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Inspector Quantrill #1
Death in the Morning
It's a glorious spring morning in the village of Ashthorpe. Birds are singing, and sunlight is dancing on the river where Mary Gedge's dress drifts lazily in the shallows with flowers mingling in her hair. The scene is so altogether lovely that some locals think dreamily of Ophelia. Chief Inspector Quantrill has little patience for that kind of self-indulgence; he's got a murder to solve. With a loveless marriage and the certain knowledge that he's missed his best chance for romance, he's something of a prisoner of pragmatism. Mary Gedge may indeed have died for love of the wrong man, but in this muddy English market town, that man is unlikely to be a prince of Denmark.
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
2 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Sheila Radley
24 books3 followersSheila Mary Robinson was born and brought up in rural Northamptonshire, one of the fortunate means-tested generation whose further education was free. She went from her village school via high school to London University, where she read history.
She served for nine years as an education officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force, then worked variously as a teacher, a clerk in a shoe factory, a civil servant and in advertising. In the 1960s she opted out of conventional work and joined her partner in running a Norfolk village store and post office, where she began writing fiction in her spare time. Her first books, written as Hester Rowan, were three romantic novels; she then took to crime, and wrote 10 crime novels as Sheila Radley.
She served for nine years as an education officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force, then worked variously as a teacher, a clerk in a shoe factory, a civil servant and in advertising. In the 1960s she opted out of conventional work and joined her partner in running a Norfolk village store and post office, where she began writing fiction in her spare time. Her first books, written as Hester Rowan, were three romantic novels; she then took to crime, and wrote 10 crime novels as Sheila Radley.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 16, 2023
The English village murder mystery is a hardy perennial in crime fiction, and remains as popular as these flowers are in a typical English country garden. Death and the Maiden may be by an author who is less familiar nowadays, but it is a fine example of the species.
Originally published in 1978, Death and the Maiden is the first in a series of nine Inspector Quantrill books, by Sheila Radley. It is a police procedural murder mystery, with a village and small town setting. Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill’s beat is the village of Ashthorpe and nearby small market town of Breckham Market, in East Anglia.
“The body lay—barely afloat in the shallows, long hair waving indistinguishably among the river weeds—some yards downstream from Ashthorpe Bridge.”
The case Inspector Quantrill has to solve is that of a beautiful young girl who has drowned in a shallow brook, surrounded by flowers. The scene is reminiscent of Ophelia’s death in “Hamlet”; indeed one of those questioned remarks on this. But how would a copper who was country born and bred, and left school at fourteen, know such a thing? His work usually consists of recovering stolen pigs, and similar crimes. His home life is lacklustre, trapped in a passionless marriage, with the conviction that he has missed his best chance for romance. In addition to his woes, Inspector Quantrill is preoccupied by another unusually high-profile and unsolved case involving a young girl who had gone missing. The idea that he could have done more to solve this earlier case constantly preys on his mind. Everyone assumes the present case to be suicide, but Inspector Quantrill is a thorough policeman, and wants to be sure. He is a little uneasy because in view of the unsolved disappearance, a new Detective Sergeant has been assigned to him.
Detective Sergeant Tait is a high flyer, a graduate entry, fresh out of detective school. He is brimming with the latest procedure, has good prospects, and also finds this case rather irksome. With his talents and education, he never expected to be stuck in a backwater village with a bunch of plods, as he sees them. He even has to borrow a pair of boots from a more experienced officer. Sergeant Tait has his sights firmly set on promotion, and glibly says to his superior that he views this as a challenge. However, Inspector Quantrill is no fool, and knows the score. He may not be as well educated as Sergeant Tait, having worked up through the ranks from a lowly copper, but Inspector Quantrill knows people, and how they work.
Other policemen are also in the mix, with their own points of view. One older constable knows the village backwards, but feels out of touch. He resents the fact that he is now in a car, rather than on his bicycle, and so feels less able to stop to chat with everybody.
The teenager found dead in the shallows of the river, had apparently been gathering flowers on May Day morning. She is quickly identified as eighteen-year-old Mary Gedge. Mary had been a beautiful, kind and brilliant young woman, with everything to live for, and shortly to go to King’s College, Cambridge. This is especially remarkable as she would be one of the first ever female entrants to the previously male only college of the University. What possible reason could she have had to kill herself—if indeed she did? At first it seems to be a tragic accident, but Sergeant Tait, with his eye for detail, thinks it is suspicious. But who would have wanted her dead? The case requires further investigation, and despite Sergeant Tait’s annoyance, Inspector Douglas Quantrill has no intention of delegating this one.
