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Inspector Keen Dunliffe #1
Kingdom of Lies
When a woman turns up drowned on the grounds of a royal estate, Leeds sergeant Keen Dunliffe is hoping it's just a case of a drunken skinny-dipper who fell and hit her head. But when the woman turns out to be a historian whose specialty is English royalty and politics in the eighteenth century and who was attending a conference at a local university, it's too much of a public relations nightmare to take lightly.
The mystery deepens when two secretive men from the Met show up to ask Keen to befriend a colleague of the dead woman's--an American college professor named Dr. Jillie Waltham who was also at the conference--in the hopes that she can shed some light on the victim's life and work. Since tagging along with Jillie means he'll be able to spend some time with his twin sons, who are living with his ex-wife and her fiance in London, he's not that unhappy to have the assignment. But simple drowning or not, with two such high-ranking government officials interested in the case but unable to tell him why, Keen, known for his rebelliousness and bad temper, is liable to get into more trouble than ever before his investigation is finished.
A literary, character-driven, and complex mystery, Kingdom of Lies is Lee Wood's debut of a wonderful new series featuring Sergeant Keen Dunliffe and Professor Jillie Waltham.
The mystery deepens when two secretive men from the Met show up to ask Keen to befriend a colleague of the dead woman's--an American college professor named Dr. Jillie Waltham who was also at the conference--in the hopes that she can shed some light on the victim's life and work. Since tagging along with Jillie means he'll be able to spend some time with his twin sons, who are living with his ex-wife and her fiance in London, he's not that unhappy to have the assignment. But simple drowning or not, with two such high-ranking government officials interested in the case but unable to tell him why, Keen, known for his rebelliousness and bad temper, is liable to get into more trouble than ever before his investigation is finished.
A literary, character-driven, and complex mystery, Kingdom of Lies is Lee Wood's debut of a wonderful new series featuring Sergeant Keen Dunliffe and Professor Jillie Waltham.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
N. Lee Wood
15 books13 followersN. Lee Wood is the author of Faraday's Orphans and Looking for Mahdi, both published by Gollancz/Vista in 1996. She sold her first ever novel in Romania and hasn't stopped being published since. She is a frequent visitor to British and European conventions, and travels extensively from her home in Paris. She is married to Norman Spinrad, who shares her enthusiasm for Europe in general, and Romania in particular.
N. Lee Wood is the author of "Looking for the Mahdi (Ace, 1996), "Faraday's Orphans (Ace, 1997), and "Bloodrights (Ace, 1999). "Looking for the Mahdi was selected as a "New York Times Notable Book and was also short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.- The author's blend of sociology, feminism, and science fiction is reminiscent of such classics as Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness (Ace, 1969), and Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country (Doubleday, 1988).
N. Lee Wood is the author of "Looking for the Mahdi (Ace, 1996), "Faraday's Orphans (Ace, 1997), and "Bloodrights (Ace, 1999). "Looking for the Mahdi was selected as a "New York Times Notable Book and was also short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.- The author's blend of sociology, feminism, and science fiction is reminiscent of such classics as Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness (Ace, 1969), and Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country (Doubleday, 1988).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
July 25, 2012
Quite difficult to keep the characters straight at the beginning...and the middle.... and the end.
Y-a-w-n. (Halfway through.)
It got better...a lot...but I found it a very frustrating book. I might have found it less opaque had I read it rather than listened to it, so I could refer back to see who the hell xxx was/is.
Y-a-w-n. (Halfway through.)
It got better...a lot...but I found it a very frustrating book. I might have found it less opaque had I read it rather than listened to it, so I could refer back to see who the hell xxx was/is.
June 2, 2014
This book plodded along in a way that took an interesting story and made it a mediocre tv drama script.
February 28, 2017
I found this hard to follow, and in the end I was not sure I really understood what and why it had all happened.
March 4, 2022
A pretty slow and convoluted read.
May 21, 2007
Good characters but a rather complicated plot. It's supposed to be the first in a series.
September 3, 2018
I loved this book. I loved the complex characters, the rhythm of the story line, and especially the absence of naivete. This is not your regular sugar coated mystery and romance. It is much, much more.
Ralph Cosham, the narrator, did an excellent job. Pure pleasure from beginning to end!
Ralph Cosham, the narrator, did an excellent job. Pure pleasure from beginning to end!
Read
June 6, 2023I grabbed a book by this author, this series and it turned out to be graphic and gross and depressing as heck. But I thought I liked the actual story, the English cop solving mysteries. I mean, it is one of my favorite genres. So I grabbed a different tale. Yes, much better.
