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melissa_who_reads's review against another edition
4.0
Mostly enjoyed. Following the POV of one of the main novel specific characters: I was sure she was a born victim, and in fact she was - though not in the way I anticipated (phew). The interplay of the characters was great, as was the interplay of past and current crimes. I did guess one aspect of the 20-year-old crime; events overtook my guessing games in some of the current crimes (guessed one early, though). Daniel was less a point of view character in this one; I missed him.
lisam0183_bookworm's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first book I've read by this author and it was an easy read.
A cold case being re-opened alongside a current case where people are linked. Joanna's character irritated me a little bit at first in both the past and the present. I liked Hannah's character. A detective who just didn't rule out any possibility of things.
This was a good story and certainly had a twist that I didn't see coming. I was thinking of lots of other scenarios instead.
A cold case being re-opened alongside a current case where people are linked. Joanna's character irritated me a little bit at first in both the past and the present. I liked Hannah's character. A detective who just didn't rule out any possibility of things.
This was a good story and certainly had a twist that I didn't see coming. I was thinking of lots of other scenarios instead.
sazzibee4's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
fictionfan's review against another edition
5.0
Past and present...
Twenty years ago, in a drunken fit of jealous rage, Malcolm Whiteley shot his wife and killed his daughter before turning the gun on himself. Or did he? DCI Hannah Scarlett's old boss was never convinced, but could never find evidence to put anyone else in the frame. Now Hannah and her cold case team are re-investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl three years earlier when another girl goes missing – the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, who is now living in his uncle Malcolm's old house, the Dungeon House, where the tragedy took place. Hannah begins to wonder if the three cases might be linked in some way...
The first section of the book, almost a lengthy prologue, tells of the lead-up to the killings. Malcolm is convinced his wife is having an affair but doesn't know with whom. He suspects each of their friends in turn and obsessively watches their behaviour to see if he can pick up any signs. The characterisation of this successful and egotistical bully is very well done, and the reader is also introduced to some of the characters, young at the time of the killing, who will re-appear in the present day section.
At this stage, I couldn't get up much empathy for any of the characters and didn't really feel invested in their fate. However, when the book jumps to the present, it becomes a very enjoyable read. Hannah is a great character - normal, intelligent, functional. Her interactions with her team are convincing, and I particularly enjoyed the glimpses we got of her relationship with Patrick, the man she is living with. Their dialogue comes over as natural and they are gloriously angst free, both being interested in each other's work and mutually supportive. Refreshing!
This section, the bulk of the book, is split between Hannah's perspective and that of Joanne Footit. Joanne had been friends with Malcolm's daughter and, traumatised after the killings, left the area. But now she's back and hoping to revive her old relationship with Nigel. The way Joanne's character is developed is very clever – at first we see her only from her own perspective and then gradually Edwards lets us begin to see her through other people's eyes. She's intriguing, and as she meets up with the people she knew years before she seems to be stirring up old memories that many of them would prefer to leave buried.
Edwards creates a good sense of place in the Lake District setting, both in terms of the physical location and of the people who live there. He contrasts the beauty of the scenery with the looming atomic plant at Seascale, using it to help emphasise an atmosphere of growing tension as the story progresses.
The plotting is excellent on the whole and, though it goes a little over the top at the end, largely remains well within the bounds of possibility. As one might expect from Edwards, the author and editor of several books on classic crime fiction, there are echoes of the Golden Age mysteries, though brought bang up to date. The small town location means there's a limited cast of suspects and that slightly claustrophobic feeling of everyone knowing too much about their neighbours' business. There are proper clues and Hannah and her team work their way to the solution through the traditional technique of interviewing people – so much more interesting (to me) than trying to work out how long it takes for blowflies to invade corpses, etc! I didn't work it out, but when the solution was given I found it credible and satisfying.
Overall, well written and strongly plotted with some excellent characterisation – Hannah is a detective I will enjoy meeting again. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Twenty years ago, in a drunken fit of jealous rage, Malcolm Whiteley shot his wife and killed his daughter before turning the gun on himself. Or did he? DCI Hannah Scarlett's old boss was never convinced, but could never find evidence to put anyone else in the frame. Now Hannah and her cold case team are re-investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl three years earlier when another girl goes missing – the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, who is now living in his uncle Malcolm's old house, the Dungeon House, where the tragedy took place. Hannah begins to wonder if the three cases might be linked in some way...
The first section of the book, almost a lengthy prologue, tells of the lead-up to the killings. Malcolm is convinced his wife is having an affair but doesn't know with whom. He suspects each of their friends in turn and obsessively watches their behaviour to see if he can pick up any signs. The characterisation of this successful and egotistical bully is very well done, and the reader is also introduced to some of the characters, young at the time of the killing, who will re-appear in the present day section.
At this stage, I couldn't get up much empathy for any of the characters and didn't really feel invested in their fate. However, when the book jumps to the present, it becomes a very enjoyable read. Hannah is a great character - normal, intelligent, functional. Her interactions with her team are convincing, and I particularly enjoyed the glimpses we got of her relationship with Patrick, the man she is living with. Their dialogue comes over as natural and they are gloriously angst free, both being interested in each other's work and mutually supportive. Refreshing!