Inspector Quantrill is a very down to earth, pragmatic policeman. But he is embarrassed to show his ignorance when others quickly see the resemblance to Ophelia, in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. In particular he does not want to be shown up in front of Jean Bloomfield, the head teacher of the school where Mary had been a pupil. Everyone had said that Mary was sweet and innocent, just as Ophelia in Shakespeare’s tragedy had been. Ophelia had fallen in love with the wrong man, who eventually humiliated her enough for her to destroy herself. Mary had no actual boyfriend, that any one knew of, but she did have several admirers. She also lived in a caravan at the end of her parents’ garden, so could come and go as she liked. Could this be what had happened in this case? We see little evidence of a handsome Prince of Denmark in the motley selection of suspects, but Mary Gedge may indeed have died for love of the wrong man.
We proceed systematically through the interviews with all those who could have been involved, and become immersed in both the area, and the time this was set. Sheila Radley believed that most people are not criminally minded, but are driven to crime by overwhelming pressures, and for some this was a time of great upheaval and pressure. Prior to the school leaving age in England being raised to 16, many had left school at 14. The novel takes place after this, and in a short charmed period, after the years when tertiary education was for the privileged wealthy few, but before today’s student loans and significant routine debts. At the time of this novel, means tested grants were available, opening up further education to thousands of clever school children who would otherwise not have the opportunity. It was a time of great change, when the younger, more highly educated university graduates would be appointed alongside, or above, those formerly senior. It could feel as if England was a land of great opportunity. But there was a dark side; the greater chances opened up for many could also cause resentments.
In addition to this was the issue of increasing gender equality. It was not only young men who were attaining degrees, and expecting good jobs in workplaces. Young women were too, on a scale hitherto never seen. But there were those of both sexes who lost out, as social mores struggled to keep up with women’s rights, and education for all. It was still a disgrace, for instance to become pregnant, and “have to get married”. The boy responsible was expected to “do his duty”. Living together was commonly called “living in sin”, and spoken of in hushed, shocked tones. The roles laid down for each gender were still rigidly stubborn to any change.
Jean Bloomfield was one of these casualties. She was an intelligent, industrious teacher, and had fought hard to become the head teacher of a respected girls school. She was well liked, and had the admiration and support of all the parents. However, when her school merged with a boys school, the male head teacher was appointed overall—the fact that he seemed a pompous nincompoop, notwithstanding. (I can vouch for the prevalence of such appointments. I too had experience of this happening in the girls grammar school I attended. Come the sixth form, it merged with several others and was deemed a comprehensive school—with an overall male head teacher. My head teacher, who had been there for years establishing its excellent reputation, quietly took early retirement. Female equality of opportunity was still clearly in its infancy.)
We see examples across the board here. We see highly educated, very literate police, and the sort of professional whom we are used to from the novels of Colin Dexter, but we also see that not everyone in this newly progressive era has their dream job. One suspect, equally intelligent as Mary Gedge, has had his prospects blighted. Now he works at a chicken processing plant, which is described in grisly detail:
“Sickened, Tait stood as though his shoes had been cemented to the bloodstained concrete floor. The grotesque chorus line of dead birds dipped and swayed on the hooks across the shed, plunging into tanks of scalding water, entering a plucking machine, and then emerging naked to be slapped down on another conveyor belt for evisceration and packing by a team of women. In a matter of minutes living creatures were being transformed before his eyes into hunks of graded, quality-controlled hygienically packed, inexpensive protein.”
Sheila Radley can conjure up a blissfully nostalgic country scene, but she does not mince her words when life is not all honey and roses.
We see a microcosm of social change in how the characters interact. These well portrayed descriptions of human relationships are similar to Caroline Graham’s, or the early novels of P.D. James. The interplay between the two leading protagonists representing the old and the new methods of police work, are engaging. The characters are all well-drawn and convincing, and the settings feel authentic. Inspector Quantrill in particular has been given an interesting back story, to tempt us to read more in the series. There is even a romance involving one of the main police characters, which is revealed as material to the story, and more than just a subplot. The case itself is solidly plotted and interesting. Sheila Radley herself explained:
“My murderers aren’t psychopaths, they’re not villainous or violent, they’re perfectly ordinary people under some kind of extraordinary stress, and what fascinates me is what it is that finally drives them to commit murder. That’s what I think is the really interesting thing, not whodunit but why.”
Sheila Radley is a pseudonym for Sheila Mary Robinson, who was born in Northamptonshire in 1928. She read History at London University, and worked as an Education Officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force between 1951 and 1960. Then she had various interim jobs before settling down to join her partner in running a village store and post office, in Banham, Norfolk. Thus Sheila Mary Robinson was in an ideal situation to observe village life from the inside. She began writing fiction in her spare time, and published three romantic novels under the pen name “Hester Rowan”, before moving on to detective fiction.
She stopped work as a postmistress in 1978, and that was the year when Death and the Maiden, the first Inspector Quantrill novel, was published in Great Britain. It was published in the USA the following year, 1979, under the rather more prosaic title “Death in the Morning”, thus completely missing the poignant reference to Schubert’s magnificent String Quartet, “Death and the Maiden”. Eight more novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill followed, the last being published in 1994.