June 13, 2024
I read 200 pages and just stopped caring. A slow paced mystery about the body found in a lake on a Duke’s estate. The plot kept moving around and it just wasn’t gong anywhere. I had to bail on it -
February 3, 2019
Plodding.
June 1, 2021
Just a skinny dipper who fell, hit her head and was drunk besides? Or murder most foul? Sgt. Keen Dunliffe finds too many anomalies to make it an accident.
November 18, 2025
The romance storyline was good, but I didn't care for the prattling on about the royal family tree.
August 16, 2015
Review posted at www.topshelftext.blogspot.com
Kingdom of Lies is the first mystery in a series featuring Keen Dunliffe, a gruff Enlglish Inspector with an honest-cop complex. Dunliffe is going through a dull and somewhat depressing period in his life (recent divorce, stalled career, etc.) when he is assigned to a case that seems ordinary at first but soon requires him to confront more danger than he's used to in his small, quiet village. A woman attending a local academic conference is found naked, floating in the pond on the grounds of a wealthy aristocratic family's estate. At first, Dunliffe expects this to be an open-and-shut case of an accidental death due to drunken skinny-dipping. Then Dunliffe gets a call, asking him to cozy up to the victim's close friend, Jillie Waltham, an American academic who has an inkling that there's more to the case than she's been told. As Keen and Jillie work together in London to solve the mystery, their personal relationship becomes more complicated, the case becomes more dangerous, and they realize that its implications are far reaching, both in history and in scope.
I picked this up on a whim after the spine caught my eye on a library shelf. My book rut has been somewhat ongoing, and I was looking for a read that would pull me in, even if it meant picking a cheesy mystery. Though this book doesn't have great ratings on Goodreads (3.26/4 from 72 ratings), I wouldn't hesitate to pick up the next in the series. I wouldn't say I'm going to become an avid fan of the series, but there are a few choice reasons that I can say that I'll probably look for the next one: (1) Keen Dunliffe is a great character. I love that he's full of flaws. For me, he's a different take on the classic, over-confident type of cop character that one usually sees in this type of story. (2) I couldn't guess the ending, or the "who done it" for the life of me. It caught me totally off guard, and that's always a plus for me when it comes to mysteries.
Kingdom of Lies is the first mystery in a series featuring Keen Dunliffe, a gruff Enlglish Inspector with an honest-cop complex. Dunliffe is going through a dull and somewhat depressing period in his life (recent divorce, stalled career, etc.) when he is assigned to a case that seems ordinary at first but soon requires him to confront more danger than he's used to in his small, quiet village. A woman attending a local academic conference is found naked, floating in the pond on the grounds of a wealthy aristocratic family's estate. At first, Dunliffe expects this to be an open-and-shut case of an accidental death due to drunken skinny-dipping. Then Dunliffe gets a call, asking him to cozy up to the victim's close friend, Jillie Waltham, an American academic who has an inkling that there's more to the case than she's been told. As Keen and Jillie work together in London to solve the mystery, their personal relationship becomes more complicated, the case becomes more dangerous, and they realize that its implications are far reaching, both in history and in scope.
I picked this up on a whim after the spine caught my eye on a library shelf. My book rut has been somewhat ongoing, and I was looking for a read that would pull me in, even if it meant picking a cheesy mystery. Though this book doesn't have great ratings on Goodreads (3.26/4 from 72 ratings), I wouldn't hesitate to pick up the next in the series. I wouldn't say I'm going to become an avid fan of the series, but there are a few choice reasons that I can say that I'll probably look for the next one: (1) Keen Dunliffe is a great character. I love that he's full of flaws. For me, he's a different take on the classic, over-confident type of cop character that one usually sees in this type of story. (2) I couldn't guess the ending, or the "who done it" for the life of me. It caught me totally off guard, and that's always a plus for me when it comes to mysteries.
June 27, 2013
I really enjoyed this character-driven mystery featuring a tough Yorkshire copper and a self-conscious American professor. This is a British procedural, but the characters, rather than the mystery, are the focus.
I adored Keen Dunliffe, who is a sergeant from Leeds sent to the big city to follow some leads. He's smart, blunt, and still reeling from a divorce and an accident that maimed a fellow policeman. Keen is aware that the London coppers think he's a hayseed, and he plays this up, especially with his new partner, Reaves. Eventually Reaves figures this out and the two end up developing something like a friendship.
The character of Jillie, the damaged American history professor, is not as strong or well-developed as Keen's. But the tiny spark of attraction between them is lovely to watch. While there's a bit of a romance, it's definitely tangential to the story, so don't expect a true HEA. These two are too unsure of themselves for that yet.
