Grief Encounters

Oh I loved this book. It's lively, colourful, three dimensional and a damn fine mystery. This is the first Pawson novel I have read, after coming across it at the local library, but it won't be the last. The characters come alive and it is a refreshing change from the usual dogged crime novel.

Stuart Pawson writes a great book and is far too unappreciated in this country. His main character, Charlie Priest, is a very believeable and well:endearing and intelligent police inspector--the oldest in terms of service at the Heckley Nick. Charlie has a sense of humor and in the tradition of English mysteries, Pawson writes a very tight and absorbing plot for him. Grief Encounters is the latest in a long string of very well written books by this former mining engineer. In this adventure, Charlie has to deal with the ugliest and most disliked policeman in the East Pennine force who is being riffed because of certain unsavory allegations. At the same time, a Member of Parliament is caught up in a sex scandal which leads to other complications, all of which Pawson weaves together in his own fashion, with Charlie quite certain that these two events are in some ways tied together. Charlie has never had much luck in the romance department, which more than one reader has chided the author about. Now in a good-natured rebuttal, Pawson gives Charlie fans two attractive ladies for the inspector to wrestle with. It all comes together in the end in a very satisfactory manner and we are left to ponder: Charlie's on top of his job--but will he win fair lady this time? And which one??