The Washington Post called this novel “almost too good to be true”. It was short-listed for the “John Creasey Memorial Award”. If you enjoy police procedural novels featuring an old fashioned, solid, copper, set at a time still within memory, but now sadly dated, you may well enjoy this one. All the portraits are very well drawn, both of the police and as of the people involved in the case. There are plenty of clues—and plenty of red herrings too—to keep any reader entertained. Sheila Radley has provided a firm base for more novels featuring Chief Inspector Quantrill. Similar to the early Inspector Wexford novels by Ruth Rendell, the writing is excellent, and the novel has strong, appealing characters and an evocative atmosphere.
Everything is not as it seems in the quaint East Anglian village of Ashthorpe where, as Shakespeare once said of another place: “There is a willow grows aslant a brook…”
Originally published in 1978, Death and the Maiden is the first in a series of nine Inspector Quantrill books, by Sheila Radley. It is a police procedural murder mystery, with a village and small town setting. Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill’s beat is the village of Ashthorpe and nearby small market town of Breckham Market, in East Anglia.
“The body lay—barely afloat in the shallows, long hair waving indistinguishably among the river weeds—some yards downstream from Ashthorpe Bridge.”
The case Inspector Quantrill has to solve is that of a beautiful young girl who has drowned in a shallow brook, surrounded by flowers. The scene is reminiscent of Ophelia’s death in “Hamlet”; indeed one of those questioned remarks on this. But how would a copper who was country born and bred, and left school at fourteen, know such a thing? His work usually consists of recovering stolen pigs, and similar crimes. His home life is lacklustre, trapped in a passionless marriage, with the conviction that he has missed his best chance for romance. In addition to his woes, Inspector Quantrill is preoccupied by another unusually high-profile and unsolved case involving a young girl who had gone missing. The idea that he could have done more to solve this earlier case constantly preys on his mind. Everyone assumes the present case to be suicide, but Inspector Quantrill is a thorough policeman, and wants to be sure. He is a little uneasy because in view of the unsolved disappearance, a new Detective Sergeant has been assigned to him.
Detective Sergeant Tait is a high flyer, a graduate entry, fresh out of detective school. He is brimming with the latest procedure, has good prospects, and also finds this case rather irksome. With his talents and education, he never expected to be stuck in a backwater village with a bunch of plods, as he sees them. He even has to borrow a pair of boots from a more experienced officer. Sergeant Tait has his sights firmly set on promotion, and glibly says to his superior that he views this as a challenge. However, Inspector Quantrill is no fool, and knows the score. He may not be as well educated as Sergeant Tait, having worked up through the ranks from a lowly copper, but Inspector Quantrill knows people, and how they work.
Other policemen are also in the mix, with their own points of view. One older constable knows the village backwards, but feels out of touch. He resents the fact that he is now in a car, rather than on his bicycle, and so feels less able to stop to chat with everybody.
The teenager found dead in the shallows of the river, had apparently been gathering flowers on May Day morning. She is quickly identified as eighteen-year-old Mary Gedge. Mary had been a beautiful, kind and brilliant young woman, with everything to live for, and shortly to go to King’s College, Cambridge. This is especially remarkable as she would be one of the first ever female entrants to the previously male only college of the University. What possible reason could she have had to kill herself—if indeed she did? At first it seems to be a tragic accident, but Sergeant Tait, with his eye for detail, thinks it is suspicious. But who would have wanted her dead? The case requires further investigation, and despite Sergeant Tait’s annoyance, Inspector Douglas Quantrill has no intention of delegating this one.
Inspector Quantrill is a very down to earth, pragmatic policeman. But he is embarrassed to show his ignorance when others quickly see the resemblance to Ophelia, in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. In particular he does not want to be shown up in front of Jean Bloomfield, the head teacher of the school where Mary had been a pupil. Everyone had said that Mary was sweet and innocent, just as Ophelia in Shakespeare’s tragedy had been. Ophelia had fallen in love with the wrong man, who eventually humiliated her enough for her to destroy herself. Mary had no actual boyfriend, that any one knew of, but she did have several admirers. She also lived in a caravan at the end of her parents’ garden, so could come and go as she liked. Could this be what had happened in this case? We see little evidence of a handsome Prince of Denmark in the motley selection of suspects, but Mary Gedge may indeed have died for love of the wrong man.
We proceed systematically through the interviews with all those who could have been involved, and become immersed in both the area, and the time this was set. Sheila Radley believed that most people are not criminally minded, but are driven to crime by overwhelming pressures, and for some this was a time of great upheaval and pressure. Prior to the school leaving age in England being raised to 16, many had left school at 14. The novel takes place after this, and in a short charmed period, after the years when tertiary education was for the privileged wealthy few, but before today’s student loans and significant routine debts. At the time of this novel, means tested grants were available, opening up further education to thousands of clever school children who would otherwise not have the opportunity. It was a time of great change, when the younger, more highly educated university graduates would be appointed alongside, or above, those formerly senior. It could feel as if England was a land of great opportunity. But there was a dark side; the greater chances opened up for many could also cause resentments.
