The Bill Slider Omnibus: Orchestrated Death/Death Watch/Necrochip

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Book Overview

ORCHESTRATED DEATH
Middle-class, middle-aged and, according to his partner, menopausal, Detective Inspector Bill Slider is never going to make it to the Yard. Passed over for promotion again, the last thing he needs in his life, or on his patch, is an unidentifiable, naked female corpse.
A priceless Stradivarius and a giant tin of olive oil are the only clues in an investigation that takes the steely-eyed, furry-headed detective all the way...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0751526762
• ISBN13: 9780751526769
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Sphere
• Length: 824 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Bill Slider mysteries

The Bill Slider mysteries by Cynthia Harrod-Eagle are clever mysteries, often spice with humor. They are well written, and I recommend them.

Bill Slider mysteries

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' plots are wonderfully developed and she certainly has a way with words.

This is golden!

I really enjoyed my introduction to the Bill Slider mysteries. Having read the entire Morland Dynasty series I thought I'd try the author's other books. I think Cynthia is a terrific writer and enjoy her puns immensely.

Awful typos spoil an excellent book!

This series was a delight to find, but quite a chore to wade through. The editing errors were simply disgraceful, with several to a page. Can the text have been scanned in from a previous edition? It was distracting, but, after all, quite worth it. I'll buy her other Bill Slider mysteries, but not in the TimeWarner Omnibus editions. Be warned.

Won over by Slider

What a find! Why is there no other review here? I have only finished the first of the 3 novels included in this collection, but I am already won over to Inspector Slider. There is much I admire in, say, P.D. James' Commander Adam Dalgleish, who is a published poet and aide to the Commissioner, many ranks above poor, passed-over Inspector Slider. Like Le Carre's George Smiley, like most of us, Slider is an imperfect and partial man, with recognizable failings, and is lovable for it. Were I to meet Commander Dalgleish, I would instinctively call him "sir" - though he would probably put me at my ease with a few well-chosen words. Slider, however - I'd call him Bill and he'd call me Bob and we'd have a curry together like old pals. He is carried forward by an almost-crushing sense of responsibility for his world, which makes policing the only possible career for him. But while this has made him a good detective, it doesn't give him a black-and-white view of the world, nor make him a great police administrator. He handles his cases with a skill born of experience and intelligence, but somehow these fail him - or nearly so -- in handling what seem to him to be secondary and confusing matters, his career and private life. I do not want anyone to get the impression that the writing is as, well, pedestrian as Inspector Slider. He may be a bit of an everyday man but Ms. Harrod-Eagles' prose is wonderfully turned-out. This author is a lively and playful wordsmith, her novel is well-written, and if I handled the language as well as she, I wouldn't just be writing reviews. Oh, I could gripe that his team is not so well-drawn as I'd like (and Dalgleish's team is, of course - P.D. James has it all wonderfully down and I'll keep reading her!). I could ask that Slider's sergeant, Atherton, be fleshed out more - how'd he become a copper? But maybe, over in Omnibus #2, I'll find that out. I intend to read my way there, and see! The plot, at least in "Orchestrated Death", is a bit pushed-about as well. But months, years, after I read P.D. James, or Le Carre, or any really good writers, what I remember are not the plot turns, but the people I have met in the pages. I will certainly remember Inspector Slider.