Death Wore White

by Jim Kelly

Book Overview

Rookie detective Peter Shaw, along with his chain-smoking, hard-as-nails, veteran partner, is confronted with a baffling crime that stretches him to the breaking point.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312570813
• ISBN13: 9780312570811
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 389 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Death Wore White

It's a bitter cold winter night and eight cars are stranded on a coastal road for several hours, trapped by a blizzard and a tree that has fallen across the road. There is no cell phone service and no way to contact anyone. Harvey Ellis is in the first vehicle and Harvey is dead, stabbed through the eye with a chisel. There are no footprints leading to or from the vehicle and no one has approached it, according to witnesses in the other cars. Thus begins what seems to be the proverbial "locked room mystery", with a limited group of suspects, the people in the other seven vehicles, and an impossible crime scene. DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine are in charge of the case. They are new partners, who've known each other for many years. DI Shaw's father was also a police officer, whose career ended when a child murder case was mishandled. Shaw is a new type of cop who is trying to live down the scandal of his father's mistake. He is well educated, careful, meticulous and the youngest DI on the force. He is also able to produce his own forensic drawings and fly a hovercraft. DS Valentine was the elder Shaw's partner. He was demoted and sent on a round of undesirable postings for the last 10 years. His new assignment is as partner to his old friend's son. Could he get any more unlucky? Needless to say, things are tense between the two men. These two policemen must come together and attempt to solve what looks like an unsolveable crime before the evidence is gone and before too many more bodies appear. I found the beginning of this book to be slow starting. I wanted to move along with the story, but it was actually much more complicated than it would appear. As the book progressed, I became more involved. There are many characters, multiple crimes and bodies, and an astounding number of twists and turns. As I approached the end, I was racing through the pages. I liked both DI Shaw and DS Valentine and the reader is given some indication of their personal lives outside of the force. Also, the story of the seemingly botched murder case that ended Shaw's father's career is threaded through the narrative. I found that probably the weakest part of the book and would have liked to see it fleshed out a bit. There was some indication that this thread will continue in the next book as Shaw looks to discover what he can about the case because he isn't sure that his father was innocent of the claims against him. And if his father wasn't innocent, what does that mean about his new partner?

A complicated mystery with a lot of characters to keep track of - you might want to create

an index of characters. Otherwise, you might be like me, desperately trying to remember who this person is when you next come across the name. In addition, there are essentially two plot lines going on: the first in the present and the second in the past, over a decade ago. Two British police detectives, Shaw and Valentine, are investigating some toxic matter apparently disposed of in the coast off England (Norfolk) that has floated to shore. A snowstorm at the same place has stranded 6 cars on a narrow road who are blocked by a fallen tree. One of the stranded people has been murdered, so Shaw and Valentine begin to investigate. The narrow road is adjacent to the beach. Is there a connection between the toxic dumping and the murder? Just for starters, you then have 6 cars with passengers to keep track of, plus a group of people involved in gathering seafood on the beach, plus all the police staff, plus family members, including several children (who play important roles in the plot). There's easily 50 characters in this mystery, particularly if you include those involved in the second case. The second case involves a past event affecting both detectives. Shaw's father was a partner of Valentine but Shaw is now Valentine's superior, despite the difference in age, because of a scandal involving Valentine and Shaw's father's investigation of a case. Both detectives would like to vindicate that investigation, so this is a second case lurking in the background of the first. There's a great sense of atmosphere in this mystery, and the plotting was fairly amazing. Because this was a police procedural, the reader couldn't really guess who-did-it (other than just guess) because information was provided up to the very end that was needed to determine the killer. This is a book that requires some concentration -- I don't think you can enjoyable read it without giving it adequate attention. Those who find complicated mysteries enjoyable will particularly like this one, I think.

Not All Beaches Are Warm And Sunny; This One is Cold And Deadly

Death has arrived in King's Lynn, a coastal town along the Norfolk Coast of England. During a treacherous Winter storm, eight vehicles are stranded at night on the Siberia Belt - a lonely stretch of road running parallel to Ingol Beach. Two detectives, Peter Shaw and George Valentine, are on this beach looking for evidence of illegal dumping. They discover a raft containing a dead man with a self-inflicted bite wound. Next, they turn their attention to the stranded vehicles. In the first one, they discover a man who has been brutally murdered with a chisel plunged into his left eye. Within hours, another man has been found, beaten and drowned, lying on a nearby sandbar. All three murders are part of an intricate web of smuggling, kidnapping and blackmailing that surrounds the secluded Gallow Marsh Farm. As Shaw and Valentine labor to put the pieces of this intricate puzzle together, the suspects begin to experience gruesome deaths. Best-selling crime novelist Jim Kelly has written "Death Wore White," a superb mystery which introduces his readers to Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine. Kelly has done an outstanding job of making this odd pair of sleuths three dimensional. Shaw is young, athletic and ambitious. He wears an eye patch because of a recent injury. He has an interracial marriage. Valentine is elderly, widowed and lonely. He likes to drink, smoke and gamble. The two dislike each other for several reasons. Valentine hates working for a younger man. Most importantly, Peter Shaw is the son of Valentine's dead partner, Jack Shaw - a disgraced officer accused of planting evidence to convict a filthy child murderer. Valentine has vowed to clear his former partner's name. Peter Shaw also wants to convict the killer but he doesn't agree with Valentine's methods. Nevertheless, Shaw and Valentine are adept detectives and the reader will grow to like them as I did. Jim Kelly doesn't waste a single word. The plot for "Death Wore White" is extremely complex. He throws in plenty of deaths to keep it fast paced. (Anyone who knows me can tell you I relish a high body count.) The CSI procedures are very interesting. The tiniest clues yield the largest results. Every character who is interviewed by the detectives appears to be guilty of something illegal. This is one of many reasons why "Death Wore White" reminded me of the Agatha Christie novels that I loved reading as a child. Concerning the characters, it would be amiss on my part not to mention the most significant one: the cold, bleak, deadly weather. The weather has been given a name - Death - and it wears white. People become trapped and die because of the frigid temperatures of the ice and snow. Like a bottle of liquid white, the weather hides clues as to what really happened that fatal night on Siberia Belt. For those of you who love a good mystery, "Death Wore White" is highly recommended. It has elements of other

Check and double-check

This first in a new series introduces DI Peter Shaw, whose father served in a similar position in Norfolk, England, before being forced into retirement after what was said to be a botched investigation. The father's partner, George Valentine, was demoted and exiled for a decade, but ironically is now paired with Peter. Two more different cops and personalities probably cannot be found. Shaw is a by-the-book detective whose motto is check-and-double-check. Valentine is old-fashioned and intuitive. His past association with the old bungled case weighs heavily on the relationship, but somehow they sort of get along and make progress. At the heart of the novel's plot are three supposedly unrelated deaths which turn up within a short time of each other. Are they related? Or not? Meticulously, the story moves forward, with Peter uncovering clues, carefully checking and rechecking. Meanwhile, always in the background haunting both is the ten-year-old case that besmirches the reputations of Jack Shaw and Valentine. The award-winning novelist has written a compelling murder mystery, building suspense at every turn. His character interpretations are penetrating and the tightly plotted narrative is richly written. Highly recommended.

Vintage Kelly

This has all the earmarks of a new series in the works. Having said that, it really is a great read and impossible to put down. However, I was really hoping for a continuation of the Philip Dryden books.