This section, the bulk of the book, is split between Hannah's perspective and that of Joanne Footit. Joanne had been friends with Malcolm's daughter and, traumatised after the killings, left the area. But now she's back and hoping to revive her old relationship with Nigel. The way Joanne's character is developed is very clever – at first we see her only from her own perspective and then gradually Edwards lets us begin to see her through other people's eyes. She's intriguing, and as she meets up with the people she knew years before she seems to be stirring up old memories that many of them would prefer to leave buried.
Edwards creates a good sense of place in the Lake District setting, both in terms of the physical location and of the people who live there. He contrasts the beauty of the scenery with the looming atomic plant at Seascale, using it to help emphasise an atmosphere of growing tension as the story progresses.
The plotting is excellent on the whole and, though it goes a little over the top at the end, largely remains well within the bounds of possibility. As one might expect from Edwards, the author and editor of several books on classic crime fiction, there are echoes of the Golden Age mysteries, though brought bang up to date. The small town location means there's a limited cast of suspects and that slightly claustrophobic feeling of everyone knowing too much about their neighbours' business. There are proper clues and Hannah and her team work their way to the solution through the traditional technique of interviewing people – so much more interesting (to me) than trying to work out how long it takes for blowflies to invade corpses, etc! I didn't work it out, but when the solution was given I found it credible and satisfying.
Overall, well written and strongly plotted with some excellent characterisation – Hannah is a detective I will enjoy meeting again. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
robinwalter's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Another stunner in this excellent series. It moved briskly without getting bogged down and was a really enjoyable and interesting mystery story. It was heading for a solid 4-4.25/5 for me until the big reveal about the significance of the title, which left me with no choice but to upgrade it to a 5 - for the writing skill and the sheer delight at being so thoroughly surprised so late in the book.
nick_borrelli's review
5.0
Malcolm Whitely is a man at the end of his rope. Malcolm is absolutely obsessed with the notion that his wife has been cheating on him. The bank withdrawals, the inconsistent stories when asked where she's been, and the way she looks at every man who isn't him, all of these are proof-positive in Malcolm's mind that she has been unfaithful. Malcolm has built a successful waste management business and done pretty well for himself and his family. Along with his wife Lysette and sixteen year-old daughter Amanda, Malcolm was even able to purchase a historic mansion near Ravenglass called the Dungeon House. The mansion overlooks the beautiful coastline of West Cumbria as well as historic ruins from the time of Roman occupation. An ideal place of peace and calm, yet Malcolm's world is far from peace and calm for a number of reasons. First, Malcolm's company is in jeopardy from South African business partners who are taking legal action against him for not revealing questionable financial practices before they came aboard. Then there is the growing marital rift between Malcolm and Lysette with regard to his perception that she has been sleeping with someone else. It quickly becomes an obsession with Malcolm as he continually cross-examines his wife regarding exactly who it is that she is seeing behind his back. Malcolm's increasing drinking problem doesn't do anything to help his belief in her infidelity and only serves to exacerbate the issue. When Malcolm passes out drunk during the Whiteley's yearly barbecue for their friends in the community, Lysette ultimately asks for a divorce. This is the final straw in Malcolm's rapid downward-spiral of a life. In a jealous rage, Malcolm grabs his loaded Winchester and aims it at Lysette in a desperate act of retribution. As he is about to pull the trigger, Malcolm sees a strange light shining outside the window coming from the vacant summer house where no one should be. Malcolm quickly regathers himself and we are left with the image of Malcolm with his finger on the trigger and the Winchester aimed squarely at the figure of his terrified wife. Fast forward twenty years and "The Dungeon House Massacre" is a distant but horrifying scar on Cumbria's otherwise pristine history. No one likes to talk about the night that Malcolm Whiteley lost his mind and killed his wife, sixteen year-old daughter, and then himself. Yet two recent disappearances of teenage girls re-open the old wounds of that fateful night. What is even more unsettling is that the two vanished girls have connections to the families involved in the Dungeon House murders. One is the daughter of Nigel Whiteley, Malcolm Whiteley's nephew and the other is the daughter of Gray Elstone, Malcolm's old financial advisor and friend. In the course of investigating these events, Hannah Scarlett's cold case crew begins to look into what happened at the Dungeon House twenty years ago and hypothesize that maybe what occurred there wasn't so cut and dry. Especially since an eyewitness saw a strange individual running from the direction of the Dungeon House around the same time of the murders. Could it be possible that Malcolm didn't murder his family that night and who exactly is the shadowy stranger observed at the scene all of those years ago? And what exactly was that mysterious light that Malcolm saw just before he presumably pulled the trigger? My feeling while reading The Dungeon House was that I did not want it to end. Martin Edwards has authored an engrossing mystery where the events of today are directly tied to people and places of the past. I couldn't get over how intricately connected the plots were between the two time periods. Mr. Edwards does an excellent job of creating doubt in the reader's mind where realistically, there should be none. The opening chapters depict a heinous crime that seems to outline exactly what happened: a jealous husband whose life seems hopeless, finally snaps, murders his family and takes his own life. Yet as we read on we see evidence slowly come forward to potentially cast that scenario in doubt. It has been a long time since I have read a mystery that captured my attention the way that The Dungeon House did. I felt disappointed when it was over, but the ride was well worth it. I had many a late night reading this book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a complex plot that continually surprises you at every turn. My assumptions were challenged more than once and I was delighted when the final revelation was deftly disclosed at the end of the book. The Dungeon House is a mystery in the truest sense of the word and a book that rewards the reader over and over. Highly recommended.
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