In addition to this was the issue of increasing gender equality. It was not only young men who were attaining degrees, and expecting good jobs in workplaces. Young women were too, on a scale hitherto never seen. But there were those of both sexes who lost out, as social mores struggled to keep up with women’s rights, and education for all. It was still a disgrace, for instance to become pregnant, and “have to get married”. The boy responsible was expected to “do his duty”. Living together was commonly called “living in sin”, and spoken of in hushed, shocked tones. The roles laid down for each gender were still rigidly stubborn to any change.
Jean Bloomfield was one of these casualties. She was an intelligent, industrious teacher, and had fought hard to become the head teacher of a respected girls school. She was well liked, and had the admiration and support of all the parents. However, when her school merged with a boys school, the male head teacher was appointed overall—the fact that he seemed a pompous nincompoop, notwithstanding. (I can vouch for the prevalence of such appointments. I too had experience of this happening in the girls grammar school I attended. Come the sixth form, it merged with several others and was deemed a comprehensive school—with an overall male head teacher. My head teacher, who had been there for years establishing its excellent reputation, quietly took early retirement. Female equality of opportunity was still clearly in its infancy.)
We see examples across the board here. We see highly educated, very literate police, and the sort of professional whom we are used to from the novels of Colin Dexter, but we also see that not everyone in this newly progressive era has their dream job. One suspect, equally intelligent as Mary Gedge, has had his prospects blighted. Now he works at a chicken processing plant, which is described in grisly detail:
“Sickened, Tait stood as though his shoes had been cemented to the bloodstained concrete floor. The grotesque chorus line of dead birds dipped and swayed on the hooks across the shed, plunging into tanks of scalding water, entering a plucking machine, and then emerging naked to be slapped down on another conveyor belt for evisceration and packing by a team of women. In a matter of minutes living creatures were being transformed before his eyes into hunks of graded, quality-controlled hygienically packed, inexpensive protein.”
Sheila Radley can conjure up a blissfully nostalgic country scene, but she does not mince her words when life is not all honey and roses.
We see a microcosm of social change in how the characters interact. These well portrayed descriptions of human relationships are similar to Caroline Graham’s, or the early novels of P.D. James. The interplay between the two leading protagonists representing the old and the new methods of police work, are engaging. The characters are all well-drawn and convincing, and the settings feel authentic. Inspector Quantrill in particular has been given an interesting back story, to tempt us to read more in the series. There is even a romance involving one of the main police characters, which is revealed as material to the story, and more than just a subplot. The case itself is solidly plotted and interesting. Sheila Radley herself explained:
“My murderers aren’t psychopaths, they’re not villainous or violent, they’re perfectly ordinary people under some kind of extraordinary stress, and what fascinates me is what it is that finally drives them to commit murder. That’s what I think is the really interesting thing, not whodunit but why.”
Sheila Radley is a pseudonym for Sheila Mary Robinson, who was born in Northamptonshire in 1928. She read History at London University, and worked as an Education Officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force between 1951 and 1960. Then she had various interim jobs before settling down to join her partner in running a village store and post office, in Banham, Norfolk. Thus Sheila Mary Robinson was in an ideal situation to observe village life from the inside. She began writing fiction in her spare time, and published three romantic novels under the pen name “Hester Rowan”, before moving on to detective fiction.
She stopped work as a postmistress in 1978, and that was the year when Death and the Maiden, the first Inspector Quantrill novel, was published in Great Britain. It was published in the USA the following year, 1979, under the rather more prosaic title “Death in the Morning”, thus completely missing the poignant reference to Schubert’s magnificent String Quartet, “Death and the Maiden”. Eight more novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill followed, the last being published in 1994.
The Washington Post called this novel “almost too good to be true”. It was short-listed for the “John Creasey Memorial Award”. If you enjoy police procedural novels featuring an old fashioned, solid, copper, set at a time still within memory, but now sadly dated, you may well enjoy this one. All the portraits are very well drawn, both of the police and as of the people involved in the case. There are plenty of clues—and plenty of red herrings too—to keep any reader entertained. Sheila Radley has provided a firm base for more novels featuring Chief Inspector Quantrill. Similar to the early Inspector Wexford novels by Ruth Rendell, the writing is excellent, and the novel has strong, appealing characters and an evocative atmosphere.
Everything is not as it seems in the quaint East Anglian village of Ashthorpe where, as Shakespeare once said of another place: “There is a willow grows aslant a brook…”
February 27, 2021
A sad sort of little book, with somewhat trite characters. I did finish it, however, because I needed to know Who Did It.
A few interesting thoughts about dying prematurely: If we expect a lot of ourselves when young, is disappointment inevitable? Was Ophelia mad? Would Dorothy Parker have been happier had she successfully offed herself at an early age?
