Broken Lines

Castlemere #5

by Jo Bannister

After witnessing a terrible accident, Detective Sergeant Donovan is under suspicion for attempted murder--and Bannister's compelling trio of police officers must race against time to find the true criminal.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1999

About the author

Jo Bannister lives in Northern Ireland, where she worked as a journalist and editor on local newspapers. Since giving up the day job, her books have been shortlisted for a number of awards. Most of her spare time is spent with her horse and dog, or clambering over archaeological sites. She is currently working on a new series of psychological crime/thrillers.

Reviews

[Beth Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jo Bannister has created another Brit mystery with characters familiar from her previous works. I generally enjoy her books, although she sometimes has a tendency to treat her readers as an inattentive class that needs reminding about the basics. I found the conclusion of this one a little bit far-fetched, although the mystery itself was intriguing. The characters are well drawn, and the interplay between Donovan and his fleeting girlfriend was really good.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfect airport book. You will be so caught up in the mystery that you will overlook the miseries of air travel. The characters are interesting, the dialog is good and the premiss believable. A very good crime story and it even has enough moral ambiguities to satisfy LAW & ORDER fans.
ie: Were Ms Halloway's actions reasonable ?
Was Graham's gun scenerio defensible?

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ouch, did not like this one on a reread. Brutal, with an overly complicated plot, and the bad guy is a "hysterical" woman who beats one man to death and frames another for the crime because she blames them for the loss of a baby she wasn't actually pregnant with - the baby was all in her mind. Her inability to get pregnant has driven her crazy, and there is no nuance to her depiction as a woman who has lost her mind.

[Reggie Billingsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been running out of decent quality writing lately and finally stumbled across this author thank goodness.
Perfect! Great rattling tale telling with sound plotting and vivid characterisation. With several series going for Bannister I can look forward to some well written entertainment and this one delivered so well it kept me up late into the night twice going.
Some reviewers have considered that this particular title's denouement was a bit of a stretch. Not so say I. I have known people that scarily deluded who were entirely capable of such acts so justified in their eyes.
And for the record, the tertiary characters Bannister uses to further her theme of motivation take on a huge significance even as the writer offers up the inevitable farce that lurks behind the loser criminal class. Had me barking laughter out loud many times..."under the pulled-down brim of his wooly hat [he] wiped the back of a hand across his brow,coming within an ace of shooting himself in the eye."
Holy Cats!
Truly looking forward to exploring the rest of her work.

[Kirsty Darbyshire]

This series is one of my favourite new discoveries. I wonder why I've never heard of it before this year. I didn't think this book was quite as good as the previous one, No Birds Sing, but it was pretty damn good. Again I was impressed by the depth of the characters and the coherentness of the plot.

The overall theme of the book is interesting and the fact that the theme doesn't become clear until near the end makes it all the more realistic.

(this is book 5 in the castlemere series)

[Jane Auringer Danjin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Castlemere series. I am amazed at the story ideas that Bannister's imagination creates. Where do the ideas come from> Another suspenseful story.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good series, must get the next one.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good plot, hard to put down.