Page 33 - Phonebox Magazine June 2013

BOOK REVIEW
By Oxfam Bookshop, Olney
Tel: 01234 714592
‘S ’ recently made into a lm, but I prefer
her crime novels, featuring Simon Serrailler. In this latest novel he is a Detective Chief Inspector charged with finding the killer of elderly women living in the cathedral city of Bevham. The reader is given some background not initially available to the police; a man who was patently guilty of murder ten years previously was acquitted on a technicality and given a new identity and relocated by the police for his protection. His thoughts are communicated at various stages of the novel, but his new identity is unknown. It is he who is committing these more recent crimes.
As in her previous Serrailler novels, the writer develops the character, not only of the detective, but also of his family; twin sister, Cat, now a single parent with three children, and his father Richard and second wife, Judith. It is this character development which makes her books so interesting, running parallel to whatever crime the police are investigating. Cat is a doctor, former GP, involved in the running of the local hospice. In this book the hospice is suffering from lack of funds and so reduced to being a day hospice rather than residential. This is something Cat nds very dif cult to deal with, not only because of her passionate belief in the hospice movement, but also because it means a cut in hours for her. Her two older children have their own problems, Hannah missing out on a lm part which she desperately desired, while her older brother is selected for another lm without even trying. Meanwhile Richard is proving dif cult, as he had been with his rst wife, and Judith is trying hard to keep the peace.
With this in the background, the police investigation, led by the DCI continues, with the twists and turns to the plot which make any crime novel interesting, and Susan Hill’s skilful writing is a joy to read. This is a book which it is dif cult to put down, and, if you have not read any of the previous books in the series, that is a treat awaiting you!
elma Shacklady
usan Hill is well known for her scary
ghost story ‘The Woman in Black’
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Sandra Metcalf
ora and Dora Chance are the illegitimate twin daughters of Melchior Hazard, the most famous Shakespearian actor of his
Melchior’s birthday celebrations where
day. Unacknowledged by their father and brought up by Grandma Chance, who runs a boarding house in East London, they entered a far from classical side of the theatre, becoming a music-hall song and dance act: the Lucky Chances.
Narrated by Dora the book takes us through one day – the day of the twins 75th birthday, their father’s 100th birthday, and the anniversary of the birth of Will Shakespeare. It also takes us through a history of entertainment in the 20th century as experienced by the Chance sister: west- end theatre, vaudeville and the early years of Hollywood cinema. It’s style takes us on a whirlwind tour of many of the literary conventions and genres of the last 100 years. And Dora’s story takes us through the various strands of the Hazard dynasty, created by Melchior’s three marriages, who all come together at the end of the day at
some of the families mysteries are nally explained – but only in the way that a Shakespeare Comedy ‘explains’ itself, with children found and lost, identities mistaken or misunderstood, partners changed and coincidence ruling the action.
Dora’s narrative is bawdy, headlong, exuberant, unapologetic and full of her passion for life. She is unreliable, scatty, chatty, anything but elegant in her old age, but she is a survivor, regretting nothing, and a shrewd observer, and forgiver, of the frailties of human nature. I love this book, it’s clever, funny, manic and leaves no sacred cow of literature or theatre un-laughed at. But it seems to be a ‘marmite’ book which some people loath – though this is at least a greater testament to its impact than indifference. If you were one of the people who encountered it for A-level exams (and was a surer way of killing reading for enjoyment ever invented?) give it another try when you can bring more years of reading experience to it. You may discover a completely different book!
Phonebox Magazine 33