Fri 1 Sep 2017
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: JANET NEEL – Death Among the Dons.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
JANET NEEL – Death Among the Dons. Francesca & John MacLeish #4. St. Martin’s, US, hardcover, 1994. Pocket, US, paperback, 1995. First published in the UK by Constable, hardcover, 1993.
My only problem with Janet Neel is that she’s just written four books. She’s among my favorite British writers.
Francesca Wilson, now married to Superintendent John MacLeish, is having a rough time of it. Her 6-month old son won’t sleep, and neither can Francesca. She and motherhood aren’t sgreeing at all. During a more-or-less enforced visit to a health spa, she makes the acquaintance of a woman who is tapped to take over Gladstone University, an all-female College, after the former head is found dead of an overdose of Valium.
Francesca is asked to assume the part-time and temporary post of Bursar as the school, to straighten out its horrendously messed-up finances. She accepts and steps into a mare’s nest of political intrigue and academic in-fighting. Then two students are attacked, and a professor is almost killed.
Neel’s major (though certainly not her only) strength lies in her characters. Though Francesca (MacLeish’s role is secondary) is kept at he center of the story, she is only one of the major characters. The story is told in the third person from several viewpoints, and the most prominent one is that of the newly-appointed head, an aging but still strong woman.
Numerous other characters play significant roles, and all are sharply and convincingly drawn. Francesca and John remain one of the most likale pairs in crime fiction, and their personal lives are mixed unobtrusively with a very good and well-told story.
This is an excellent book in all respects, by a writer who deserves to be recognized as one of the best if she already isn’t.
The Francesca Wilson & John MacLeish series —
1. Death’s Bright Angel (1988)
2. Death on Site (1989)
3. Death of a Partner (1991)
4. Death Among the Dons (1993)
5. A Timely Death (1996)
6. To Die For (1998)
7. O Gentle Death (2000)
September 1st, 2017 at 8:48 pm
This seems unusual to me in that it’s the wife of a Scotland Yard inspector who gets herself involved in solving a mystery. Barry’s review doesn’t make it clear, but I wonder if her husband is the one who comes in toward the end and is responsible for cracking the case.
Or am I making up a completely different story out of thin air?
September 2nd, 2017 at 12:11 am
He seems to hint that’s the case, but by no means clear. No mention if one or both do the detecting.
September 2nd, 2017 at 6:25 am
Both.
I liked the early books in this series a lot, but the last few petered out to a whimper, to the best of my recollection. A sudden not very believable infidelity was one of the things that was really a mistake. But the first few are definitely worth a look, if you’re in a British mood.
September 2nd, 2017 at 3:07 pm
Thanks, Jeff. That helps explain something that was puzzling me — the big gap between Barry’s praise for the stories and the fact that Janet Neel is all but forgotten today.