- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; 1st edition (11 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340825693
- ISBN-13: 978-0340825693
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 968,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
'This is top of the class. Taylor's re-creation of the 1950s is absolutely convincing.' - -- Sue Baker's Top 10 crime & thriller titles, Publishing News 'A journey into 1950s Britain, where post-war austerity is the order of the day and television is still a novelty. In CALL THE DYING by Andrew Taylor, a woman journalist, herself something of a novelty, returns to a small West Country town to take over the editorship of a failing weekly newspaper. When a man who tunes television sets disappears, she is forced into a working relationship with her former lover, a married police inspector. Full of nostalgic detail, this is old-fashioned crime at its best - perfect for a cold winter night in front of a roaring fire.' -- Joan Smith in Sunday Times roundup 'Andrew Taylor's latest addition to his "Lydmouth" murder series perfectly evokes that innocent world of the 1950s. The book is wonderfully redolent of that era, except that it has psychological depth instead of Christie-type cliches. Taylor builds a gripping story, as redolent of the period as brown linoleum. His subtle exploration of provincial society, with its gruesome underbelly, makes this a powerful extension to the series.' -- Independent 'What's rare and admirable in Taylor's fiction (especially in the Lydmouth series) is his painterly and poetic skill in transforming the humdrum into something emblematic and important. His writing is never pretentious. He strikes no attitudes. His crime scenes and procedures are meticulously observed and followed. CALL THE DYING is expert, ingenious and absorbing.' -- Philip Oakes, Literary Review 'Taylor's Lydmouth series is turning the classical detective story into a complex picture of our own past' -- Independent 'The most underrated crime writer in Britain today' -- Val McDermid 'Andrew Taylor is one of the most interesting, if not THE most interesting novelist writing on crime in England today. Like Ruth Rendell he produces particularly good, emotionally complex psychological novels and rather better straight detective novels than she does in her Wexford series' -- Harriet Waugh, Spectator 'Taylor is an excellent writer' -- The Times 'Taylor is, as always, adept at showing the reality beneath the surface, as the characters interact and the unsavoury truth behind the murder is gradually revealed' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Taylor is the master of small lives writ large and, in the phrase coined in this era of surly pubs and poor food, he has carved a classic detective story which is deceptively calm and cool, but really smashing' -- Frances Fyfield, Express on The Suffocating Night 'CALL THE DYING is expert, ingenious and absorbing.' -- Literary Review 'Full of nostalgic detail, this is old-fashioned crime at its best - perfect for a cold winter night in front of a roaring fire.' -- Sunday Times 'Andrew Taylor's latest addition to his "Lydmouth" murder series perfectly evokes that innocent world of the 1950s. The book is wonderfully redolent of that era, except that it has psychological depth instead of Christie-type cliches. Taylor builds a gripping story, as redolent of the period as brown linoleum. His subtle exploration of provincial society, with its gruesome underbelly, makes this a powerful extension to the series.'
Val McDermid
'The most underrated crime writer in Britain today'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An unsettling mystery but some questions remain,
This review is from: Call the Dying (Hardcover)
Readers of Andrew Taylor's Lydmouth Trilogy will know they are remarkable for their effortless evocation of grim postwar Britain. Seen through the eyes of Inspector (now Chief Inspector) Richard Thornhill and journalist Jill Francis, crime in Lydmouth reveals the personal tragedies, injustices and absurdities of the period. In this the seventh in the series, Jill Francis, returns to Lydmouth after a 3 year hiatus to edit the Lydmouth Gazette. But she finds the town has changed for the worse and she can't escape her feelings for Thornhill. When a television salesman goes missing and a longstanding town character is murdered, once again she becomes involved in the crimes. This is another page turning mystery from Taylor with a haunting atmosphere. However the resolution was not as surprising as it could have been. Taylor's strength is his sympathetic drawing of the main characters, but this book didn't seem to add anything new to the relationship between Jill and Richard Thornhill, nor did it really explain why they hadn't spoken in 3 years. Still there are some tantalising clues in here for what may happen next. A great series.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not great,
By
This review is from: Call the Dying (Paperback)
Andrew Taylor's Lydmouth series is an enjoyable collection of crime novels set in 1950s England, featuring Inspector Richard Thornhill. This is the third I've read and it maintains the high standards set earlier in the series. Taylor writes well, with interesting characters and a strong emphasis on their personal lives as well as their role in the plot. Like some of the other books in the series, the plot is interesting but fails to come to fruition; the conclusion seemed anti-climactic with a very perfunctory explanation for the main event - the murder of a retired doctor. The mysterious nature of several characters, including the new doctor, the lodger and Thornhill's sergeant didn't really fulfil their promise.
A good, easy read nonetheless.
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Call the Dying,
By Tim (Harrow, Middlesex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Call the Dying (Hardcover)
My first Andrew Taylor book - and I found it a delightful. Very interesting to learn more about life in the 1950's and thought that as a detective novel it had some very good twists and turns...I will be reading more!
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