Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope Narrated by Julia Franklin

Overview

Fifty-five-year-old Jim Lapsford makes an unusually healthy-looking corpse. Having spent his life taking vitamin pills and herbal remedies, it seems almost ironic that he has succumbed to a heart attack. But ex-nurse and trainee undertaker Drew Slocombe is convinced that there is enough conflicting medical evidence to merit a coroner's inquest though. Whilst Drew may have plenty of suspects, he has no proof. And Jim's cremation is days away...

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Reading British author Tope's second novel (after her strong debut, 2000's A Dirty Death), set in the village of Bradbourne, is like sitting in a room full of people you hardly know listening to them talk endlessly about people you don't know at all. Jim Lapsford was the picture of health when he died of a massive coronary. Or was he poisoned, as trainee mortician Drew Slocombe suspects? The family doctor has diagnosed the coronary, and Slocombe is in no position to voice his opinion. In a week Lapsford will be cremated, the evidence destroyed. Obsessed with guilt over the loss of a sick child under his care while he was a nurse in a pediatric ward (a loss he was judged innocent of but for which he feels responsible just the same), he cannot "forget" his suspicion. But how to prove it without an autopsy? Lapsford was apparently a good husband and father, well liked by everyone. But in fact he was an incorrigible womanizer, hated by many including his younger son. Seeking clues, Slocombe learns why one of Lapford's mistresses describes Bradbourne as "the town without a soul." Slocombe is an inept detective for whom guesses and assumptions pass for facts. His obsessive psychology is as tedious as everyone else's. It all reminds one of a comment by a Seinfeld character who didn't like the movie The English Patient "Why doesn't he just finish his stupid story about the desert and die already!" Nonetheless, cozy fans who enjoyed A Dirty Death won't be disappointed. (June 11) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Bradbourne, a small English village where every bloke stands his neighbors to a round at the pub and gossips about them the moment they leave, is suddenly minus one resident when Jim Lapsford, noted middle-aged printer/philanderer, dies in the night, apparently of a heart attack. His wife Monica is mildly upset, as are his co-workers, one of his two sons, and both of his mistresses. The real grieving, however, is left to his dog Cassie, who expires the next day—after lovingly licking the corpse's face—and the real anguish to his temperamental son David, clamoring to know once and for all who his real dad was. For reasons best known to the author, novice undertaker Drew Slocombe decides the man now in the mortuary was poisoned and starts investigating the death, soon unearthing pilfered prescription blanks and traces of henbane, codeine, and Viagra. A metal-studded young man will die, Slocombe's wife will collide with his boss Daphne's car, Lapsford's mistresses will join arm in arm to view the body, and his best friend Jack will reveal secrets involving Lapsford's long-dead twin sister. The cremation will be delayed, and then postponed, before Lapsford goes his rest with his murderer ready for prison. Though the plot is hampered from the get-go by Slocombe's inexplicable interfering, Tope (A Dirty Death, 2000) shows admirable zest and humor in relating everyone in the village to everyone else, à la Six Degrees of Separation, and demonstrates a winsome way with every last village soul.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177413839
Publisher:	Soundings, Limited
Publication date:	05/01/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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