Dead Ground in Between

Detective Inspector Tom Tyler #4

by Maureen Jennings

From Canada's premier author of historical mysteries, Maureen Jennings, comes the haunting fourth novel in the DI Tom Tyler series. Set in Britain during the darkest days of World War II, this is a must-read for fans of  Foyle's War , Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series, and wartime dramas.


It's late 1942; the war is still raging and the upcoming Christmas season looks bleak. Detective Inspector Tom Tyler is settling into his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire, a small town jammed with people sent there by the conflict. On the outskirts is an Italian PoW camp and many PoWs work on local farms where manpower is sorely needed. Fraternizing is forbidden but, as Tyler knows only too well, the human heart has a way of crossing boundaries.
     Tyler's job is both to keep the peace and to enforce wartime regulations. Magistrate's court is busy. Then a troubled old man goes missing in a winter storm. The next day his body is discovered in a secret hideout supposedly known to very few. It soon becomes clear that a crime has been committed, and there is no shortage of suspects. Tyler senses that the two evacuee children who found the body are not telling the entire truth, but when he goes to question them further, he learns they have taken off from their foster home. It becomes imperative that he find them.
     Showcasing her characteristic masterful storytelling and deep empathy for her characters -- from the bravest and most blameless to the profoundly troubled -- Jennings has created another outstanding novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a rich, satisfying reading experience.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, Crime, Historical

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 2016

About the author

Maureen Jennings, now a Canadian Citizen, was born on Eastfield Road in Birmingham, England and spent her formative years there until she emigrated to Canada at the age of seventeen with her mother.

This has meant that she still feels a deep connection with her homeland. It has also no doubt been a strong influence in her love for, and her writing about, the Victorian period. She attended the University of Windsor where she attained a BA in philosophy and psychology.

A couple of years trying to decide what she really wanted to do with her life resulted in her returning to university, the University of Toronto, this time where she earned an MA in English literature.For the next eight years, she taught English at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute at a time when the English department seemed to be chock full of writers. Eric Wright, went on to write the highly successful Charlie Salter mystery series, Graeme Gibson, Peter Such, and others were writing both novels and poetry. An exciting time in so many ways but after eight years, another change of direction and in 1972, Maureen left Ryerson to become a psychotherapist, which was a long time interest. She has continued in private practice since then, although nowadays she mostly conducts creative expression groups and writes. Always passionate about dogs, she is happy to own a border collie named Jeremy-Brett and a mixed breed named Varley.

Series:
* Detective Murdoch
* Christine Morris
* Detective Inspector Tom Tyler

Reviews

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A "real" story. The characters are true to their time, their reactions true to their situations, the dialogue is real. It all falls together nicely into a very enjoyable read.
I look forward to reading the others in the series. The tone is easy going and compelling. The police procedures are interesting and very hands on.
I liked Detective Tom Tyler. He's a warm and compassionate man, who notices the small details. He has good friends. He cares for his co-workers.
I won't say much about the mystery other than to say it's a real-life situation with plenty of possible suspects.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello my name is Steven and I am an addict, I am a book addict and I am addicted to the writings of Maureen Jennings. This is the thirteenth story by Jennings that I have read in 12 weeks. This is the fourth of four Inspector Tom Tyler stories I have read. And it is my favorite. Jennings does an amazing job of transporting us back in time to England during World War II in these novels. And this is by far the best of the four.

This story is set late in 1942. Inspector Tom Tyler is now divorced. And working his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire. Tom is dealing with evacuees who are causing some issues. There are several different plot lines in this story. A POW in love with a Service girl. A body is discovered that soon appears to be murder. Secret hideouts. Young buys in trouble and now missing. And love both new and old.

In this story Tom receives a letter from his lifelong love. She tells him to move on. It is not something he wants. But, soon something he is considering. But mixed in with all his personal turmoil. Is a confusing case, some ancient coins, a body in a strange location, and his normal work as an officer of the law.

The plot of this one is more convoluted than any of the other three. The story is so real. It is a great historical fiction story. The treasure piece was interesting, especially after reading the afterward by Jennings. This series got better with every book. I enjoyed this one so much more than the others that I hope that at some point we get another Inspector Tyler story.

Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by Maureen Jennings.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detective Inspector Tom Tyler gives me another World War Two historical mystery series to follow. He's a likable, smart and compassionate detective and the writing is quite good.