If I was rating this book on characterization alone, it would be 5 stars. The mystery, however, became a bit difficult to follow, and the author doesn't provide the road signs needed to help the reader remember who's who. This didn't detract too much from my enjoyment, though, because seeing Keen interact with suspects and his colleagues was entertainment enough.
I would read anything Wood writes with the character of Keen Dunliffe. Unfortunately it looks like there's only one other book and no indication of whether there are more on the way.
I adored Keen Dunliffe, who is a sergeant from Leeds sent to the big city to follow some leads. He's smart, blunt, and still reeling from a divorce and an accident that maimed a fellow policeman. Keen is aware that the London coppers think he's a hayseed, and he plays this up, especially with his new partner, Reaves. Eventually Reaves figures this out and the two end up developing something like a friendship.
The character of Jillie, the damaged American history professor, is not as strong or well-developed as Keen's. But the tiny spark of attraction between them is lovely to watch. While there's a bit of a romance, it's definitely tangential to the story, so don't expect a true HEA. These two are too unsure of themselves for that yet.
If I was rating this book on characterization alone, it would be 5 stars. The mystery, however, became a bit difficult to follow, and the author doesn't provide the road signs needed to help the reader remember who's who. This didn't detract too much from my enjoyment, though, because seeing Keen interact with suspects and his colleagues was entertainment enough.
I would read anything Wood writes with the character of Keen Dunliffe. Unfortunately it looks like there's only one other book and no indication of whether there are more on the way.
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January 12, 2009The Kingdom of Lies, by N. Lee Wood, B-plus.
Downloaded from audible.com.
Jillian Walltham is an American woman who teaches medieval history. She has a very good friend from college who lives in England. This friend, Chris, is godmother to her daughter, Karen, but Jillie and Chris haven’t actually seen each other for many years. So when a medieval history conference came up in Yorkshire, they both decide to go and be roommates. Chris also is into history, but she likes to find scandals to discomfit the royalty, which she believes, should be abolished. But the first night of the conference, Chris tells Jillie she’s going off to meet someone for dinner but will be back later and they’ll go for drinks. But Chris never comes back and her body is found floating in a muddy pond. The police want to write her death off as death by misadventure, but Jillie is convinced that Chris was murdered. She is an excellent swimmer and wouldn’t have drowned. As Jillie pursues leads to find out what Chris was researching that might have caused her death, she finds out a great deal about her friend which makes her think she never knew Chris very well. And, as she comes closer to finding out what Chris was researching, her own life is put in danger. For the most part a very good book.
Downloaded from audible.com.
Jillian Walltham is an American woman who teaches medieval history. She has a very good friend from college who lives in England. This friend, Chris, is godmother to her daughter, Karen, but Jillie and Chris haven’t actually seen each other for many years. So when a medieval history conference came up in Yorkshire, they both decide to go and be roommates. Chris also is into history, but she likes to find scandals to discomfit the royalty, which she believes, should be abolished. But the first night of the conference, Chris tells Jillie she’s going off to meet someone for dinner but will be back later and they’ll go for drinks. But Chris never comes back and her body is found floating in a muddy pond. The police want to write her death off as death by misadventure, but Jillie is convinced that Chris was murdered. She is an excellent swimmer and wouldn’t have drowned. As Jillie pursues leads to find out what Chris was researching that might have caused her death, she finds out a great deal about her friend which makes her think she never knew Chris very well. And, as she comes closer to finding out what Chris was researching, her own life is put in danger. For the most part a very good book.