Altogether, quite English, in the oh-thank-God-I-wasn’t-born-in-a-small-village way.
And I learned a new word: slummocked. So there you go.
A few interesting thoughts about dying prematurely: If we expect a lot of ourselves when young, is disappointment inevitable? Was Ophelia mad? Would Dorothy Parker have been happier had she successfully offed herself at an early age?
Altogether, quite English, in the oh-thank-God-I-wasn’t-born-in-a-small-village way.
And I learned a new word: slummocked. So there you go.
October 28, 2015
It was probably typical of its time and as such I forgave some of its flaws (such as an extremely misogynist portrayal of women where they were only seen through male eyes and as background characters for a mainly male cast of active characters. Even central female figures are largely passive, seen through the male detectives' eyes, stereotypical and in most cases morally bankcrupt whereas most of the male character (I said most) are unlikable on the surface but lovable (at least by the writer) in the centre.
The back and forth power plays between Quantrill and Tait has it's moments. The description of Quantrill's crush, or obsessive desire for one of the other characters very believable (speaking as someone who has loved in that way). The dysfunction of the families and marriages in the book is meant to come out as somehow redeemed but doesn't for this 2015 divorced (and happy for it) feminist.
The puzzle (murder) itself is sort of psychological to the point of verging on silliness (but that was the 70s I believe). It's set up well to be convincing but foreshadowed too much so that it becomes obvious. Too many clues is even worse than too few! I think the tragedy of the situation must have appealed to the author more than the mystery/ puzzle (what do you expect from someone who cites Hamlet?)
For all its myriad flaws it was a relatively enjoyable read (hence the three stars not two). I won't be rushing to read more in the series but if you want an old fashined who-done-it with a fairly obvious end point (but fairly got at then enjoy!
The back and forth power plays between Quantrill and Tait has it's moments. The description of Quantrill's crush, or obsessive desire for one of the other characters very believable (speaking as someone who has loved in that way). The dysfunction of the families and marriages in the book is meant to come out as somehow redeemed but doesn't for this 2015 divorced (and happy for it) feminist.
The puzzle (murder) itself is sort of psychological to the point of verging on silliness (but that was the 70s I believe). It's set up well to be convincing but foreshadowed too much so that it becomes obvious. Too many clues is even worse than too few! I think the tragedy of the situation must have appealed to the author more than the mystery/ puzzle (what do you expect from someone who cites Hamlet?)
For all its myriad flaws it was a relatively enjoyable read (hence the three stars not two). I won't be rushing to read more in the series but if you want an old fashined who-done-it with a fairly obvious end point (but fairly got at then enjoy!
July 21, 2018
A full-bodied mystery that I finished in one sitting. Intricately drawn characters with their desires and dreams and miseries, and the vivid village setting that reminds me so much of Caroline Graham's Midsomer mysteries. Looking forward to more of the pleasantly human Quantrill and the highly ambitious Tait.
May 16, 2021
The body of 18 year old Mary Gedge is found floating in a village stream on May Morning. Initial indications are that it is a tragic accident - Mary had everything to live for, and no obvious reason for anyone to wish her harm. However, Chief Inspector Quantrill and his new colleague Sergeant Tait are determined to ensure their investigation is thorough, and before long they uncover signs that the death is not straightforward at all.
I really enjoyed this murder mystery. Quantrill is an interesting protagonist and his tentative relationship with Tait is developed really well for such a short novel. Radley skilfully captures the pettiness of village life with its gossip and class rivalries, and shows a good understanding of human nature.
What really made this for me, however, was the fact it was written and set in the 1970s, bringing back lots of childhood memories, from significant changes such as the move to comprehensive education to lighter cultural references like the TV programme Kojak. I found it so easy to imagine this Suffolk village and the people there.
The plot worked really well, although the motive for the killling wasn’t totally convincing. Overall very enjoyable and I’ll be looking for more books in this series.
I really enjoyed this murder mystery. Quantrill is an interesting protagonist and his tentative relationship with Tait is developed really well for such a short novel. Radley skilfully captures the pettiness of village life with its gossip and class rivalries, and shows a good understanding of human nature.
What really made this for me, however, was the fact it was written and set in the 1970s, bringing back lots of childhood memories, from significant changes such as the move to comprehensive education to lighter cultural references like the TV programme Kojak. I found it so easy to imagine this Suffolk village and the people there.
The plot worked really well, although the motive for the killling wasn’t totally convincing. Overall very enjoyable and I’ll be looking for more books in this series.
January 20, 2013
I read this book in 1992 and have recently re-read this novel and despite the gap in time I feel this novel has actually got better with age. Radley's writing is reminiscent of the early P.D. James books and Quantrill is a detective who is attractive but has his faults: especially about the state of his marriage due his dedication to the police force and his sense of justice. But this doesn't over-power the case of the book which Radley unveils with precision. This is the first of the nine Quantrill books and in my opinion one of the strongest. This is a true classic crime novel from the late seventies. Radley has been out of print for some years but thankfully her work is now making a re-appearance thanks to the advent of the e-book. Enjoy!
