Road Kill: A Dido Hoare Mystery (Dido Hoare Mysteries (Hardcover))

Rating:
Summary: Excellent storytelling
Review: On a back street in central London is located Dido Hoare' Antiquarian Books and Prints. The shop is the business and home of a single thirtyish woman and her child. She receives some help from her father and a nanny Phyllis Digby who is more of a friend.

When Phyllis asks her employer for help, Dido immediately takes her son and goes to her friend's home. There she finds lights systematically broken and the door ajar. Dido finds Phyllis locked inside a closet. The frightened woman claims three polite men placed her inside the closet, but thoughtfully left her with a cell phone. Surprisingly, nothing seems stolen and the only rooms disturbed are her husband's den and their bedroom. Obviously the trio were seeking something. Phyllis tells Dido she has no idea where her spouse is. Two men soon arrive claiming to be detectives, but they are searching for something as well. Dido believes these men will keep returning until they find what they want. She decides to not wait for a deadly incident to occur by doing her own brand of investigating.

Marianne MacDonald provides more than just a fabulous mystery. Being a natural talent, Ms. MacDonald gives her audience a taste of London without confusing the non-British audience with the local vernacular or isolated back streets. The secondary characters in many ways steal the show, especially Dido's pontificating dad and her toddler Ben. The mystery reveals itself one tantalizing step at a time before attaining a dramatic climax that makes the story line feel real. Anyone new to this series will seek previous tales after delighting in ROAD KILL.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Excellent storytelling
Review: On a back street in central London is located Dido Hoare' Antiquarian Books and Prints. The shop is the business and home of a single thirtyish woman and her child. She receives some help from her father and a nanny Phyllis Digby who is more of a friend.

When Phyllis asks her employer for help, Dido immediately takes her son and goes to her friend's home. There she finds lights systematically broken and the door ajar. Dido finds Phyllis locked inside a closet. The frightened woman claims three polite men placed her inside the closet, but thoughtfully left her with a cell phone. Surprisingly, nothing seems stolen and the only rooms disturbed are her husband's den and their bedroom. Obviously the trio were seeking something. Phyllis tells Dido she has no idea where her spouse is. Two men soon arrive claiming to be detectives, but they are searching for something as well. Dido believes these men will keep returning until they find what they want. She decides to not wait for a deadly incident to occur by doing her own brand of investigating.

Marianne MacDonald provides more than just a fabulous mystery. Being a natural talent, Ms. MacDonald gives her audience a taste of London without confusing the non-British audience with the local vernacular or isolated back streets. The secondary characters in many ways steal the show, especially Dido's pontificating dad and her toddler Ben. The mystery reveals itself one tantalizing step at a time before attaining a dramatic climax that makes the story line feel real. Anyone new to this series will seek previous tales after delighting in ROAD KILL.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Road Kill
Review: This is my first Dido Hoare mystery, and I enjoyed it immensely. The novel is tautly paced and to the point; and Marianne Macdonald does a wonderful job at conveying to the reader the sense of urgency and frustration that Dido et al feel from being alternately harrassed by bent ex-policemen and thugs, and from being used and left out-of-the-loop by the investigating police.

When Dido goes to the aid of her nanny, Phyllis, she little expects to be caught up in an old bullions robbery from the 1980s involving mobsters and bent poicemen. First Phyllis's apartment is ransacked but nothing is taken except an old computer. And when the police arrive the next morning to investigate the burgulary, Phyllis recognise them as the burgulars form the previous night. Then Phyllis's husband Frankie is found murdered, and it is revealed that Frankie's father was once the head of a powerful criminal gang that was involved in the Hatton Carriers bullion robbery. On top of it all Dido's policeman friend, Paul Grant, is suspended from duty. Rumour is that he is bent, but Dido knows it is because he came to her aid. What exactly is going on?

This was a really fun read. The mystery was smoothly written and each plot twist was nicely piled on so that you could actually feel the tension mounting with each new revelation. A very nice mystery to curl up with and enjoy, esp on rainy nights.