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Past Tense
A long-buried set of remains…a decades-old mysteryPast and present meet on the quiet campus of Tilton University when construction workers unearth a set of unidentified bones. For former police detective-turned-professor Joel Williams, it’s a typical Final Exams week – until a set of bones is discovered on a construction site...When the remains are linked to a missing person case from 1974, Williams and the Tilton, Pennsylvania police go back to the past. And they uncover some truths that have been kept hidden for a long time. How much do people really need to know? It’s 1974, and twenty-year-old Bryan Roades is swept up in the excitement of the decade. He’s a reporter for the Tilton University newspaper, The Real Story, and is determined to have a career as an investigative journalist, just like his idols, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He plans to start with an exposé article about life on the campus of Tilton University. But does everything need to be exposed? And what are the consequences for people whose lives could be turned upside down if their stories are printed? As it turns out, Bryan’s ambition carries a very high price. And someone is determined not to let the truth out.
426 pages, Paperback
Published August 10, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 15, 2016
A nice change of pace from the darker, grimmer type of crime fiction. This is very civilised, although the themes addressed are topical and disquieting.
December 5, 2016
The sins of the past...
When the foundations are being dug for a new performing arts building at Tilton Univerity in Pennsylvania, the building crew are shocked when they discover a skeleton buried there. Forensic tests show that it belonged to a young man and dates from around forty years earlier. Back in the early '70s, Bryan Roades was a student at the University. Inspired by the great Woodward and Bernstein investigation into the Watergate affair, Bryan hoped to emulate them by becoming a campaigning journalist. He was preparing a story on women's issues for the University newspaper, focusing on the Women's Lib movement and how some of the debates of the time were impacting on the female students. Some of the people he approached, though, didn't want to see their stories in print, but Bryan was more interested in the greater good (and his own advancement, perhaps) than in individuals' rights to privacy. When he disappeared, the police could find no trace and most people thought he'd simply done that fashionable thing for the time – gone off to 'find himself'...
This is Margot Kinberg's third Joel Williams book, but the first I've read. Margot and I are long-time buddies via our blogs, so you will have to assume that there may be a level of bias in this review, but as always I shall try to be as honest as I can.
Joel Williams is an ex-police detective now working as a Professor in Criminal Justice in the fictional university town of Tilton, PA. He still has lots of contacts with his old colleagues in the police department and can't resist using his inside knowledge of the University when a corpse turns up on campus. But he's not one of these mavericks who works it all out on his own – we also see the police procedural side of the case through the two detectives who are investigating it, and Joel promptly hands over to them any information he finds. I like this way of handling the 'amateur detective' aspect – too often, the reasons for amateur involvement stretch credibility too far, and many authors fall into the cliché of having to make the police look stupid in order to make the amateur look good. But here Joel's investigation enhances the police one rather than detracting from it.
As someone who is tired to death of the drunken, dysfunctional, angst-ridden detective of fiction, I also greatly appreciated Joel's normality and stability. He has a job that he enjoys and is good at, he stays sober throughout and has a happy marriage. But he also has a curious mind, especially when it comes to crime, and an empathetic understanding of the people he comes across in the course of his investigation.
The small-town setting and the rather closed society of the University within it gives that feeling of everyone knowing everyone else's business – a setting where privacy is harder to come by than in the anonymity of a big city, and is more treasured for that very reason. Kinberg uses this well to show how people feel threatened when it looks like things they'd rather stay secret might be about to come into the open. The time period adds to this too, and Kinberg makes excellent use of the changes we've seen in society over the intervening period – many of the things people were concerned about being revealed back in the '70s don't seem like such big scandals today, but could have destroyed careers and even lives back then. And as we learn more about the people Bryan was proposing to write about in his article, the pool of people who may have been willing to take drastic action to stop him grows...
In style, the book mirrors the Golden Age crime – a limited group of suspects, clues, red herrings, amateur detective, etc. And, of course, the second murder! But it also has strong elements of the police procedural, with the two detectives, Crandall and Zuniga, sharing almost equal billing with Joel. There's a little too much grit in the story for it to fall into 'cosy' territory but, thankfully, it also steers clear of the gratuitously gruesome or graphic. I'm not sure how well it will work for people who enjoy the darker, more brutal side of crime fiction, but an intriguing and interesting story for those who prefer the traditional mystery novel. Just my kind of thing, in fact, and I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read. Recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When the foundations are being dug for a new performing arts building at Tilton Univerity in Pennsylvania, the building crew are shocked when they discover a skeleton buried there. Forensic tests show that it belonged to a young man and dates from around forty years earlier. Back in the early '70s, Bryan Roades was a student at the University. Inspired by the great Woodward and Bernstein investigation into the Watergate affair, Bryan hoped to emulate them by becoming a campaigning journalist. He was preparing a story on women's issues for the University newspaper, focusing on the Women's Lib movement and how some of the debates of the time were impacting on the female students. Some of the people he approached, though, didn't want to see their stories in print, but Bryan was more interested in the greater good (and his own advancement, perhaps) than in individuals' rights to privacy. When he disappeared, the police could find no trace and most people thought he'd simply done that fashionable thing for the time – gone off to 'find himself'...
