- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.; New edition edition (18 Dec 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0881503258
- ISBN-13: 978-0881503258
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.7 x 1.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,799,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
Social infighting in the tiny village of Twythching, just when Radio Broadwich starts to do a documentary on the town, leads to some poison pen letters and a murder, which Inspector George Parrish must investigate. Reprint. IP.
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5 reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Immensely Entertaining
3 May 1998
Format:Paperback
Robert Barnard deserves to be more famous than he is. A Little Local Murder is a top-notch mystery, seething with interesting, pathetic, and ridiculous personages, each of whom in his own way believes that the world revolves around him! It is an English village mystery with plenty of discussion of village life in AND out of doors; one really gets the sense of 'being there'. Barnard is extremely witty but he takes his books seriously (which cannot be said for all writers, who think that the way to entertain is to make everything a joke.) It's a pleasure to read an author of such shining and perceptive intelligence.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Vintage Robert Barnard - a wickedly sharp pen
29 July 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In this crime novel first published in 1976, the stodgy English village of Twytching learns that the international media is coming, and some things are never quite the same again. It's small potatoes: a radio documentary will be made by a British radio network in conjunction with a US radio station in the sister town of Twytching, Wisconsin. But it's a big deal to the good folks in Twytching, who of course start jockeying for a chance to be on the program.
Barnard wickedly portrays small-town power plays, egotism, cliques, and other timeless human foibles. There's an abundance of material here: the tyrannical Mayoress who's used to calling the shots, her oppressed mouse of a husband, a sleek cold housewife who's also a master manipulator, her doting husband and quiet daughter, the toady librarian, the garrulous shopkeeper, the pompous twit schoolteacher and his longsuffering wife, and more.
The radio production crew arrives in town a few weeks later, and murder is done. The police find that someone's been sending poison pen letters. The plot has a nice twist.
This is good vintage Robert Barnard, meaning that the characters' foibles are presented with cutting wit. A lesser writer could have induced tedium.
Barnard wickedly portrays small-town power plays, egotism, cliques, and other timeless human foibles. There's an abundance of material here: the tyrannical Mayoress who's used to calling the shots, her oppressed mouse of a husband, a sleek cold housewife who's also a master manipulator, her doting husband and quiet daughter, the toady librarian, the garrulous shopkeeper, the pompous twit schoolteacher and his longsuffering wife, and more.
The radio production crew arrives in town a few weeks later, and murder is done. The police find that someone's been sending poison pen letters. The plot has a nice twist.
This is good vintage Robert Barnard, meaning that the characters' foibles are presented with cutting wit. A lesser writer could have induced tedium.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Barnard in a very wicked mood
2 May 2001
Format:Paperback
If the mysteries of Robert Barnard are more a snack than a meal, they are savory, salty and a touch on the bitter side. In this one Barnard has created a British village rampant with small-minded hypocrites, petty and pompous. The great fun of the book is not in deft plotting (it's fairly ordinary) but in the take-no-prisoners descriptions of the shallowness and pretentions of small-town life in the 1970s. There is nothing sly about Barnard's ill regard for his villagers; he loathes all characters who are not police officers (and he's not overly kind about most of them either). Some of the references are dated (Enoch Powell is hardly as rich a punchline now as he was then), but there is sufficient wit and sarcasm that has traveled well.
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