I really hate to be negative, especially about a writer whose books I have enjoyed in the past, but I was quite disappointed in the latest Joe Sandiland’s mystery. I discovered this series several years ago, and loved the earlier books set in India, particularly Ragtime in Simla, which had an in...
Another happy accident: a second series by Barbara Cleverly. This one is set in the late 1920s, and features not a Scotland Yard inspector like Joe Sandilands, but a young archaeologist named Laetitia Talbot. Again the period setting is spot-on, and the web of history and theology underpinning th...
Ragtime in Simla by Barbara Cleverly is the second book of the Detective Joe Sandilands mystery series set in 1920s India. Once again Joe is working for George Jardine. I found it curious that George’s niece Nancy was never mentioned even in passing, since Joe and Nancy worked closely together t...
The Bee’s Kiss is the fifth in a series of mystery novels set in England or in British-ruled Central Asia after World War I and featuring a likeable (and eligible) Scotland Yard detective named Joe Sandilands. The series began with The Last Kashmiri Rose and includes other exotic-sounding titles ...
The Great Game, the Khyber Pass, Pathan tribes, hot sun, dust, sudden death – the romance of the Northwest Frontier of India in the ‘20s – we must be reading another Barbara Cleverly Joe Sandilands mystery. We are, and this one is a humdinger.Once again Joe, vacationing with an old friend who is ...
In a land of saffron sunsets and blazing summer heat, an Englishwoman has been found dead, her wrists slit, her body floating in a bathtub of blood and water. But is it suicide or murder? The case falls to Scotland Yard inspector Joe Sandilands, who survived the horror of the Western Front and ha...
I received an advance reading copy of the Palace Tiger, which went on sale 7/25/06, by Barbara Cleverly. I had not previously read any of her works and was not aware until I received it that there was a series of books based on the character Joe Sandilands.All in all, the book was well-worth the ...
The smell of death. Funerals and weeping. Joe had seen too many lilies. Bonnefoye sighed. ‘A special delivery! They must be three feet high! Walking along behind those, no one’s going to notice your face or challenge you. “Who are you and what’s your business here?” Pretty...
He walked around the dark red open-topped sports tourer expressing his approval of the motorcar and his admiration for the driver. Hunnyton was suitably dressed in waterproof cape, cloth cap with earflaps and tinted driving goggles.“Now who’s doing a Mister Toad?” Joe challenged. “Look at you! I’...
His two suitcases had been joined by one Gladstone bag and a pile of books done up with string. Cheerful voices and a clatter of dishes warned him that breakfast was well under way and he checked his watch, annoyed to note he had overslept by half an hour. He paused by the...
Plenty of room in there – as you noticed – for a layer or two of silk padding, after all. I can see the headlines in tomorrow’s Daily Mirror: “Mysterious maiden of the steppes lays down her life for young prince”. I must get together a few last words to deliver as I expire. Or have you already sc...
He was conscious that in the stillness that followed this sorrowful announcement all eyes had slid over to him, watching for his reaction. That most irritating of challenges—‘So there! What do you make of that, Mr Policeman?’—even when silently delivered, always drew an off-key response from Joe....
She had, nonetheless, a moment of trepidation as her escort loomed into view down the mist-shrouded street. The cavalcade approached as quietly as a file of six donkeys, eight mules, two horses, and eight men could manage, and their silent purposefulness contrasted with the noisy joviality of the...
He got out on King Charles Street and turned in to a courtyard lined by architecture of an Italianate flavour. Sir Gilbert Scott was responsible for the ornate Victorian grandeur, Joe remembered, and he paused to get his bearings and admire. There could be no doubt that he was approaching a templ...
I knew I shouldn’t be doing this. It was against all the firm’s safety rules to enter a deserted church, at dusk, alone. I was due to inspect the place the next day anyway, in the morning sunshine and the comforting presence of Ben Crabtree, the county of Suffolk’s best ancient buildings contract...
Letty answered. “Why don’t you go on upstairs to the library, Inspector? I’ll bring you what you want in a moment.” She turned back to the staff room. “Dorothea!” she said, poking her head around the door. “No, I don’t want to disturb you again—you’re all to take a half hour off. It occurs to me ...
The front door was opened, surprisingly, not by a uniformed butler, but by Pertinax himself! Lord! The Threat to National Security, the Scourge of This-World-As-We-Know-It ambled out, barely recognisable in loose shirt, cravat, cord trousers tucked into boots and a wide smile. &...