First Wife, Twice Removed

Thames Valley Mystery #8

by Clare Curzon

Detective-Superintendent Mike Yeadings discovers a deadly parallel between the "accidental" death of a young mother in her flat and the murder of a girl whose body is found in an abandoned van.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Eileen-Marie Duell Buchanan (1922-2010) was a British author who specialized in writing literature belonging to the mystery, suspense, or detective genre. She wrote under a number of pseudonyms, including Marie Buchanan, Marie Duell, Clare Curzon and Rhona Petrie. She studied French and psychology at King's College in London.

Reviews

[Joan Wendland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great title but not a great read. Too much wheel spinning and red herrings. Unsatisfying ending.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really read police procedurals, generally. What attracted me to this one was (a) it was British and (b) it appeared to focus on the work of a police team, rather than an individual or pair of detectives. Once I started it, I quickly became engrossed. The book follows various members of the detective team (and a colleague from the Netherlands) in tracking down two apparently independent but possibly intertwined deaths. It was very compelling. I also enjoyed the glimpses of the various team members' personal lives. Also, this one was written in 1995, before mobiles came into wide-spread use, so we got to go with one unfortunate WPC haring down the road to a public phone box in the rain.

I look forward to hunting down and reading more in the series!

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked a previous book in this series, but this one had too many characters and too few intersections. I had lots of trouble keeping straight who was involved in which case and how they were linked.

Then the guilty parties wriggle out of harm's way, for the most part. And the assault on Z was pretty much dispatched too quickly. Seems like this was written quickly and not terribly attentively.

[Carfig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two women die within a day of each other, and the most obvious connection is the first woman's ex-husband. Just how bad is this guy? Then there's the dad of the second woman's unborn baby. Did one man kill both women? Or are they totally unrelated deaths?

[Adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an incredibly engaging read this turned out to be. It's the first mystery book in a long time that has seriously had me completely in the dark about who did it. There's twists and turns and lots of information thrown in to keep things intresting, and the ending didn't feel forced at all. I loved that.
My one complaint isn't even really about the plot itself. I had a hard time figuring out who the characters were; between their titles, names and nicknames, there were moments where I had to stop and think hard about who was talking or being talked about. I have a feeling that this book is part of a series and the reader is expected to know more about the characters by the time we reach this particular story. It's not bad enough to make it a bad read, but it annoyed me a couple of times.

[Guera · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of 2 unrelated murders which appear to overlap with a common suspect who happens to know both woman. Set in a Thames Valley, this mystery has all the features of British detective stunts and a good measure of local British culture and language.

A charming, light reading with an interesting twist at the end. The story could moved faster toward the end. I got the feeling the author tried to do some character development of one of the detectives toward the end. It was irrelevant and unrelated to the critical point of the story at that stage.

[Arlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A typical little English mystery. Two dead women, possibly connected by one man. The DC's and DS's follow the clues. I liked it.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two disparate cases seem to merge for Mike Yeadings and his team...or do they? An average outing for the Thames Valley force.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

good twist in the story, and the jerk got off

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: investigating two murders, Superintendent Yeading's team searches in Thames Valley and Amsterdam before uncovering more deaths.