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Gently Does It (Inspector George Gently 1)
 
 

Gently Does It (Inspector George Gently 1) [Kindle Edition]

Alan Hunter
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Product Description

The last thing you need when you're on holiday is to become involved in a murder. For most people, that would easily qualify as the holiday from hell. For George Gently, it is a case of business as usual. The Chief Inspector's quiet Easter break in Norchester is rudely interrupted when a local timber merchant is found dead. His son, with whom he had been seen arguing, immediately becomes the prime suspect, although Gently is far from convinced of his guilt.

Norchester City Police gratefully accept Gently's offer to help investigate the murder, but he soon clashes with Inspector Hansom, the officer in charge of the case. Hansom's idea of conclusive evidence appals Gently almost as much as Gently's thorough, detailed, methodical style of investigation exasperates Hansom, who considers the murder to be a straightforward affair.

Locking horns with the local law is a distraction Gently can do without when he's on the trail of a killer.

Synopsis

Local authorities believe a timber merchant was murdered by his son, but, convinced the case is more complex, Inspector Gently is determined to find the real killer.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 411 KB
  • Print Length: 250 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1849014981
  • Publisher: Robinson (13 Dec 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B004G5YPQK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #10,567 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Alan Hunter
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
A classic mystery 23 April 2011
Format:Paperback
The pace of this book is slow, measured and thoughtful, just like its protagonist. And I loved it for that. Detective Inspector George Gently is a pleasure to spend time with: a methodical, deep-thinking man in his fifties, Gently is mild, quiet and rather humble. He's fond of fishing, food and peppermint creams. He's also a particularly fine detective: the type who is precise, observant and never satisfied with less than the truth.

Where other policemen rush to close a case early, Gently believes in taking his time. He's presented with a house full of tangled characters, each hiding secrets about the afternoon that the master of the house was killed. Gently will slowly but surely untangle all of these muddled stories until he identifies the culprit.

What's interesting about this book is that it isn't quite a classic whodunnit. The reader discovers the truth about the murder relatively early - about three-quarters of the way through the book - and the rest deals with the challenge of uncovering enough evidence about the crime to arrest and charge the murderer. It's intriguing watching Gently match wits with a clever, ruthless killer who's planned out his crime almost too perfectly.

Set (and in fact originally published) in the mid-fifties, this book is also a pleasant trip into the mid twentieth century. It appears that Alan Hunter wrote a lot of books about George Gently; I can easily imagine reading them all in time and I hope I'll get the chance to.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Damaskcat TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the first book in Alan Hunter's George Gently series of police procedural mysteries. It does not have the graphic violence and swearing that to my mind spoil so much modern crime fiction writing. That said it may disappoint some modern readers. I liked Gently from the very first page. He is a mild mannered unobtrusive individual, addicted to peppermint creams and I could almost taste them while I was reading the book.

Gently is on holiday in Norchester - a thinly disguised Norwich - when a local business man is murdered. As luck would have it he sees one of the suspects performing on the Wall of Death at the fair just before reading about the murder in the evening paper. Gently is a Scotland Yard detective in the days when Scotland Yard would be called in by the local force to investigate all but the most straightforward of murders. He offers his services, which are not completely welcome, to the local police - especially when he insists their main suspect did not do it.

I found the plot intriguing and the way Gently painstakingly pieces together what happened fascinating. The characters are believable and there are enough suspects to keep the reader guessing though it is soon clear that Gently knows who did it but cannot prove it. If you like your crime novels in the form of puzzles then give this series a try - it presents the England of more than fifty years ago when people had principles and the police could investigate crimes by fair means or foul without the interference of the human rights lobby.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By DAM
Format:Paperback
Thoroughly entertaining. Resonant of the 'fifties East Anglia. Not as gritty as the present retro TV series but well thought out and characterised; An echo of a more staid time now gone forever.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very enjoyable classic
This is one in a number (nearly 50, I think) of Inspector Gently tales which go back a number of years. Read more
Published 3 months ago by johnverp
Gentle reading
This is the first of the Gently books. I have read nine of them now, so this review is more about their overall style rather than just this one book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Phillip Brookes
Gentle
I bought this book because I loved the television serie but I found the writing style very old fashioned and quite boring. Didn't hold my interest at all. Read more
Published 9 months ago by V. Brennan
Slow
Bought the book to see what it was like as I had watched 5 mins of TV series and thought maybe it would be better sans Martin Shaw. I was wrong. Read more
Published 13 months ago by BooBoo
An Out-of-Fashion Mystery?
"Gently Does It" is the first Alan Hunter mystery that I've read in many a year. Hunter (1922-2005) who wrote the Inspector Gently series was one of my favorite British mystery... Read more
Published 20 months ago by John F. Rooney
BE ADVISED: PRE-BACCHUS
Bought because of the fine BBC1 series, this 1955 novel disappoints. Bacchus is not in it - the Gently-Bacchus chemistry on screen the main reason to watch. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mr. D. L. Rees
From The Dust Jacket
THE 'DEBUT' (peppermint cream eating) CHIEF INSPECTOR GEORGE GENTLY, C.I.D., MYSTERY NOVEL. [now a new television series starring Martin Shaw]. Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2009 by R. A. Hylton
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
stuggy, and his brown, porous face looked as though it had been squeezed up in a pair of nutcrackers. He rolled a cigarette, peering at Gently sharply as he licked it. Police? he asked. Gently transferred the flame of his lighter from his pipe to the stuggy &quote;
Highlighted by 4 Kindle users
&quote;
She had a snub nose and dimples and a pleased expression, and had a general supercharged look, as though she was liable to burst out of her black dress and stockings into a fierce nudity. &quote;
Highlighted by 4 Kindle users

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