The Bill Slider Omnibus: Orchestrated Death/Death Watch/Necrochip

The Bill Slider mysteries by Cynthia Harrod-Eagle are clever mysteries, often spice with humor. They are well written, and I recommend them.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' plots are wonderfully developed and she certainly has a way with words.

I really enjoyed my introduction to the Bill Slider mysteries. Having read the entire Morland Dynasty series I thought I'd try the author's other books. I think Cynthia is a terrific writer and enjoy her puns immensely.

This series was a delight to find, but quite a chore to wade through. The editing errors were simply disgraceful, with several to a page. Can the text have been scanned in from a previous edition? It was distracting, but, after all, quite worth it. I'll buy her other Bill Slider mysteries, but not in the TimeWarner Omnibus editions. Be warned.

What a find! Why is there no other review here? I have only finished the first of the 3 novels included in this collection, but I am already won over to Inspector Slider. There is much I admire in, say, P.D. James' Commander Adam Dalgleish, who is a published poet and aide to the Commissioner, many ranks above poor, passed-over Inspector Slider. Like Le Carre's George Smiley, like most of us, Slider is an imperfect and partial man, with recognizable failings, and is lovable for it. Were I to meet Commander Dalgleish, I would instinctively call him "sir" - though he would probably put me at my ease with a few well-chosen words. Slider, however - I'd call him Bill and he'd call me Bob and we'd have a curry together like old pals. He is carried forward by an almost-crushing sense of responsibility for his world, which makes policing the only possible career for him. But while this has made him a good detective, it doesn't give him a black-and-white view of the world, nor make him a great police administrator. He handles his cases with a skill born of experience and intelligence, but somehow these fail him - or nearly so -- in handling what seem to him to be secondary and confusing matters, his career and private life. I do not want anyone to get the impression that the writing is as, well, pedestrian as Inspector Slider. He may be a bit of an everyday man but Ms. Harrod-Eagles' prose is wonderfully turned-out. This author is a lively and playful wordsmith, her novel is well-written, and if I handled the language as well as she, I wouldn't just be writing reviews. Oh, I could gripe that his team is not so well-drawn as I'd like (and Dalgleish's team is, of course - P.D. James has it all wonderfully down and I'll keep reading her!). I could ask that Slider's sergeant, Atherton, be fleshed out more - how'd he become a copper? But maybe, over in Omnibus #2, I'll find that out. I intend to read my way there, and see! The plot, at least in "Orchestrated Death", is a bit pushed-about as well. But months, years, after I read P.D. James, or Le Carre, or any really good writers, what I remember are not the plot turns, but the people I have met in the pages. I will certainly remember Inspector Slider.