on her way to being an alcoholic she's suffering from chronic anxiety and has to visit a shrink every now and then to prescribe the pills she needs to get her through another day. In addition to coming up against every sort of bureaucratic barrier put in her way by dodgy, up to no good local government officials who form part of a conspiracy to cover up a couple of recent and what should have been suspicious deaths, she has to contend with an overbearing ex and his new much younger girlfriend and the archetypical stroppy teenaged son. So, as clichéd as it might have been, Hall manages to make his heroine just likeable enough, despite teetering on the edge of morbid self-pity, for us to care what happens to her and the cases bequeathed her by her less than efficient predecessor, who, from the sound of him, probably did wear pin-striped trousers. It's efficiently written as might be expected by a professional scriptwriter and just engaging enough. Will the second novel syndrome strike or will M. R. Hall manage to breath enough life into his heroine to support a lengthy run? The second novel's out now so fingers crossed!