A Fall from Grace: A Novel of Suspense (Wheeler Large Print Book Series) - Hardcover

Robert Barnard (1936-2013) was awarded the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Nero Wolfe Award, as well as the Agatha and Macavity awards. An eight-time Edgar nominee, he was a member of Britain's distinguished Detection Club, and, in May 2003, he received the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement in mystery writing. His most recent novel, Charitable Body, was published by Scribner in 2012.

*Starred Review* Barnard, who has won just about every mystery award there is, including the Malice Domestic Lifetime Achievement Award and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, never falls from grace. His writing (in almost 40 novels to date) is always stiletto sharp, his observations darkly witty, his plotting perniciously surprising. In his latest, Leeds cop Charlie Peace (who goes back to The Bad Samaritan,1995) is a newly made inspector, relocating with his wife to the village of Slepton Edge, a move somewhat darkened by the parallel move of Peace's detested father-in-law to a house nearby. Barnard takes full advantage of village atmosphere, with characters revealing secrets about themselves and others in the local pub. Peace and his wife, Felicity, learn that her father had to leave his former village hurriedly, after he struck a young woman. And now the old man is hitting on a teenage girl. Before the Peaces have a chance to figure out how to protect her, the old man is found dead at the bottom of a quarry. Suspects abound, including a clutch of murderous children and Felicity herself. Peace moves into full detective mode with a murder on his doorstep and his wife a prime suspect. This very satisfying riff on the traditional village mystery finds Barnard at the top of his game. Connie Fletcher
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