Sun 29 Aug 2021
An Archived Review by Barry Gardner: TERI HOLBROOK – A Far and Deadly Cry.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[6] Comments
TERI HOLBROOK – A Far and Deadly Cry. Gale Grayson #1. Bantam, paperback original, 1995.
This is a first novel by a lady who is a former journalist. Interesting — the publicity material refers to her several times as Teri Peitso. She is an American, a Southerner.
Gale Grayson, an American expatriate once married to an Englishman, and her 3-year old daughter Katie Pru live in a picturesque Hampshire village where now all seems well. It didn’t three years ago, when Gale’s husband was cornered in the local church by police seeking to arrest him for terrorism, and rather than be arrested blew his brains out.
All will not be well again, either, as Gale’s baby-sitter, a young local woman, is found murdered. The policeman who led the charge that resulted in the church death is dispatched from Scotland Yard to investigate, and all the half-healed wounds are opened again.
This was recommended to me by someone whose tastes I didn’t know that well, and it looked a bit thick (nearly 400 pages), but it was a village mystery, so I tried it-and it turned out pretty well. Quite well, actually. The Chief Inspector and his lady Sergeant were believable and likable characters, and the numerous villagers were generally well-drawn also. The viewpoints shifted frequently (with that of the police predominant), and the story occasionally slowed down a bit; not surprising in a book of this length.
But considering how little actually happened, action-wise, it held up really well. It could have been 50 pages shorter, but as is it’s still one of the better village mysteries I’ve read this year.
The Gale Grayson series —
1. A Far and Deadly Cry (1995)
2. The Grass Widow (1996)
3. Sad Water (1998)
4. The Mother Tongue (2001)
Bibliographic Update: The author’s full name is now known to be Teri Peitso-Holbrook.
August 29th, 2021 at 7:28 pm
I was surprised to discover that this was the first of what turned to be a series, or if it was, perhaps one starring the Chief Inspector and “his lady Sergeant,” neither named by Barry other than thus.
Not so. The four books all feature Gale Grayson, alternating between England and her home town in Georgia.
August 29th, 2021 at 9:03 pm
Hard to tell from the review, are these cozies, or closer to the sociio mystery genre of Rendell, Elizabeth George, and P.D. James?
August 29th, 2021 at 9:09 pm
Barry makes this first one sound like a cozy, but looking at short synopses of the later ones, it’s clear that while somehow Gale Garyson keeps getting involved in other mysteries, she’s also still haunted by her husband’s death. I think you’re right in bringing up writers fond of psychological themes, ones like Rendell, Elizabeth George and P. D. James. If so, I think I will pass. In fact, I know I will.
August 30th, 2021 at 6:07 am
Wow, do not remember this review or the series at all.
August 30th, 2021 at 11:48 am
It’s not surprising that you don’t remember the review, and while the series got some critical acclaim, I don’t think it attracted all that many readers.
August 31st, 2021 at 12:21 am
I just happened to come across book four in the series, and the blurb on the front cover says, “In the same vein as P. D. James and Elizabeth George.”
That clinches it for sure as to what (sub)genre Ms Holbrook’s books fall into.