September 23, 2024
This was well written, nice use of language, a good plotline, and an interesting depiction of English village life in the late-middle 20th century…but…
Radley wrote only nine of these Chief Inspector Quantrill mysteries, this the first. Hadn’t read her before and found used copies of the first 2 in the series recently, so here we are. I’m asking myself if this is to be another of those series featuring miserable people leading miserable lives, because if the second volume matches the emotional tenor of the first I don’t believe I’ll attempt any others.
Radley wrote only nine of these Chief Inspector Quantrill mysteries, this the first. Hadn’t read her before and found used copies of the first 2 in the series recently, so here we are. I’m asking myself if this is to be another of those series featuring miserable people leading miserable lives, because if the second volume matches the emotional tenor of the first I don’t believe I’ll attempt any others.
December 5, 2022
Found this for $1 at a little used bookstore when I was home in New York State in October and thought I would take a chance, as I enjoy many of the mysteries published by Felony & Mayhem. So glad I did! It's the first in the Inspector Quantrill series. Our prime investigator is a traditional copper - slow, methodical, detail oriented, burdened by ever increasing amounts of paperwork as he climbs the ranks. New to town is Detective Sargeant Tait, a prodigy of sorts, one of the newly minted, highly educated graduates of the special police college training, with an advanced promotion to go along with it. He's assigned to the country beat and trying to be upbeat about it. He's quickly learning that social niceties go along way, almost as far / as useful as a pair of wellingtons after a day of heavy rain. Tait and Quantrill have an interesting dynamic that evolves over the course of the novel, from outright skeptical to begrudgingly respectful by the conclusion.
The investigation kicks into high gear when a young woman is discovered drowned in the very shallow waters of the local river. It's the first of May, and Mary Gedge's hair and favorite dress are billowed almost lovingly and certainly poetically around her, a scattering of flower petals to complete the still life tableau. Only it's a real death and Tait doesn't think it's a simple suicide, though the references to Ophelia abound. Tait's eager to have a juicy case to dig his teeth into. Quantrill is short staffed and doesn't want to waste the manpower sending Tait on a wild goose chase to boost his own ego and further accelerate his career advancement. However... fresh in Quantrill's mind is the case of another missing girl, a case where everyone assumed Joy Dawson was just late in coming home that day and so they squandered precious time in getting a lead on her whereabouts. Quantrill is still kicking himself and loathe to repeat the mistake, so he gives Tait plenty of leeway (or rope to hang/embarrass himself if his hunch turns out to be wrong) to pursue his enquiries... but not enough freedom to do so on his own! Quantrill hounds him each step of the way and the two experience a trial by fire in working together over the course of the investigation. They have very different... styles, shall we say? Both effective in their own ways and depending on the temperament of the person being interviewed.
There are plenty of suspects and red herrings. Radley's writing style veers toward prose when it comes to describing nature and the scenes of the village, almost cloying at times. Her dialogue is sharp enough to render the heavy-handed prose inoffensive in the overall tone of the mystery, thank goodness. Her insights into her characters thought process is profound and interesting. What saves it from being Telling (the pitfall of many an amateur author) and puts her work solidly in the Showing category is that she relays the mannerisms, tics, and conversational awkwardness when a character is struggling with something she has just described in detail. The result is that the descriptions are far from static. She illustrates her points with specific examples. So the subject at hand comes to life on the page and in the situation. You SEE the characters fumble with how to handle their conflicting thoughts or unease.
I really enjoyed all the verbal volleying between Quantrill and Tait. It served as necessary comic relief and great character development. This piece could have been morose, depressing, or somewhat terrifying, but in Radley's deft hands and with plenty of humor injected along the way, it winds up being a fascinating ride. Will definitely look for further installments in the series!
The investigation kicks into high gear when a young woman is discovered drowned in the very shallow waters of the local river. It's the first of May, and Mary Gedge's hair and favorite dress are billowed almost lovingly and certainly poetically around her, a scattering of flower petals to complete the still life tableau. Only it's a real death and Tait doesn't think it's a simple suicide, though the references to Ophelia abound. Tait's eager to have a juicy case to dig his teeth into. Quantrill is short staffed and doesn't want to waste the manpower sending Tait on a wild goose chase to boost his own ego and further accelerate his career advancement. However... fresh in Quantrill's mind is the case of another missing girl, a case where everyone assumed Joy Dawson was just late in coming home that day and so they squandered precious time in getting a lead on her whereabouts. Quantrill is still kicking himself and loathe to repeat the mistake, so he gives Tait plenty of leeway (or rope to hang/embarrass himself if his hunch turns out to be wrong) to pursue his enquiries... but not enough freedom to do so on his own! Quantrill hounds him each step of the way and the two experience a trial by fire in working together over the course of the investigation. They have very different... styles, shall we say? Both effective in their own ways and depending on the temperament of the person being interviewed.