This is Margot Kinberg's third Joel Williams book, but the first I've read. Margot and I are long-time buddies via our blogs, so you will have to assume that there may be a level of bias in this review, but as always I shall try to be as honest as I can.
Joel Williams is an ex-police detective now working as a Professor in Criminal Justice in the fictional university town of Tilton, PA. He still has lots of contacts with his old colleagues in the police department and can't resist using his inside knowledge of the University when a corpse turns up on campus. But he's not one of these mavericks who works it all out on his own – we also see the police procedural side of the case through the two detectives who are investigating it, and Joel promptly hands over to them any information he finds. I like this way of handling the 'amateur detective' aspect – too often, the reasons for amateur involvement stretch credibility too far, and many authors fall into the cliché of having to make the police look stupid in order to make the amateur look good. But here Joel's investigation enhances the police one rather than detracting from it.
As someone who is tired to death of the drunken, dysfunctional, angst-ridden detective of fiction, I also greatly appreciated Joel's normality and stability. He has a job that he enjoys and is good at, he stays sober throughout and has a happy marriage. But he also has a curious mind, especially when it comes to crime, and an empathetic understanding of the people he comes across in the course of his investigation.
The small-town setting and the rather closed society of the University within it gives that feeling of everyone knowing everyone else's business – a setting where privacy is harder to come by than in the anonymity of a big city, and is more treasured for that very reason. Kinberg uses this well to show how people feel threatened when it looks like things they'd rather stay secret might be about to come into the open. The time period adds to this too, and Kinberg makes excellent use of the changes we've seen in society over the intervening period – many of the things people were concerned about being revealed back in the '70s don't seem like such big scandals today, but could have destroyed careers and even lives back then. And as we learn more about the people Bryan was proposing to write about in his article, the pool of people who may have been willing to take drastic action to stop him grows...
In style, the book mirrors the Golden Age crime – a limited group of suspects, clues, red herrings, amateur detective, etc. And, of course, the second murder! But it also has strong elements of the police procedural, with the two detectives, Crandall and Zuniga, sharing almost equal billing with Joel. There's a little too much grit in the story for it to fall into 'cosy' territory but, thankfully, it also steers clear of the gratuitously gruesome or graphic. I'm not sure how well it will work for people who enjoy the darker, more brutal side of crime fiction, but an intriguing and interesting story for those who prefer the traditional mystery novel. Just my kind of thing, in fact, and I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read. Recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
September 22, 2017
Tiltton University is not the quiet place of learning all the staff and students could hope for when the construction workers move in to build a new performing arts centre. And then work stops because there is something buried in the site that ruined everyone’s day.
Kramer walked slowly in the direction Stephens had indicated. Then he stopped short. His face drained of colour and he gulped twice. He could see it clearly — a bone sticking up out of the dirt he’d been preparing to move.
Tilton police detectives Donna Crandall and her partner Ron Zuniga are called to the scene and it isn’t long before the bones are sent off to be dated. The result is that the skeleton is that of a young man, and he died some forty years ago but he didn’t bury himself so it must be murder but how on earth do you go about investigating a crime that old?
Never fear because the detectives have Joel Williams, The Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Tilton University, a former detective now academic, is only too willing to use his skills to assist. Before long the Police and the campus sleuth have a name; Bryan Roades a twenty year old who went missing in the 70s. Could his determination to emulate his heroes in the investigative journalism world on the campus newspaper have led to someone wanting him out of the way?
This is my first Joel Williams story although this is actually Margot Kinberg’s third book in the series featuring the academic detective and I’m pleased to report Past Tense reads perfectly as a stand-alone novel. The crime aspect was one of my favourite tropes; I love it when those who commit a crime think they are home and dry only for them to be caught years after the fact. This is particularly true in this novel as the article Brian Roades was working on was about women’s lib and of course attitudes have changed dramatically in the past forty years, so I suspect if anything the uncovering of the truth had far more impact than it may have done if he’d been allowed to write his story back then, but that of course is mere speculation on my part!
Margot Kinberg structures the novel well always keeping the mystery in clear line of sight and thankfully her investigative professor is a normal man, without angst and is somewhat self-effacing which gives the book a less aggressive feel than some modern crime novels, not that life as part of the campus staff is without its petty rivalries, this is no cosy mystery! I always imagine life in academia to be somewhat rarefied, however with this book written by someone living that life, I’ve been totally disabused of that opinion but it is an illusion shattered by some great characters and some fabulous dialogue that helped establish the setting, and opinions, for the modern angle of the crime and its discovery as well as giving enough references to take us back twenty years to the heart of the crime.
