Dead on Account (A Rose Bennett Mystery #1) - The Rose Bennett Mysteries 1
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
The love of money is the root of all evil, and private investigator Rose Bennett knows that sometimes it leads to murder.
The sleepy Yorkshire town of Market Melbourne is shaken from its slumber when pretty young bank clerk Pandora Mitchell disappears. For Rose, newly arrived in town to investigate a potential fraud at the East & Northern Bank, the event shouldn’t be more than a headline in the local newspaper – except the missing girl held information that is vital to her inquiry.
Rose doesn’t believe in coincidence. She thinks that someone at the branch where Pandora worked wanted to silence the girl and DI George Mulligan, the old-school detective investigating Pandora's untimely disappearance, is inclined to agree with her. And it isn't long before someone sends a very clear message that Rose might be well advised to back off.
But Rose would value a young girl’s life above financial losses every day of the week. There’s more at stake now than money, and Rose Bennett doesn’t scare that easily…
Reviews
I love cleverly plotted whodunnits with great characters, but in the past when faced with this author’s novels I had passed over them as perhaps being too cosy. Now after an overdose of Yorkshire noir, I tried this book and really enjoyed it. It has everything save all the gory details and sadism, which I hate. I am now hooked on heroine Rose and have just got the second in the series.
I thoroughly enjoyed this absorbing thriller about what goes on in a local bank. The reader is taken behind the familiar everyday face of banking to the effects on some of pressure to sell. Rose Bennett is an impressive figure, disciplined, professional, hard-edged, yet humane and homely, and the working relationship with DI Mulligan is the source of clever detection. This was refreshingly different, 'grown up' and serious, just about believable, with a cluster of characters distinguished more by behaviour than personal detail. I shall read more of Rose Bennett's investigations.
It makes a change to read a modern crime fiction book about an area which hasn't really been explored. There have been many thrillers in which high level financial chicanery has been a central plank and who can forget the memorable descriptions of bank employees written by George Bellairs.? However ,that was sometime ago. I found the banking parts of this book to be gripping ( no mean feat ) and it conveyed the ridiculous pressures for the bank staff to just sell more products ,rather than serve the customers . There was a reasonable back story but I did find the bookie with a heart and the obvious nature of the shady solicitor to be rather simplistic. I hope in future books that the author wont yield to the temptation to make it all a bit " safe and samey " ; I would like to see this character develop and get a bit more gritty .