There are plenty of suspects and red herrings. Radley's writing style veers toward prose when it comes to describing nature and the scenes of the village, almost cloying at times. Her dialogue is sharp enough to render the heavy-handed prose inoffensive in the overall tone of the mystery, thank goodness. Her insights into her characters thought process is profound and interesting. What saves it from being Telling (the pitfall of many an amateur author) and puts her work solidly in the Showing category is that she relays the mannerisms, tics, and conversational awkwardness when a character is struggling with something she has just described in detail. The result is that the descriptions are far from static. She illustrates her points with specific examples. So the subject at hand comes to life on the page and in the situation. You SEE the characters fumble with how to handle their conflicting thoughts or unease.
I really enjoyed all the verbal volleying between Quantrill and Tait. It served as necessary comic relief and great character development. This piece could have been morose, depressing, or somewhat terrifying, but in Radley's deft hands and with plenty of humor injected along the way, it winds up being a fascinating ride. Will definitely look for further installments in the series!
October 11, 2018
I'd read this book many years go but wanted to read it again because it was the first book of the series -- the foundation, so to speak. All the main characters introduced, and Chief Detective Inspector Quantrill and Detective Sergeant Tait were especially characterized: Tait for the self-absorbed, ambitious, unempathetic, highly intelligent knobhead that he remains throughout the books; Quantrill for the unhappily middle-aged "normal, average" detective, husband and father that he also remains. It's in this book that DCI Quantrill rushes perilously close to an affair -- a subplot that is hinted at throughout the series. DCI Quantrill is inherently likeable while Ds Tait isn't -- both become more entrenched in their qualities as the series progressed, with the exception that Doug Quantrill tries to remain within his moral precepts, to understand and forebear his wife and to curb his natural antipathies. Martin Tait never recognizes his flaws, which become more pronounced and which prevent him from any meaningful relationship with colleagues or lovers or family.
Aside from the characterization and location descriptions, I thought this book wasn't as well-done or well-plotted as the remainder of the series. Well done for a first effort, but obviously the author could improve, and she did.
Aside from the characterization and location descriptions, I thought this book wasn't as well-done or well-plotted as the remainder of the series. Well done for a first effort, but obviously the author could improve, and she did.
April 11, 2024
I really enjoyed this book and have already ordered the next three in the series. It was a very well-written, thought-provoking mystery.
DCI Quantrill did disappoint me though by wanting to (but refrained so at least there's that) have an affair with one of the witnesses in the case. That makes it hard to respect him as a married man and also as a high-ranking detective who should know better. Also the motive for the crime seemed weak to me and not very believable.
But overall the atmosphere and complex characters made this a great mystery.
DCI Quantrill did disappoint me though by wanting to (but refrained so at least there's that) have an affair with one of the witnesses in the case. That makes it hard to respect him as a married man and also as a high-ranking detective who should know better. Also the motive for the crime seemed weak to me and not very believable.
But overall the atmosphere and complex characters made this a great mystery.
May 7, 2021
This was a bit disappointing. It started off well, the early interaction between Quantrill and Tait were promising. I kept reading, waiting to find out which of them would solve the case first. But as the story went on, one character (the murderer) kept acting so suspiciously that I lost all interest in finding out who would crack the case. It was less a murder mystery, and more of a study of Quantrill's obtuseness.
May 17, 2020
Well-written with interesting characters. I look forward to reading more about Chief Inspector Quantrill and Detective Sergeant Tait.
July 19, 2021
Didn't particularly like the main characters. Plot was too obvious and not very believable.
July 9, 2025
3.5 stars. Very depressing. Well written.
December 11, 2009
This is a mystery series opener, introducing Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill who lives in a small village in Suffolk called Breckham Market. His right-hand man is DS Tait, who got his job by way of "graduate entry..., special police training and ... accelerated promotion," (8) and who feels he must prove himself to his fellow policemen. Quantrill has been working on the case of a young girl who went missing some months back, but his attention is turned to the disappearance of young Mary Gedge, who was soon to be going off to Cambridge. By all accounts, she hadn't run away, had a good family life, etc. etc., so wasn't the type to likely end up in any trouble. While Quantrill and Tait are questioning the locals for info on Mary, she is found dead in a pond, laying there like Ophelia in all of her death glory. A missing person case now becomes a suspicious death, and it is up to Quantrill to find the killer.
The core mystery here is good but even though there are plenty of suspects and a few red herrings, it's a bit predictable and easy to figure out. Normally this sounds the death knell for me as far as continuing the series, but what saves this is Radley's writing. Quantrill is an interesting person as well. Police work is in his blood, and comes before family (much to his wife's dismay), yet Radley makes him into a human being. Hopefully he becomes a bit more fleshed out as the series progresses. And then there's Tait -- one of those eager and ambitious souls who wants to prove himself and continue his quick rise up the ladder -- he's a character to watch in the next few books.