I have been a long-time reader, and admirer of Margot’s blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist… and I have to admit to being slightly apprehensive about read this book – what if I didn’t like it? But not to fear, I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, the plotting and the writing style, a book without gratuitous violence but not so sanitised that it felt too sugary for this crime loving reader. I will definitely be keeping up with Joel in the future and I’m looking forward to my next visit to Tilton University.
Kramer walked slowly in the direction Stephens had indicated. Then he stopped short. His face drained of colour and he gulped twice. He could see it clearly — a bone sticking up out of the dirt he’d been preparing to move.
Tilton police detectives Donna Crandall and her partner Ron Zuniga are called to the scene and it isn’t long before the bones are sent off to be dated. The result is that the skeleton is that of a young man, and he died some forty years ago but he didn’t bury himself so it must be murder but how on earth do you go about investigating a crime that old?
Never fear because the detectives have Joel Williams, The Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Tilton University, a former detective now academic, is only too willing to use his skills to assist. Before long the Police and the campus sleuth have a name; Bryan Roades a twenty year old who went missing in the 70s. Could his determination to emulate his heroes in the investigative journalism world on the campus newspaper have led to someone wanting him out of the way?
This is my first Joel Williams story although this is actually Margot Kinberg’s third book in the series featuring the academic detective and I’m pleased to report Past Tense reads perfectly as a stand-alone novel. The crime aspect was one of my favourite tropes; I love it when those who commit a crime think they are home and dry only for them to be caught years after the fact. This is particularly true in this novel as the article Brian Roades was working on was about women’s lib and of course attitudes have changed dramatically in the past forty years, so I suspect if anything the uncovering of the truth had far more impact than it may have done if he’d been allowed to write his story back then, but that of course is mere speculation on my part!
Margot Kinberg structures the novel well always keeping the mystery in clear line of sight and thankfully her investigative professor is a normal man, without angst and is somewhat self-effacing which gives the book a less aggressive feel than some modern crime novels, not that life as part of the campus staff is without its petty rivalries, this is no cosy mystery! I always imagine life in academia to be somewhat rarefied, however with this book written by someone living that life, I’ve been totally disabused of that opinion but it is an illusion shattered by some great characters and some fabulous dialogue that helped establish the setting, and opinions, for the modern angle of the crime and its discovery as well as giving enough references to take us back twenty years to the heart of the crime.
I have been a long-time reader, and admirer of Margot’s blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist… and I have to admit to being slightly apprehensive about read this book – what if I didn’t like it? But not to fear, I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, the plotting and the writing style, a book without gratuitous violence but not so sanitised that it felt too sugary for this crime loving reader. I will definitely be keeping up with Joel in the future and I’m looking forward to my next visit to Tilton University.
November 10, 2016
I thoroughly enjoyed this recently published title in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams series.
The discovery of a skeleton leads to an investigation into the disappearance of a student 40 years earlier. And then one of the people the student was friendly with is murdered. So the police investigation hovers between the cold case and the present case, with the detectives becoming convinced that the two cases are related.
Once a detective, always a detective. Joel Williams can't help himself. Especially when he is the one who discovers the second body. Bringing a slightly different perspective to the investigation, as well as a good knowledge of the Tilton campus, Williams adds to what the police know and leads eventually to the arrest of a murderer.
I liked the characterisation of the detectives, and the empathy with their relationship. The plotting is tight and the plot threads are well carried through.
Highly recommended.
The discovery of a skeleton leads to an investigation into the disappearance of a student 40 years earlier. And then one of the people the student was friendly with is murdered. So the police investigation hovers between the cold case and the present case, with the detectives becoming convinced that the two cases are related.
Once a detective, always a detective. Joel Williams can't help himself. Especially when he is the one who discovers the second body. Bringing a slightly different perspective to the investigation, as well as a good knowledge of the Tilton campus, Williams adds to what the police know and leads eventually to the arrest of a murderer.
I liked the characterisation of the detectives, and the empathy with their relationship. The plotting is tight and the plot threads are well carried through.
Highly recommended.
March 7, 2024
Past Tense by Margot Kinberg is another multi-faceted and intriguing mystery that keeps you turning the pages to the very end.
An old disappearance turned murder case combined with a murder decades later provides plenty of suspects. Kinberg's unique style of presenting the story through multiple points of view provides for another suspenseful and gripping read.
I look forward to reading more of this series.
An old disappearance turned murder case combined with a murder decades later provides plenty of suspects. Kinberg's unique style of presenting the story through multiple points of view provides for another suspenseful and gripping read.
I look forward to reading more of this series.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews