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Love Story With Murders A Novel Harry Bingham 9780345533760 Books

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Love Story With Murders A Novel Harry Bingham 9780345533760 Books

The only reason for not making "Love Story with Murders" (LS) your very next book is that you haven't read the first book in the series, "Talking To The Dead" (TD). It's critical to read this series in order, so hurry up and read TD first. Here's some more good news - the third book, "The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths" (SD) has just been released in the UK. The bad news is that the publisher, for some very STRANGE reason, has decided not to publish SD in the USA at this time. What are they thinking?! I'm not going to wait for them to see the light, I'll just order SD from Amazon UK and pay the exorbitant shipping and handling charges to the USA. Here's more good news - it is rumored that the author is almost finished with book #4 in the series - since this is the Fiona Griffiths series, it is safe to suggest that the title of #3 is a bit of a ruse.

Why should you take my word for all this, particularly my enthusiasm for this series. Well, I read about 100 books per year, mostly crime fiction. I have read many, many series, including some of the best - Rankin, Nesbo, Billingham, Larssen (both Stieg and Asa), George, Wagner, Lawton, Templeton, Indridason, Gage, Enger, Bolyon, Robotham, etc. etc. None in my view are better than Bingham. Fiona is a refreshing character, flawed in a new and unusual way (read the books and find out for yourselves), brilliant, action oriented, and fiercely independent. She carries some very different family baggage, and is slowly evolving; her handling of a very sensitive situation with a superior officer was very touching, very moving. She can be very frustrating and she doesn't always do what you expect nor want her to.

Yet, in #2 LS she saves her own skin (pun) in a rather ingenious way - an extremely tense scene. There is plenty of other tension in LS. Towards the end, things are going unusually well for Fi. You just know that can't last forever. You realize that you are finger-nail biting waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop, what a change from the usual thriller. The prose, dialog, and characters are all excellent. The story is about some body parts that are suddenly discovered hidden away in some nearby "in plain sight" locations. Some new, some old - so where do you start that kind of an investigation? Already, I'm guessing about that "strange death" title. I don't think it'll be too long before I place my order for #3.


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Love Story With Murders A Novel Harry Bingham 9780345533760 Books Reviews

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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For me, these things aren’t only about finding the killers, but about giving peace to the dead. It’s not primarily a question of justice. The dead don’t care about that. The murder investigation, arrest and conviction are just part of the funeral rite, the final acts of completion. Gifts I bring the dead in exchange for the peace they bring me.

The peace of the dead, which passeth all understanding.

DC Fiona Griffiths continues her efforts to act normal, maybe even feel normal, getting along with her boyfriend and staying out of trouble with her superiors. Basically, things are going as well as they possibly can following the events of Talking to the Dead. But we know that's going to come to an end, otherwise, this would be a really dull series. It comes to an end when Fiona and a colleague stop off on their way home to look at a case of illegal rubbish. In this particular case, the rubbish is a body part in a chest freezer. It's a significant enough body part to make the detectives sure they're looking for something more serious than illegal rubbish.

Over the next few days, the police are able to find some more of the woman, as well as start to understand how long ago she was killed and dismembered -- which leads to an identification. Shortly thereafter, the police find pieces of a fresher corpse in the same area. While most detectives look for connections between the victims and hunt for clues to identify the killer, Fi begins learning more about the victims as individuals (not that she's alone in this, it's just she's alone in her approach), what their lives were like, and what would lead someone to kill them. Fi investigates things in a way no other fictional detective -- private or police -- does. I'm not sure I can express it clearly, but when you read it, you'll notice. When she starts to put the pieces together about what was going on the whole time, I was flummoxed -- it's nothing like where I expected things to go.

Aside from that are the relationships with her boyfriend, family and fellow police officers. The romance between Buzz and Fi is very strange, but sweet. She's dealing with a different superior for these investigations. It's not just Fi up to the same antics with a different boss -- similar antics, yes, but Fi understands herself better now, and is able to do what she does in a way that her superiors are able to accept and use. As for her family? I'm not even going to try to talk about it.

Some people are better as corpses. They’re easier to like.

On the one hand, I really like watching Fi's subconscious at work, making the connections, deductions, and guesses she needs to be making to solve the crime/find what she's looking for, while she interprets it as "the dead" talking to her. Well, that's one way to read it, anyway. It really could be that there's something on the verge of supernatural going on. I like the hint of ambiguity that Bingham has given this world and Fi's understanding of what's going on.

I was, I don't want to say surprised, but it was something like it by the ending. Maybe I've just been reading too many Mysteries lately with pretty ambiguous endings, but this one had a very satisfying ending with most of the loose ends tied up. This doesn't mean that everything ended happily (for want of a better term), but that Fi's fully able to satisfy her curiosity and need to know (at least about those things that came up in her professional life -- her personal life is only slightly more settled by the book's end than it was when it started).

A murder mystery -- with, yes, a love story -- that had some fantastic character moments, a really strong puzzle, all very well told. Fiona Griffiths impresses again. This is the best kind of sequel -- the same kind of things that filled the first book in the series, but seen differently by everyone (including the protagonist) and with different results -- Fi's grown a bit (I want to stress "a bit," she's still basically the same person, which is good, I don't want everything to be "normal" for this character), and is building on the events from the previous novel, not just repeating them. I'm truly annoyed with myself for waiting so long to get back to this series, and will not make the same mistake.
One must first read Book 1 (Talking to the Dead) in the series to get a proper concept of who the heroine is and her significant personal challenges. Love story, with Murders is the second in a high quality series by a very gifted author. As an American who has read a great number of mystery novels, I consider Harry Bingham's Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series to be a breath of fresh air (especially compared to all the "formula" co-authored novels by the well-known American authors). Bingham's plots are, as the Brits would say, "brilliant" and well researched. His character development is second to none. Fiona is the most complex, beautifully flawed and unique protagonist that I have encountered in any mystery novel. She is very "British/Welsh" and has more balls than any male character in similar genres. American readers will have to get used to the British slang and their "copper" acronyms (some of which I had to Google to understand), but that only adds to the charm and contrasts very favorably to what passes for an American mystery thriller. There are no dead spots in these books as every line is well crafted and moves the plot forward. After Book 1, I bought the series, after Book 2, I joined the Fiona Griffiths Fan Club. The books have amazingly gotten progressively even better with each one so far and I love the "chats" with Harry after the endings. I just finished book 4 and I hate to see the series end. Please give us more Fiona, Harry!
The only reason for not making "Love Story with Murders" (LS) your very next book is that you haven't read the first book in the series, "Talking To The Dead" (TD). It's critical to read this series in order, so hurry up and read TD first. Here's some more good news - the third book, "The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths" (SD) has just been released in the UK. The bad news is that the publisher, for some very STRANGE reason, has decided not to publish SD in the USA at this time. What are they thinking?! I'm not going to wait for them to see the light, I'll just order SD from UK and pay the exorbitant shipping and handling charges to the USA. Here's more good news - it is rumored that the author is almost finished with book #4 in the series - since this is the Fiona Griffiths series, it is safe to suggest that the title of #3 is a bit of a ruse.

Why should you take my word for all this, particularly my enthusiasm for this series. Well, I read about 100 books per year, mostly crime fiction. I have read many, many series, including some of the best - Rankin, Nesbo, Billingham, Larssen (both Stieg and Asa), George, Wagner, Lawton, Templeton, Indridason, Gage, Enger, Bolyon, Robotham, etc. etc. None in my view are better than Bingham. Fiona is a refreshing character, flawed in a new and unusual way (read the books and find out for yourselves), brilliant, action oriented, and fiercely independent. She carries some very different family baggage, and is slowly evolving; her handling of a very sensitive situation with a superior officer was very touching, very moving. She can be very frustrating and she doesn't always do what you expect nor want her to.

Yet, in #2 LS she saves her own skin (pun) in a rather ingenious way - an extremely tense scene. There is plenty of other tension in LS. Towards the end, things are going unusually well for Fi. You just know that can't last forever. You realize that you are finger-nail biting waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop, what a change from the usual thriller. The prose, dialog, and characters are all excellent. The story is about some body parts that are suddenly discovered hidden away in some nearby "in plain sight" locations. Some new, some old - so where do you start that kind of an investigation? Already, I'm guessing about that "strange death" title. I don't think it'll be too long before I place my order for #3.