In this installment, there is a mixture of a rural setting, two young evacuee children, an Italian POW and a missing old man with memory problems. The result is worth the read and stands alone, as well.

Can't wait to read another -- and to also track down Jennings' Canadian Detective Murdoch series.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the era, plot lines and majority of the characters in this series. However I do have a hard time with some of the choices the main character makes regarding his love life. To be honest I’d be much happier without the whole romantic subplot, especially if it involves a cheating arsehole. I mostly like Inspector Tyler but he really needs to get his shit together.

[Stuart]

Audience: Those who enjoy nostalgic crime stories

Buy? Read? Avoid?: I recommend reading Dead Ground In Between and then if you like it then purchase the trilogy.

Summed up in one word: Authentic

Author Bio: Maureen Jennings is a Canadian teacher, writer and psychotherapist. MJ started her Murdoch Mysteries series in 1997 (7 in total to this date) and has also written the Tom Tyler Mysteries trilogy.

First Impression: This book was sent to me by Titan Books, I was not sure what to expect but I went in with an open mind. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. MJ has written many books already so her writing is comfortable and solid. This book does not break any new ground, but it does entertain, inspire and make us remember about our past. WW2 is an important time in our past and MJ treats it with the respect it deserves and provides us with some decent crime writing to go with it.

Summary:

It is late 1942, and Detective Inspector Tom Tyler is settling into his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire, which is crowded with evacuees and others fleeing the German bombs. On the town s outskirts is an Italian PoW camp, whose inmates work on local farms. Fraternizing is forbidden but, as Tyler knows only too well, the human heart has a way of crossing boundaries.

Tyler is kept busy enforcing wartime regulations, until an old man goes missing, and his body is later discovered in a secret hideout supposedly known to very few. What s more, the two evacuee children who found the body are clearly not telling the whole truth, but when Tyler tries to question them further, they vanish from their foster home. A crime has clearly been committed, but there is no shortage of suspects...

(Synopsis from the rear of the book)

Review

Story: The story in Dead Ground In Between has many different elements. We follow Detective Inspector Tom Tyler for about 95% of this book, with little plot pieces put in for the other characters to help the development of the story. As I said before, this book does not break any new ground, the author uses a great blend of historical events and World War 2 secrets to put together this piece; though it is nothing new. The story follows the police trying to work out how an old man managed to leave his house in middle of the night and end up dead inside a place no one should know about. This story then slowly turns from a mysterious death to a town wide Whodunnit? Though rather predictable in places, I did not manage to work out the ending before I got there.

The stand out element to this story, the one I think people will appreciate when they read this is the police work. I really appreciated the fact that the author had the characters doing proper police work as apposed to spontaneous on-the-spot revelations, there were a few moments that had some convenience to them but they were so well written that you barely notice. Prisoner of War and Refugee treatment in this country during the war was not something I contemplated before I read this book. It was factors like this and other small but potent story elements that kept me reading.

Characters: In DGIB we predominantly follow DI Tom Tyler. Characters like Tyler have been written many time before, it is fortunate thought that his character does not come across as too cliche. My favourite characteristic of Tyler is his kindness, along with his bigger picture attitude. I enjoyed my time with Tyler. The supporting cast are strong, sad, annoying and emotional. (SPOILER) >>>> The Edie and Angelo romance was a strong part to this story, it added risk and emotion. The tears started flowing when we get into Jan and Pim's storyline. They start out head strong and persistent to get home, put as their plan unfolds and they come into harms way, I was deeply saddened. The other characters were hit and miss, though overall a decent cast of characters.

Themes: Some big and bold themes here. War, Poverty, Death, Family and Secrets. Additional themes that added some extra depth were Romance, Pain, Risk and Violence.

Likes: Proper police work. Solid historical influences. Good cast of characters.
MJ capturing the everyday uncertainty that came with World War Two.

Dislikes: Some parts of the story left to assumption. Several annoying and stereotypical characters. Predictable at times.

Rating: Overall I think people will enjoy this book. It is solid story that won't blow your mind but will entertain and make you consider the past. MJ shows she is comfortable and confident in the story and her writing capabilities. I enjoyed Tom Tyler's character, he has been done before but with added characteristics, I think he is top quality. DGIB is predictable at times but the ending remained a mystery to me until the very end.

