A Beautiful Death - Hardcover

"One of the purest lyric voices in the mystery field" New York Times Book Review

Sylvia Theresa Haymon was born in Norwich, and is best known for her eight crime fiction novels featuring the character Inspector Ben Jurnet. Haymon also wrote two non-fiction books for children, as well as two memoirs of her childhood in East Anglia.

The Ben Jurnet series enjoyed success in both the UK and the US during Haymon's lifetime: Ritual Murder (1982) won the prestigious CWA Silver Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association. Stately Homicide (1984), a skilful variation on the country house mystery, was praised by the New York Times as a 'brilliantly crafted novel of detection...stylish serious fiction', and favourably compared to the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Detective Inspector Ben Jurnet of the Angleby CID (Death of a Warrior Queen, 1992, etc.), has lost his beloved Miriam to a car bomb obviously meant for him. Devastated, he is not to be comforted--not by his usually steely superintendent, his loving sidekick Jack Ellers, Miriam's Rabbi Schnellman, or the visitors from Miriam's knitting company in Israel: Holocaust survivor Rafi Galil and crippled, gutsy young Pnina Benvista. Shrugging off sympathy, Ben looks into some grudgebearing old enemies gloating over his tragedy and listens to his co-workers and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist squad, all of them certain the bomb is tied to the IRA, perhaps through Ben's neighbors who had living with them Terry Doran, son of an infamous terrorist of years past. Terry has vanished, and Ben takes off for Ireland in discreet pursuit. What happens there brings him back to Angleby injured and more guilt- ridden than ever--until a final, surprising resolution of the puzzle promises a measure of peace, perhaps even happiness, in the future. Haymon captures with heartwrenching precision the abyss of irretrievable loss. She recognizes none of the preconceived limitations of the genre in which she works, simply adding a lyrical prose style, a fine sense of irony, and emotional depth to the elements of tension, plotting, and mystery--all of them executed here with wit and verve. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.