Sun 4 Sep 2016
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: JILL McGOWN – The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
JILL McGOWN – The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale. Lloyd and Hill #4. Macmillan, UK, hardcover, 1991. St. Martin’s, US, hardcover, 1991. Fawcett, US, paperback, 1993.
In my opinion, Jill McGown is one of the best current British mystery writers. I wouldn’t attempt to convince you she’s “better” than James or Rendell, but I enjoy her stories more, because I like her characters more as people.
Things finally seem to be going well for star-crossed lovers Chief Inspector Lloyd and newly-promoted (and soon to be divorced) Inspector Judy Hill. The story of their long-standing and often tortured affair has been an integral part of the series. Hill has been transferred to a nearby jurisdiction, and her first case is linked to one of Lloyd’s: the same night murder of women in separate locations. One woman is the wife of a director of a local company, the other the wife of a criminal figure but nevertheless a co-director of the same company.
Everyone knows everyone else, everyone has a different agenda, and no one is interested in telling the police the truth. Lloyd and Hill must work together (and in an unfamiliar professional relationship) to answer the key questions. One murderer, or two? Connected, or separate?
As usual, McGown tells the story from multiple viewpoints, and very effectively. The device allows all the players to be sharply drawn, and accomplishes it without bogging down the story. Her prose is effective, straightforward, and relatively unembellished. The plot is filled with both clues and red herrings, and I, at least, failed to see the end coming.
If you missed the first three books in the series — A Perfect Match, Murder at the Old Vicarage, and Gone To Her Death — hunt them up. They’re all good.
Bibliographic Note: There were 13 books in the Lloyd & Hill series, the last being Unlucky for Some (2004)
September 4th, 2016 at 6:47 am
I liked her Lloyd and Hill books a lot. Rather than the Rendell and James comparison Barry made, I’d think more the Bill Slider books of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. I read all 13 of these and wish there were more. McGown died much too young.
September 4th, 2016 at 9:07 am
I agree with Jeff about some similarities between the Lloyd-Hill mysteries and the Bill Slider books, but I’d add something else: the tone of the McGown books often remind me of certain (not all) mysteries by Minette Walters, especially the way both writers upend your expectations by giving you just enough narrative information from one character to allow you to draw a logical but entirely incorrect conclusion and then suddenly showing you the very same information from another perspective and all of your clever assumptions circle down the drain. It takes incredible skill to thread that needle and I wish McGown had had more time to keep doing it.
September 4th, 2016 at 8:14 pm
I have to second the Walters comparison. Nor are the books as bloated as some later James novels, and Lloyd is a more believable policeman than Dalgliesh.