8/10

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maureen Jennings shines again with this 4th Tom Tyler novel. It's nice to see Tyler's personal views about life during the WWII era. Murder, spies, and romance abound in this story. Tyler has to deal with disruptive children, disruptive young men, POWS, and trying to meet a lady through a dating service. Tyler even has co-workers who try to take care of him. Officer Mortimer shows her brilliant ability to help Tyler solve crimes and Officer Rowell keeps a nice house for he and Tyler. But yet once again, a deranged soldier kills two people in this story.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read other of Maureen Jennings' split time lines and enjoy the way events in one time period influence events in another. In this plot an escaping Roundhead in 1643 buries in a field the money he was trusted to deliver in order to prevent the royalists getting it. He is killed by a troop of royalists. If you pay attention the old man in modern time appears to hear horse bridles jingling in the road outside the field. Is it his imagination, a ghost, an actual horse?Jasper doesn't pay attention and nothing is made of it so you can decide for yourself.
In the modern story (99% of the book) it is 1942 and Ludlow has a POW camp nearby. The prisoners, mostly Italian captured in North Africa, are allowed to work on nearby farms. One prisoner is working on a farm owned by an elderly widower whose son has moved back home to help care for the old man who appears to be developing dementia. The son has married a widow with an adult son who suffers from some form of emotional imbalance which resulted in his being rejected by the army. There is also a Land Girl staying on the farm because it is too far from her her dispatch point to travel daily.
There is some tension between the husband and wife over the old man's often difficult behaviour and between the widow's son and the POWs who work on the farm
In the middle of a torrential rain and wind storm the old man disappears and is found dead at the bottom of a totally weird hideout accessed through the bottom of a cattle feed trough. It is determined that old Jasper was attacked with a knife but actually died of exposure. Did he fall, was he pushed, and who stabbed him?
There is a fascinating bit of high security when Inspector Tyler has to go by train to Shrewsbury because he can't speak about this hideout over an open phone line. It is so hush hush that Tyler has to make the two Dutch refugee boys who found Jasper swear an oath on their Boy Scout honour that they will not tell anyone about either the place or the fact that they found Jasper there. Churchill certainly organized some strange things during that war.
The tension among the various characters is well described so that suspicion is well spread among all the potential suspects. Tom Tyler's yearning for his missing love interest is there throughout the book and even while he becomes involved with the woman who is fostering those refugee boys, a woman whose husband is missing in action. Everyone has interpersonal problems, except Tom's sergeant who has found the perfect someone and seems quite happy to spend his spare time making Tom's life comfortable at the police station.

[Elaine Cougler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The intrepid author of the TV Murdoch detective and Bomb Girls series , Maureen Jennings has made a name for herself far and wide. I heard her speak a month or so ago at an event which charged $25 but a copy of this new book was included. I bought in.
It's late 1942 in England, a country suffering from all kinds of war-related miseries when two refugee boys from Holland are caught up in a murder investigation. The characters--and there are quite a few--are all well drawn and the author's own familiarity with England comes through even though she has made Canada her home for most of her life.
Her famous detective Tom Tyler elicits our sympathy both for the war shortages and for his loneliness. A good man Tyler painstakingly ploughs through the evidence until finally he sees the light far down the tunnel and moves toward it.
I enjoyed this read although crime fiction is not my first choice but I believe Jennings' writing is superior and very readable. Well done!

[Lucile Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

44. Dead Ground In Between by Maureen Jennings
Tom Tyler is back and worn down by the war, grief over the loss of his son, and the absence of Clare. He is stationed in Ludlow, Shropshire, which is also the site of Things are fairly quiet, with a little bit of village drunkenness, poaching, and disrespect for the law. When an old man disappears and the body is found by two young Dutch refugees who are being cared for by a Scottish widow, there are lots of suspects. Tyler’s back up crew has become more entangled in his life, and the respect and care with which they treat each other is lovely to see. Tyler becomes romantically entangled with the widow, but there is another surprise. From POWs to land girls, farm women and ladies who run introduction services, Jennings gets it right. She knows how to turn suspected villains into heroes, and vice versa.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good solid procedural and having not read previous ones wasn't too much of an issue. This book taught me something about the Auxilliaries in WW2; Britains secret weapon if we were invaded which made me want to learn more as well as creating curiosity about her account of the genesis of the book in the story of the lost hoard and maybe that was the problem for me; - all the underlying facts and diversions evoked much more interest than the narrative and the doings of the characters who seemed at times a little thinly drawn and lacked depth of development . Still, persevered and would probably try another just for interest.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly 'benign' mystery, certainly an enjoyable read for me, as I traveled Shropshire, spending a week in Shrewsbury. The points of interest familiar to me were the train station in Shrewsbury, the prison that I walked past daily from B&B to town and the surrounding countryside. I'd gladly live there. This book was an easy choice because of my interests and because of A Shropshire Lad.

