A City of Strangers

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good. [6], 244, [6] pages. Illustration. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Inscribed by the author on fep. Robert Barnard (23 November 1936 - 19 September 2013) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He went on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories. Barnard said that his favorite crime writer was Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie. Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement. Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard published two standalone novels and two alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age. Derived from a Kirkus review: The middle-class people who live in the half-dozen solid Victorian houses of Wynton Lane are mostly inured to living cheek-by-jowl with the lower-class--meaning largely welfare-supported residents of Belfield Grove Estate, post-war low-income housing gone to seed. In the shabbiest of those houses lives loudmouthed Jack Phelan, his wife and a brood of children headed by vicious Kevin and his prostitute sister June. All is relatively peaceful until the day Jack Phelan comes to view the one house for sale on the Lane and rumor spreads that Phelan has had a lottery win. The Phelans house is torched and Jack Phelan dies in the fire. It's up to Superintendent Mike Oddie to find the arsonist, and it takes some imaginative sleuthing to find the unexpected motive and murderer. Barnard's incisive character studies, ear for dialogue, and eye for the telling detail, along with a solidly honed plot, are all in play in this quietly engrossing story--another gem from a master.