The story begins with an elderly spinster, Emily Simpson, hunting in the woods for a rare orchid that she has a competition with her friend, Lucy Bellringrer, to find every year. Miss Simpson finds the orchid, but she also witnesses something (or, rather, someone who didn't want to be seen. Later that evening, Miss Simpson is murdered in her home.

Enter: Detective Inspector Tom Barnaby and his sidekick Detective Sargent Gavin Troy. They solve the crime together. Except, really, it's nothing to do with Troy, and all about Barnaby's brains.

The plot is interesting, and the outcome of who was in the woods, and who murdered Miss Simpson (and why) is not easily guessable. It keeps you on your toes. I like the plot.

People who like cozy police procedurals. It is detective fiction, but the author is clearly a very intelligent woman, and this shows through her writing.

The humour. There are a lot of things about this book that made me smile.

Troy. Barnaby. The author's writing annoyed me at times. She uses incredibly long words that aren't the kinds of words I would ever use in my daily life. I didn't know what a lot of them meant. I'd never heard of them. In the beginning, I started looking them up because I thought it would be good to learn from them. But there were so many that I gave up. I got bored of doing it. It felt like the author was trying really hard to show that she is cleverer than her readers. I wondered if she based Tom Barnaby on herself! It irritated me. In literary fiction, I might expect this, but in a detective fiction novel, where you just want to uncover who did it, it's out of place.

Watch the episode of Midsomer that corresponds to this book. Which I did. And I loved it.

Angry, a lot. Amused, quite a lot. Intrigued.

Caroline Graham. I haven't read anything else of hers. I'm not sure I will, based on this one.

I think, had I not watched the TV series first, I may have loved this book. Because the plot is good, and the 'visiting' characters are great. So, maybe, others would enjoy the story.

The author's determination to prove her genius is too much for me. I wouldn't recommend this as an easy detective read.

Now, I must admit, the reason I chose to read this book is because I am a fan of the TV show Midsomer Murders. I wanted to check out the place where it all began. Because of this, the book left me a little disappointed. The characters of Troy, Tom, Joyce and Cully were all quite different, and much less likeable. In the book, Tom is superior and arrogant. He thinks himself better than everyone else and doesn't think too highly of his wife and daughter. At least, he has a lot of snide thoughts about them. Troy is misogynistic, homophobic and unintelligent.How he never became a detective is beyond me. Joyce, who I absolutely love in the TV show, in the book, is dull. Pointless, even. And Cully, is a punky, spoiled young woman.

The rest of the cast, however, are wonderfully written. They are vivid and colourful, and the author has written them with humour and attention to detail.

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Created Dec 29, 2024 at 6:19am • Submit your own review...