I liked the historical references, the Civil War Roundheads & Cavs; the terrors of the Great War; the blackouts and facts about WWII in that area. The Land Girls definitely lived there, Italian POW may have been housed there and a more significant feature they left is the chapel on Orkney.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not the best of the series, this last of the 4 WWII Shropshire Inspector Tyler mysteries is set in late 1942 and concerns the manslaughter of an old farmer with dementia as an Italian POW, a land army girl and two Dutch refugees from the Kindertransport as well as two labourers from a nearby farm provide distractions and complications. It’s the capturing of wartime country and small-town life as well as some empathetic characters that matters more than the solution. The vivid descriptions of the countryside as well as of the interiors of houses also helps provide a convincing evocation of time and place.

[Christina McLain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like this series; it's by a Canadian and is set in WWII. She cetainly has a good grasp of the complications and subtleties of the war years in Britain eg black market profiteers, orphaned and evacuated children and the appalling deprivation many English people endured. I also find the main character to be likeable. But I can never remember what has happened in his life from one book to thr next. It reminds me of a similar series by Laura Wilson. Would love to read a cracking good book set in this era if anyone wants to recommend. Nothing matches Atonement but then that was a masterpiece.

[Phreia Von Woolfgaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Tyler did not disappoint in the fourth book of this series. His reliability of character doesn't falter from the ethics displayed in previous novels. What makes this series a real favourite is how close it is to the reactions and vocabulary that would be used within the time window. The thoughts and feelings of characters are realistic and believable. I am more than impressed with this series as a whole. This is a series that I highly recommend.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 4th Detective Inspector Tom Tyler mystery.
December 1942.
Tyler has his hands full with a missing elderly man, 2 evacuee boys, a POW helping out at a farm, and 2 young men poaching rabbits.
And on top of this, he's just received a distressing letter from his lost, then found love...
I really enjoyed this one. Everyone is so believable, and you get the feel of what life was like during the war.
The ending had me wanting another story...I hope we get a 5th book.

[Cindy Ladensack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-paced mystery that skillfully evokes the Christmastime English WWII home front. The characters are likable and believable--though at times I was thinking that Tyler should forget the search for romance and just stick with the astonishingly domestic Sgt Rowell--I need someone who takes care of me that well....

[Karen Bahal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Inspector Tyler read and I enjoyed it. Ms. Jennings writings captivates her readers to the point where there is total involvement with the character. You can imagine yourself walking side by side with Inspector Tyler as he tries to figure out the situation. Excellent read ! I recommend it to all readers who enjoy a good mystery !

[Sharon Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very rivetting read. Maureen Jennings has done it again with a page-turning plot and characters the reader can connect to,especially the main one, police Detective Inspector Tom Tyler. I am also partial to stories set in the 1940s, including World War 2 from the home front.

[Adrian Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Came in a box from my uncle, who loves murder mysteries just like me. This was just like many other half decent ones that I've read. Won't read another by this author, it wasn't too bad but it wasn't good either.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good addition to this series, but apparently also the final book. Too bad; I would have enjoyed following Tom Tyler all the way through WW2 and watched the changes to the local culture caused by the war.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5 stars

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of refugee children and Italian POWs, and land girls in the English countryside during WWII. I wish Tom Tyler would loose his old childhood sweetheart and move on.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story....... but that ending killed me.

[Cybercrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this series. Kind of sad it's the last book.

[Jason Braida · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. I only hope there are more books to come. The fact that it is written by a fellow Canadian makes the reading experience even more enjoyable.

[Jenny White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely the best of the series!

[Catherine Naidoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book no sure if I like the ending. Sadly no more Tom Tyler books.

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in WWII and has evacuee children from Holland and POW's from Italy.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maureen Jennings has me hooked! I want to read everything she's written.