A Review By Frances Smith

Penny Freedman is the local author who was invited to talk about her book at the recent “Lock In” at Kenilworth Library celebrating World Book Night. This is her first crime novel and she plans to write more about some of the characters she introduces in “This is a Dreadful Sentence”.

With unashamed influences of well-known successful British crime writers, particularly Agatha Christie, this novel has many of the elements of the traditional crime story. There is a body, it is found in the library ( a college library, rather than that of a country house) and there are plenty of suspects and red herrings strewn around.

The amateur sleuth is the college English tutor, Gina Gray. Gina previously taught in the school where the detective leading the murder investigation, DCI David Scott was educated and she was in fact his English teacher for a while.

Although I enjoyed this book, rather too much time is spent on the back story of the various characters, particularly the family of Gina Gray. The fact that Gina teaches English as a Foreign Language to a group of students from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds certainly adds an unusual touch. The unique structure of the English language and the problems this causes non-English speakers forms an important part of the plot, but the strained relationship between DCI Scott and Gina Gray is a rather obvious ploy to allow for future books.

Recommended for crime fiction lovers, I read this quickly and found the denouement satisfying if not particularly original.