The town of Shillingham wakes up to two big pieces of news in the local paper on the same day. Firstly, a violent wife beater, who has apparently driven his wife to suicide a few weeks before, is murdered. Chief Inspector Webb discovers that Baxter has received a strange letter, threatening him with death, for committing crimes against humanity. The letter is written in green ink and is signed The April Rainers. The other news is that famous composer and violinist, Felicity Harwood, is back in the town where she grew up and will be giving a much anticipated performance of her work. The people of Shillingham have plenty to talk about over the next few days as their town hits the headlines.
The plot was intriguing and kept my attention through to the end as the two separate storylines run side by side and, on occasion, meet. The characters are well drawn, although I felt I didn’t get to know Webb quite as well as I would have liked. On the whole, I found the pace very good- especially the second half.
This was my first experience of listening to a book on tape. I found it quite
slow going at first, but by the half way point, I was actually looking for clothes
to iron, or dishes to wash, so that I could continue listening to the tapes!
The narrator has a nice, easy voice to listen to although initially it was
disconcerting because he sounded like the man who narrated the 1970s Children’s
TV program The Clangers and I kept expecting The Soup Dragon to appear. Once
I had overcome this hurdle, I found his narration very clear and sharp, and
I didn’t have any problems differentiating between the characters. This was
a good introduction to the medium of audio books, and I will definitely be listening
to more
. ------
Donna Moore
There are 14 books in the series, featuring Chief Inspector Webb. This is the
seventh. In the series.