Book Review: O Gentle Death

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

O Gentle Death     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Janet Neel
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
St. Martin's, Aug 2001, $22.95, 240 pp.

Deputy Chief Inspector John McLeigh is unhappy when his wife Francesca hosts several Faraday Trust School students, including a member of his own household. Though musical talent abounds amidst the group, John still fails to appreciate the singing of one of the visitors unlike his grateful wife. John especially finds the sole female of the quartet, Catriona Roberts, quite distasteful due to her dark outlook on life to include the scars that indicates she slashed her wrists in the past.

Not long afterward, Catriona is found dead, an apparent suicide. This should not surprise John who felt the girl was self-destructive when he first met her. However, John quickly reassesses his initial reaction as he begins to wonder if someone murdered the coed and made it look like Catriona finally killed herself. To his chagrin, several people at her school, including some close to the DCI, had motive and opportunity.

O GENTLE DEATH is an entertaining English police procedural that returns readers to the enchanting McLeigh series. The investigative story line succeeds because the cast seems genuine, especially the varying valid emotions displayed by John during the course of the novel. Janet Neel shows why she is a Creasey award winner with a tasteful tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner