The Chalon Heads

I read The Marx Sisters recently and enjoyed it so much that I immediately started searching for other books in the series. They are not easy to find, unfortunately, which I find hard to understand since they are really above average reads. I particularly like Kathy Kola, the detective sargeant of the series. She is so tenacious, so dedicated, but still seems so human. She is good looking and clever, ambitious but a team player, doesn't have much of a personal life but is neither psychotic nor haunted nor totally messed up as are some other heroines in today's mystery world. The plot is summarized above, so I won't repeat the details. Enough to say, that if you enough a good mystery with interesting protagonists, this series is for you. I am busily looking for others in the series and hope that some reprints appear SOON.

Detective Inspector Kathy Kolla and David Brock of Scotland Yard team up again in this mystery. It all centers around rare postage stamps, and gives the reader quite an education in stamp collecting and how buyers and sellers connect. The action focuses on Chalon Head stamps, designed after the portrait by Alfred Edward Chalon of Queen Victoria at age 18 - and worth a fortune. Sammy Starling, a wealthy elderly businessman of Chinese ancestry with a shady past, is an avid philatelist specializing in Chalon Heads. His beautiful young wife Eva has just been kidnapped, and the ransom notes each bear a mutilated Chalon Head stamp. As Brock and Kathy investigate, they uncover an ever more tangled web of people with axes to grind and guilty secrets to hide. Suicides, murders, forgeries and grisly assaults keep things moving right along. Sammy Starling is a delightfully complex person in whom assumed innocence and true innocence combine engagingly. In fact, the book is rich in fascinating personalities. Brock and Kathy, by comparison, are rather flat - just smart and persistent, mainly. I do recommend the book, however, for its intriguing subject matter and excellent cast of characters.

Barry Maitland is one of my favorite authors, and this was yet another great book. I highly recommend it. Although I find it puzzling that this is labelled as his third book in this series -in fact it is the fourth. The third is All My Enemies, and I can't seem to find it in this website.

An enjoyable read with likeable cops investigating some less than pleasant characters. About half way through the book I thought the suspect was rather obvious but as the end approached the plot twists became fast and furious. The background of stamp collecting adds a nice bit of atmosphere. Recommended.

Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock return in Barry Maitland's latest novel. They are involved in a case involving kidnapping and stolen stamps. This case will affect Brock because aspects of his past are going to be involved in this affair. There are times in the story when the plot gets to be a bit confusing. The author takes a lot of time bringing out all the players involved. It is not till the end of the novel that we see how one person was manipulating most of the characters. It is not clear exactly one happens but the author puts his effort. We get to see the characters as they are as well as how they pretend to be in other people's company. We get to learn a little bit of Brock's past and we get to see a bit more of Kolla's character. I preferred Maitland's previous novels to this one. The story here is good but I think THE MALCONTENTA was better. I am looking forward to reading SILVERMEADOW as soon as it becomes available in the United States.