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COMPETITION CAN BE MURDER
by Connie Shelton
Intrigue Press, April 2004
292 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1890768596


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I've been wanting to try a Charlie Parker novel for a while. COMPETITION CAN BE MURDER is the eighth in the series, which is usually set in New Mexico. This time however, Charlie who is a PI and helicopter pilot and her husband Drake, also a pilot, are working on a short-term contract in Scotland.

Charlie almost immediately senses hostility to the helicopter service from one of the rigs they have to fly to regularly. The unions want the flights to stop so that the jobs of the competing boat crews are preserved. The indications are that the helicopters might be sabotaged, and when the on-shore office is ransacked, the safety concerns mount.

Meanwhile, Charlie is getting to know her new neighbours, including the Dunbar family at the castle, the owners of the cottage she and Drake are renting. They have been suffering some minor thefts and ask her to look into it, but before long a much graver crime has been committed and against her real wishes Charlie is plunged into resolving it. Trying to juggle this urgent work with her concerns over the flights to the rigs is a source of great tension.

I'm always wary when series characters leave their normal surroundings, but in this case it worked for me as a standalone, perhaps because I haven't (yet) read the rest of the series. There was a very interesting mix of locations, from the slightly clichéd cottages, castles and tourist traps on shore, to the more unusual bleakness over the seas, and the rigs themselves. With a limited cast of characters, the suspects were few, and the offshore happenings were more of a thriller than a mystery, especially later in the book. It was an interesting mix of crimes and styles for me, part cozy, part PI, part thriller.

Whilst most of the minor characters are not described in any great depth, and are mostly secondary to the action, Charlie and Drake are interesting; intelligent, practical and self aware. I want to know more of their back-story by reading the rest of the series; it's clear from this book that the author knows them well.

COMPETITION CAN BE MURDER is a fast-paced and compelling mystery thriller with an interesting range of locations and story lines. Recommended.

Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, April 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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