A Dying Fall

 

A Dying Fall (1985) by June Thomson

Martin Holt's relationship with his father has been a rocky one--especially after his mother's death and Martin's decision to leave the family business to become a small hold farmer with the hopes of raising spectacular roses one day. Rex Holt has been used to a lifetime of successes as a businessman and getting his own way. But the two men meet periodically for lunch...and an almost regularly scheduled argument. Martin's latest visit home sees him faced with two unpleasant revelations--his father has installed his long-time mistress in the local village and he has given a random researcher from America access to poems written to Martin's mother by the man she loved before she met and married Rex Holt. Neither announcement is particularly palatable at the lunch table and the men have their usual row before Martin heads back to his farm.

But come the next morning all is not as usual...Rex Holt's housekeeper finds him dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden. He had been a bit unsteady after a slight stroke a few months ago, so it's expected that the death will be ruled an accident. But it isn't and the local police soon call in Detective Chief Inspector Jack Finch (renamed Inspector Rudd in US editions) to get to the bottom of things. As the heir to Holt's rather large estate, Martin is the prime suspect and certain clues found at the scene seem to point his way. Finch isn't too sure though--it appears that someone has gone to great pains to make the murder appear to be very much a murder with a very clumsy attempt to disguise it as an accident. After interviewing witnesses and suspects, Finch has difficulty believing that Martin would be that clumsy if he were to try and make a murder look like an accident. But who else has a strong motive...and who would want to see Martin take the blame?

Thomson has provided another solid police procedural in this eleventh Finch mystery. Sometimes her characters (beyond Finch & his side-kick Sgt. Boyce) aren't as fully developed as one might like, but here they all shine--from Rex and Martin Holt to the housekeeper and her husband to the American researcher to Rex's lady, Bea Chilton and other peripheral characters. Even those that are on the page very briefly are well-defined. The plot is pretty solid as well. I did figure out half of it. My one complaint is that I don't see how the reader could be expected to make the connection necessary to get the full picture before the reveal. Perhaps I missed an early pointer, but I don't think so.... ★★★★

First line: Driving back to Barnsfield was for Martin Holt more than just a physical return to that part of the countryside where he spent his childhood; it was a journey into the past which, since the death of his mother and the quarrel with his father, he preferred not to make. [One note on this first line--it makes it sound like Martin Holt is returning to his childhood home after a very long absence which just isn't the case. He doesn't visit every week, but he has been to his father's house on a fairly regular basis since the quarrel.]

Last line: "As a friend," he repeated with more assurance than he really felt.
*********************

Deaths = 4  (two natural; one hit on head; one shot down in war)