When I talked about <a href="https://wp.me/p3z9AH-4vh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the first installment in this series last year</a>, I said, "There's something about this one that got under my skin more than a typical procedural does—it's maybe DC Smith, it's maybe Grainger's style (there's a lot of subtle humor in a dark text)—it's a Gestalt thing, I think. I really dug it." I'm tempted to leave this at that, too. But that's giving this short shrift.

There are three main stories—the least interesting to me (at present, but it keeps coming up, so I expect that it'll be of vital importance and interest at some point) is the "big case" that defined Smith's career. There's a True Crime writer who wants to revisit the case with DC's help. There's a couple of good moments revolving this, but I'm not (yet) seeing the appeal.

The more interesting thread centers on DC Smith's future. Smith's old partner, and father of the newly-minted detective Smith's training, owns a private security firm and wants him to come aboard in a senior position. At the same time, there's an opportunity that many are urging Smith to take in a regional criminal investigation task force. But Smith's inclination is to stick with his current duty—but he's tempted by both over the course of the novel.

But the focus for the book is a death in a retirement home that's identified as suspicious. Smith and his team start investigating this pretty colorful home. The characters—staff and residents—are well-drawn, colorful and the kind of characters you want to spend time with. The case goes pretty much how you'd expect (motive, culprit, and resolution), but there are a couple of twists that keep the reader/listener on their toes. Watching Smith and his colleagues pursue the killer is the joy in this. The pleasure is in the journey, not just the destination here.

Once again, Jackson weaves a spell with his narration—he sucked me in once again. A perfect combination of narrator and text.

A solid follow-up novel, that also provides plenty of incentive to move on to the rest. This is a series you should jump into—in print or audio.

In no particular order, books (of all genres, except for artist biographies)* that I love where music plays an important role:

Thomas Mann: Dr. Faustus

Mann's gut-punch take on Faustian bargains; in this instance, by a composer who pays the price of syphilis-induced madness for a few years of success -- and whose deal with the devil simultaneously symbolizes that of the German people with Adolf Hitler.

Peter Shaffer: Amadeus

The play that reached an even wider audience when adapted for the screen by Miloš Forman: all about the punk rock genius of classical music and his rival, the "patron saint of mediocrity", Antonio Salieri.

Martin Goldsmith: The Inextinguishable Symphony

Goldsmith's biography of his musician parents (and their families), who met in Nazi Germany and, after much hardship, eventually managed to emigrate to the U.S. and establish a new life for themselves and their children there.

Colum McCann: Dancer

McCann's novelized biography of Rudolf Nureyev -- from the time before McCann moved to the U.S. and went all politically correct.  Lyrical, muscular and visually powerful prose to match the art of its protagonist.

Sharon Maas: Speech of Angels

The story of a musically gifted orphan who is taken to Europe from the streets of Bombay and has to find out who she is (Indian, European or ...?) and what exactly music means to her life. 

Ellis Peters: The Sanctuary Sparrow

A young musician takes sanctuary in the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul after having falsely been accused of murder, and it is up to Brother Cadfael to find out what really happened.

Peter Grainger: An Accidental Death

Music may not exactly be central to the mystery, but blues music is definitely key to the protagonist's (D.C. Smith's) personality.

Anne Rice: Cry to Heaven and Violin

Cry to Heaven, a novel set in the world of the baroque castrati, just might be the best thing Rice ever wrote (when she was still listening to her editors).  Violin was the last book of hers that I liked; it occasionally borders on the melodramatic, but the translation of the (autobiographically-based) mental anguish of losing a loved one into music is by and large very well done.

... and Ngaio Marsh's mysteries set either in the world of opera or otherwise involving (performances set to) music:

     * Overture to Death

     * Death and the Dancing Footman

     * Off With His Head (aka Death of a Fool)

     * Photo Finish

Honorary mention to two movies (and screenplays) focusing on music:

     * Jane Campion: Piano

     * Andrée Corbiau: Farinelli

... and to the movies which I discovered and / or love twice as much solely because Mark Knopfler (fomerly of Dire Straits) wrote the score:

     * Local Hero

     * The Princess Bride

     * Cal

_______________

* If I'd include artist and composer biographies, this list would be endless.

(Task: Music is an important part of a Kwanzaa celebration.  Which is / are your favorite book(s) where music plays an important role in the plot?)

‘When you’re in front of a promotion board, one of the favourite questions is ‘So what motivates you in your daily work, Chris?’

‘Promotion? I’ll be relieved if I get through my six months. So what’s the correct answer?’

‘Oh, there are lots, you can buy them in books. But you could think about this,’ and Smith nodded towards the little group still standing at the graveside. ‘I’m just not sure how you put it into words.’

‘Revenge? Justice?’

‘For the victim – for Wayne Fletcher? Not how I see it, he’s beyond all that. Death’s the end of all. But look at the misery we’ve seen today. And it’s endless, it goes on rippling back and forwards through all these lives forever. I don’t know about justice. I’ve never seen myself on a white charger, righting wrongs – but we have to catch people so that they can’t create all this again. And so that other people get the message – you will be caught, you will pay. We never know how many selfish acts we prevent when we show people the consequences, but we have to keep showing them the consequences. These are the consequences.’

Smith had raised a hand, palm open towards the new grave.