November 22, 2014
Pros
- interesting police investigation in UK, in Leeds and London
- the characters have many secrets that will surprise you once reviled all of the sudden
- the plot is developing in a nice, easy to follow story-line
- some funny comparison about the lifestyle and vocabulary between Brits and Americans
- there is some humor here and here, not to much tho' but when humor is present, it's quite good
- the story will go over some history lessons about the British monarchy and this can give a nice outlook if you enjoy this kind of royal gossip
Cons
- the monotone British style, not to much action going on and when some action takes place is quite at a slow pace
- the change from one scene to another is often abrupt and sudden and this can be quite confusing at times
- the fact that a unfair emphasis is given on how "easy" is for anyone to buy guns in US, suggesting quite clear that this author is not a big fan of the "bearing arms" rights we enjoy in US, I don't want to start a debate on this hot and sensitive issue, but I would just mention it's not that "easy" as it is suggested in this book
Bottom line
- it's a book typical for the British style, so if you enjoy this style you will like it
- interesting police investigation in UK, in Leeds and London
- the characters have many secrets that will surprise you once reviled all of the sudden
- the plot is developing in a nice, easy to follow story-line
- some funny comparison about the lifestyle and vocabulary between Brits and Americans
- there is some humor here and here, not to much tho' but when humor is present, it's quite good
- the story will go over some history lessons about the British monarchy and this can give a nice outlook if you enjoy this kind of royal gossip
Cons
- the monotone British style, not to much action going on and when some action takes place is quite at a slow pace
- the change from one scene to another is often abrupt and sudden and this can be quite confusing at times
- the fact that a unfair emphasis is given on how "easy" is for anyone to buy guns in US, suggesting quite clear that this author is not a big fan of the "bearing arms" rights we enjoy in US, I don't want to start a debate on this hot and sensitive issue, but I would just mention it's not that "easy" as it is suggested in this book
Bottom line
- it's a book typical for the British style, so if you enjoy this style you will like it
January 16, 2008
I really liked the main character, Keen Dunliffe, and his relationship with his assistant detective/suspect/sort of love ineterest Jillie Waltham. The plot as a whole though, was kind of odd--it's like she was trying to cram two completely different mysteries into one book.
One was historical based, involving secrets about the British monarchy, dating from the time of George III. (Kind of like several other mysteries I've read recently--involving secrets hidden for centuries, etc). The second plot is about some bizarre sexual activity at a brothel named Dungeons and Dragons. The point where the two plots collide seemed a little farfetched, and not too clearly resolved at the end.
But I think I'd give this author another shot, I really liked the characters--more complex than in your typical mysteries.
One was historical based, involving secrets about the British monarchy, dating from the time of George III. (Kind of like several other mysteries I've read recently--involving secrets hidden for centuries, etc). The second plot is about some bizarre sexual activity at a brothel named Dungeons and Dragons. The point where the two plots collide seemed a little farfetched, and not too clearly resolved at the end.
But I think I'd give this author another shot, I really liked the characters--more complex than in your typical mysteries.
August 4, 2013
I really enjoyed listening to this recorded book. Every character had major flaws as well as virtues, and this book seemed to be more about the characters than about solving murders, though those parts of the book were intriguing to follow as well. I can't put my finger on it, but I really looked forward to reading every chapter. I will definitely read the next book in the series, Kingdom of Silence.
July 10, 2011
I agree with many others in reviewing this novel. I was enjoying it and the combination of the modern British mystery with the research and the historical stories - but by the final third of book I felt that the book lost its way. The characters and the final complexity of the political and police motivations were confusing and not well thought out.
August 7, 2012
In Kingdom of Lies, Lee Wood masterfully weaves a mystery that draws the reader in. She thinks each and every detail through, leaving no rock unturned. It is an excellent read all the way through - until the end. The end is not exactly “tidy,” in my opinion. I expected more closure. Yet, I would still strongly recommend this book to any detective/mystery fan.
March 12, 2014
I liked the characters, and the basic plot of the story was good. But, I have to agree with some of the other reviewers that parts were wordy. I also got bored about half-way through the book and got impatient during sections that seemed too drawn out. However, the story was interesting enough that I was able to push on to the end. Not sure yet if I will try the other books in the series.
April 21, 2008
I enjoyed the mystery since it involved Georgian England and historians, but felt a bit confused at the end. I understand it is supposed to be a series, maybe the second book would help clear up some of my questions!
April 5, 2011
Well written, excellent character development, lots of interesting insights and observations (relating to British society and human nature). On the downside, a somewhat confusing and unlikely plot. Still, within the mystery/crime novel genre, an entertaining and suspenseful read.
September 11, 2012
I enjoyed the first third of the book, but I kept having to go back and reread to figure out who all the characters were. The ending did not explain the mystery. I still don't get exactly happened. The story was not tied up well at all.
August 2, 2014
While it took me a bit to get use to the Yorkshire/England dialect, the book was worth the effort. I didn't figure out "who done it" until the end. Loved that it was not entirely predictable - other than the romance part.
September 20, 2014
Others do a better job reviewing this book than I could, I just thought I'd chime in to say, I quite liked the narrator, and the good mention of him in the reviews was a big reason I chose to listen to this book. I'm not sorry I did.
March 27, 2011
This book was only ok. It could have been better.
February 20, 2012
I would have given this 3.5 stars. It was fun and well written, for what it is - entertainment fiction - but there was little to discover, and felt it was wordy. A good mystery nonetheless.
September 5, 2016
was a tough read, with the dialect, but good story.
July 25, 2016
Too many characters.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews