Helen West #2

Not That Kind of Place aka Trial by Fire – Frances Fyfield

It is 1990. Our protagonist, Helen West, is a lawyer working as a crown prosecutor in the town of Branston about a dozen miles outside of London. She lives with her significant other, Geoffrey Bailey, who is a detective superintendent. They are both from London, used to handling urban horrid deeds from the point of view of professionals in criminal justice. Neither like Branston because it is not-country, not-suburbia and in such a no-where of a place they are not acting like themselves.

The murder of a local woman occurs. The circumstantial evidence against the accused looks convincing. But Helen sees it as pat. She can’t believe this particular high school English teacher, the lover of a friend of hers, could be guilty of bludgeoning and stabbing a woman to death. Bailey has vague doubts about accused’s guilt but he buries them deep, figuring that if you hear hoofbeats, it’s horses, not zebras. Inevitably, Helen and Bailey don’t talk about their doubts and this ruffles their relationship. She feels that since she is not permanent she just ought to keep a low profile in the office of the crown prosecutor and stay out of the bristles of her male chauvinist pig of a boss.

In their own way, Helen and Bailey gather information about two local families. One family, the upper middle class Blundells, consists of the widower of the victim and his 14-year-old daughter. Their relationship has existing troubles only worsened by the murder of the wife and mother. The other family, the working class Featherstones, run a shabby restaurant-motel and have a 20-something son with a raft of cognitive and emotional issues.

In the end, this is an inverted mystery in that by the half-way point one knows whodunnit. But the author ratchets up the suspense and action so that the reveal is totally unexpected. The goings-on and characters are rather more dark than I’m used to in a mystery, with some scenes for mature audiences  that can handle a dash of Ick and a splash of Yuck.

I give this a guarded recommendation. During the first quarter of this book, the author provides backstory to the West-Bailey relationship, the Family Blundells, and the awful Family Featherstones. She describes vividly locations such as the murder victim’s house and the weird Featherstone summerhouse.

This information feels superfluous, slowing things down more than I like at the beginning of a mystery. Though I debated bailing out, I learned to trust that the writer needs to introduce characters clearly and completely for the parts they are going to play in getting the story to where it is going to end. Like Ruth Rendell, for Fyfield the characterization is really important in making the fireworks of the ending persuasive because it’s so incredible. And she uses the time-honored tactic of the two heroes not sharing information so the reveal is delayed.

Qualifying as a solicitor, Fyfield worked for the Crown Prosecution Service, which enabled her to learn about murder at second hand. She gives interesting insights into office politics for female lawyers in the early 1990s. The author observes all the male-female relationships with an intense sympathetic eye.