Here we meet Detective Sergeant D. C. Smith—which isn't At. All. confusing when listening to an audiobook, "I thought he was a DS, why is everyone calling him DC?" (thankfully, Grainger explains it after a bit). He's a still-grieving widower, a long-serving detective, who has some sort of Intelligence experience in his past, has been of a higher rank, and has broken at least one near-legendary case years before. You wouldn't think this résumé would be a type, but I've read about three Detective Sergeants this year that fit that description. That's not a criticism, it's just odd. DC Smith is my favorite exemplar of this type.

DC Smith is fresh off a brief leave in the aftermath of some case that was clearly divisive in the detective squad—and we never learn the details about it (which is frustrating, yet oddly compelling, and I almost hope we never learn the details about it), and is assigned to a new DI. Alison Reeve used to be a protégé of Smith's, making things a bit awkward, but she also trusts him a lot more than other superiors seem to. He doesn't have a team at the moment but gets to train a fresh DC, Chris Waters. Waters is an excellent device to get readers to see how Smith thinks/acts, because he has to keep explaining to Waters why he's doing what he does.

For his first few days back, Reeve hands Smith some busy work including an anti-drugs presentation at some schools (quick aside—I loved his presentation, reminiscent of Bill Hick's bit about the "this is your brain on drugs") and a final sign-off on the paperwork about an accidental death. There's a note on the autopsy that niggles at Smith and he starts looking into the accident. The initial investigation and paperwork were done just right, but . . .

Smith remembers a former colleague saying:

If you’re going to start turning over stones, you’ve got to turn them all over, every bloody one, even the littlest pebble…

Nevertheless, Smith starts turning over stones. And then more stones and more. Before he knows it, Smith and Waters find themselves mixed up in something nobody could've predicted—international intrigue, military secrets, family secrets, political pressure, and so on.

All leading to a great conclusion/face-off that will show off new sides of Smith (and show a Waters' mettle), with a postscript that seems predictable (but I'm not sure it was supposed to be)—but ties off the novel so nicely that I don't care.

I've listened to one other book narrated by Gildart Jackson (Fated by Benedict Jacka), and while I thought he did fine with that one, he really seemed to connect with the character and the way he handled the narration and character voice seemed to fit the words/tone perfectly. I almost think I couldn't read a future book in this series in print, I might have to come back for more.

There's something about this one that got under my skin more than a typical procedural does—it's maybe DC Smith, it's maybe Grainger's style (there's a lot of subtle humor in a dark text)—it's a Gestalt thing, I think. I really dug it.

Early on, Smith tells a couple of Fletcher's friends:

‘As much as we might like this just to be about the facts, it never is. It never can be because people are always more complicated than facts.

Not only is that a catchy little bon mot, having a character who bases his work on it is about as good as "Everyone Counts or Nobody Counts" for his readers. An Accidental Death is a compelling read exploring an event that is more complicated than just facts and that'll leave you wanting to come back for more.

This is checking off the "A book recommended by someone you trust." box from the While I Was Reading Challenge, so I should probably mention that my friend, Micah, has been telling me to read these books (he additionally recommended the audiobooks, which is why I went audio with this one) since December 2017 (according to Goodreads). I really should've listened to him long before this. Not only does he have great taste, he's a great photographer, take a moment to stop by his spiffy website and see.

✔ A book recommended by someone you trust.

"But For The Grace" wasn't what I expected as a follow-on from "An Accidental Death".

It shares some of its predecessor's strengths: police officers that I can believe in as real people and not just plot devices, the irritations of internal politics and the humour, bloodymindedness and practised disingenuity used to get around them and an empathy for the people whose lives are touched by the police investigation.

I think the writing became richer, evoking an atmosphere of melancholy resignation to the investigation of a death in a nursing home. The imagery of winter was used well. Even the name of the institution, Rosemary House, a herb closely associated with remembrance and honouring the dead, played its part.

Where it departed from its predecessor was in the decision to make solving the crime a secondary consideration. At the start, the novel feels like a police procedural investigation of a possible murder. As the story develops, that impetus is lost as DC Smith is made into an unwilling bystander to a demonstration of how the old and sick who are still sharp of mind and strong in spirit, deal with the inevitability of imminent death.

... and I have found yet another favorite new series!

Never let it be said that there are no great new voices in British crime writing, and on top of that, two of my most recent discoveries -- Joy Ellis's Jackman & Evans series and Peter Grainger's D.C. Smith series -- are set in an area not (yet) written to death, the bulge on England's East coast consisting of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex (though chiefly Norfolk).

A big shout-out to Mike Finn for recommending Peter Grainger's writing -- I have few things to add to his spot-on review, so I'm going to hand over to Mr. Grainger himself instead, who was interviewed about his writing (by Deborah Crombie, no less) and then answered additional readers' questions here:

http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2018/02/peter-grainger-two-terrific-british.html

(Also, let me just comment that whoever turned Mr. Grainger down at several traditional publishers and pushed him into self-publishing instead needs to have their job credentials reviewed.  Grainger can write rings about plenty of traditionally-published writers and then some.)

The setting of the D.C. Smith series is King's Lynn, which I visited the year before last, so I can personally attest to how well Mr. Grainger "nails" the town and that particular corner of the Norfolk coast: