Kill My Darling (Bill Slider Series #14)

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Overview

A new Bill Slider mystery - When Melanie Hunter goes missing, the men in her life come under suspicion. And there's plenty to suspect; lies, half-truths, deceptions. When you pull one thread, the whole fabric of family life can come apart. There are secrets in Melanie's past, and pain she tried to hide from the world. slider and his team need to answer two questions: who loved Melanie, and who loved her too much . . . 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727881373
Publisher:	Severn House Publishers
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Series:	Bill Slider Series , #14
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles was born and educated in Shepherd's Bush, London and had a variety of jobs in the commercial world, starting as a junior cashier at Woolworth's and working her way down to Pensions Officer at the BBC. She won the Young Writer's Award in 1973, and became a full-time writer in 1978. She is the author of sixty successful novels to date, including the twenty-five volumes of the Morland Dynasty series.
www.billslider.com

Editorial Reviews

In Harrod-Eagles’s well-plotted 14th mystery featuring London Det. Insp. Bill Slider (after 2011’s Body Line), suspicion falls on three men after the body of missing paleontologist Melanie Hunter turns up in a wooded area of Ruislip. According to all reports, Mel was a lovely girl, so it’s unclear why anyone would want to kill her. Slowly, the alibis of her live-in boyfriend, estate agent Scott Hibbert; her well-meaning but strict stepfather, Ian Wiseman; and her ex-con neighbor, Mr. Fitton, unravel, leaving Slider and his detectives with more questions than answers. The author imbues each of her detectives with a distinct personality, and evokes a real sense of urgency as the action moves deftly from suspect to suspect as well as from clue to clue, though the heavy use of British slang may distract some American readers. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The always reliable Harrod-Eagles adds another winner to her excellent Bill Slider series. London Detective Inspector Slider’s latest case has the intrepid copper trying to solve the murder of Melanie Hunter, a pretty young woman with a sad past and a future that looked bright until she was killed. There are plenty of potential suspects, from the oddball who lived downstairs and who’d served time for killing his wife to Melanie’s stepfather, a teacher whose respectable facade covers a brutal nature, to Melanie’s boyfriend, a real-estate agent sorely lacking in scruples. Slider is frustrated when the investigation moves at a snail’s pace, but even when a light-bulb moment leads to a solution, the case is so full of sadness and tragedy that resolution brings little satisfaction. While Harrod-Eagles conjures up an absorbing police procedural, it’s her ability to capture the foibles of her characters, to make them come alive, to show the playfulness and passion of human nature, and to evoke the reader’s empathy that makes her books stand out. Highly recommended for all readers of police procedurals.

Booklist - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

A female anthropologist vanishes, and Detective Inspector Slider digs out clues and dark secrets in his team's fourth outing (Body Line). [See Prepub Alert, 11/14/11.]

Library Journal

If everyone so loved Melanie, how come she's lying dead in the park? Everyone who knew Melanie admired her, at least until DI Bill Slider began asking around. Then it turns out that her mum's recent relationship with her had turned tetchy. Her stepdad may have slapped her around. Her live-in boyfriend was furious that she kept refusing his marriage proposals. And her downstairs neighbor, prickly Mr. Fitton, declines to comment on drinking with her at the pub. Was he obsessed with her and guilty of murdering her, just as he killed his own wife for her sexual misconduct? Slider and his coppers at London's Shepherd's Bush nick can't puzzle out why Melanie left her house with only her keys and a Chinese takeaway and wound up dead shortly thereafter. The stepdad, the boyfriend and the neighbor all have alibis that eventually explode. Slider, left to dig into Melanie's past for old traumas, learns that she never recovered from her father's death in a major train collision years before. Putting the pieces of Melanie's life back together brings another suspect to the surface, but a false confession will have to be debunked, a bit of insurance fraud uncovered and a bit of white dog hair used as evidence to reveal what turned poor Melanie into a victim. If you're unlucky enough to be murdered, pray that DI Slider (Body Line, 2011, etc.) is handed your case. And if he ever comes on the marriage market again, get in line for a chance at him.

Kirkus Reviews