Overall, this was an okay read. It's not quite a cozy, and not so much a dyed-in-the-wool police procedural, so it's a bit hard to define genre-wise. Readers who enjoy their murders set in the shadow of the quiet English village will like this one. It moves slow and there's not a lot of action, but it's well written.
The core mystery here is good but even though there are plenty of suspects and a few red herrings, it's a bit predictable and easy to figure out. Normally this sounds the death knell for me as far as continuing the series, but what saves this is Radley's writing. Quantrill is an interesting person as well. Police work is in his blood, and comes before family (much to his wife's dismay), yet Radley makes him into a human being. Hopefully he becomes a bit more fleshed out as the series progresses. And then there's Tait -- one of those eager and ambitious souls who wants to prove himself and continue his quick rise up the ladder -- he's a character to watch in the next few books.
Overall, this was an okay read. It's not quite a cozy, and not so much a dyed-in-the-wool police procedural, so it's a bit hard to define genre-wise. Readers who enjoy their murders set in the shadow of the quiet English village will like this one. It moves slow and there's not a lot of action, but it's well written.
March 21, 2025
I found it hard to believe that this book was written in the 1970s. Maybe it was supposed to be a pastiche and I missed the clues? Could be. In any case, the "motive" for the murder turned out to be just about the lamest one imaginable in the latter half of the 20th century. It was more like something you'd see in one of those stories set a couple of centuries ago (spoiler warning, sort of: or like one of those psychos who kills someone and justifies it by saying "I wanted to end her life on this earth while she was still pure and unspoiled, so I did her soul a great favor and I'm sure she's thanking me"). Yecch.
Reviewer Dianne B. asked a philosophical question related to the story - whether it's better for a young person who shows real talent and promise to die young rather than ever face disappointment. Let's not even go there. Let's just say that there were a few people in this story who needed counseling and let it go at that.
By the way, you don't have to have a PhD in English lit to know who "Ophelia" was. That whole business about the policeman never having heard of her seemed intended to reinforce the stereotype that a lot of British police out there had no education beyond age twelve.
If this is the first Inspector Quantrill book (I didn't much care for the asides about his personal life either; he seems like a weak individual), I'm not eager to check out the others.
Reviewer Dianne B. asked a philosophical question related to the story - whether it's better for a young person who shows real talent and promise to die young rather than ever face disappointment. Let's not even go there. Let's just say that there were a few people in this story who needed counseling and let it go at that.
By the way, you don't have to have a PhD in English lit to know who "Ophelia" was. That whole business about the policeman never having heard of her seemed intended to reinforce the stereotype that a lot of British police out there had no education beyond age twelve.
If this is the first Inspector Quantrill book (I didn't much care for the asides about his personal life either; he seems like a weak individual), I'm not eager to check out the others.
December 28, 2012
Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill has a new DS assigned to him who makes him rather uneasy because he is a high flyer and better educated than Quantrill himself. The discovery of girl’s body face down in a shallow river on a May morning at first seems to be a tragic accident but DS Tait thinks it’s suspicious.
This is a well written police procedural crime novel set in Norfolk. The characters are well drawn and I particularly liked the spiky relationship between Quantrill and Tait which I thought was very well done. There are plenty of clues and red herrings to keep the reader entertained and village life is brought vividly to life.
I had not heard of this author before but I found this first book in the series well worth reading. If you like authors such as Alan Hunter and S T Haymon, who also wrote crime novels set in Norfolk then you may enjoy Sheila Radley.
Alternative title is 'Death and the Maiden'
This is a well written police procedural crime novel set in Norfolk. The characters are well drawn and I particularly liked the spiky relationship between Quantrill and Tait which I thought was very well done. There are plenty of clues and red herrings to keep the reader entertained and village life is brought vividly to life.
I had not heard of this author before but I found this first book in the series well worth reading. If you like authors such as Alan Hunter and S T Haymon, who also wrote crime novels set in Norfolk then you may enjoy Sheila Radley.
Alternative title is 'Death and the Maiden'
July 13, 2014
The Bello edition calls this 'Death and the Maiden' but reading the synopsis this is the same book. Very straightforward and predictable with little to indicate that it was written in 1978 rather than say 1938 or 1958. Nothing to dislike either. Pleasant.
January 6, 2017
One of those quiet little British mysteries that make you want to meet the characters, hang out in the pub, and help Inspector Quantrill find the murderer. I really enjoyed this mystery, well paced, with plenty of history and vivid descriptions of the village life in England.
June 20, 2013
I liked the character development and the story flowed really well, no side plots to distract you. It all felt plausible.
March 19, 2015
As far as murder motives go, this one was severely lacking.
August 17, 2016
Pretty interesting read until the melodramatic end. A girl's book.
Want to read
February 24, 2019Synopsis: it's a glorious day in Ashthorpe but CI Quantrill must find out what happened to Mary Gedge.
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