LAST BOAT TO CAMDEN TOWN

by Paul Charles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 1998

Inspector Christy Kennedy, of the Camden CID, continues his run as the kindest, gentlest copper in Do-Not's Bloodlines series. Everything about his second case (I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass, 1997) murmurs tradition. Dr. Edmund Berry, late resident at St. Pancras All Saints Hospital, was happy, healthy, faithful to his adoring wife, and blessedly unencumbered by enemies. His drowning in North London's Cumberland Basin would look like a decorous suicide if he had a reason to kill himself, and if his alcohol level weren't elevated to the 30th floor. The only blemish on his blameless life--the misdiagnosis that left schoolteacher Susanne Collins dead when she checked into St. Pancras with what seemed a routine ailment--looks like a motive for suicide. But it could equally well have driven Susanne's pigeon-loving brother Norman or her chronically stoned aspiring boyfriend William Jackson to murder. Following the clues doggedly--his favorite detective device seems to be the admission that he missed an important clue the first time around--Christy makes a case against a suspect so obvious that the main suspense of this low-key procedural concerns whether Christy will ever consummate his affair with a journalist he'd like to have as more than a friend. Though no threat to his idol Inspector Morse, Christy is an appealingly unpretentious hero fit to while away a quiet couple of hours.

Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 168

Publisher: Do-Not--dist. by Dufour

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998

Categories: FICTION