Singing the Sadness (Joe Sixsmith)

by ReginaldHill (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $4.27

  'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times Joe Sixsmith is going west. But only as far as Wales where they keep a welcome in the hillside and the Boyling Corner Choir has been invited to the Llanffugiol Choral Festival. Trouble is, no one seems to have heard of Llanffugiol, and all they find on the hillside is a burning house with a mysterious woman trapped inside. Soon Joe is surrounded by a whole bevy of suspicious characters, not to mention the kind of criminous confusion that turns into utter chaos when confronted with the famous Sixsmith detection technique. Joe is no quitter, though. Doggedly, aided by little more than that instinct for truth which is his unique talent, he moves forward over the space of a single weekend to uncover crimes which have been buried for years.

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $16.01

  Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times' Joe Sixsmith, who, with the Boyling Corner Choir, is on his way to the Llanffugiol Choir Festival, finds his singing plans rudely interrupted by the discovery of a badly injured woman trapped in the shower room of a burning cottage. And not only that, but she's naked, too. Risking life, limb and vocal chords, Joe drags the woman from the burning building, but she remains in a critical condition, unable to speak, and even the arrival of the cottage's owners, Fran and Franny Haggard, a media couple from London, throws no light on her identity. Unable to sing because of the smoke damage to his throat, Joe is soon caught up in a tangled skein of local rivalries, scandals and politics. Commissioned by no less than three individuals to investigate the causes of the fire, he's embarrassed to discover that some of the local wild boys assume he must be as anti-English as they are. And when he's eventually roped in by an initially hostile police officer in charge of the case, Joe quickly realizes that the enquiries go much deeper than mere arson, and have their roots in a hushed-up child abuse case. The fourth in Reginald Hill's series featuring Joe Sixsmith, the serendipitous black PI from Luton, is perceptive and witty as ever, with a seriousness behind the hilarity that adds a greater depth to this delightful novel.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $5.16

  'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times Joe Sixsmith is going west. But only as far as Wales where they keep a welcome in the hillside and the Boyling Corner Choir has been invited to the Llanfugiol Choral Festival. Trouble is, no one seems to have heard of Llanfugiol. And instead of a welcome, all they find on the hillside is a burning house with a mysterious woman trapped inside. Add to this in rapid succession an aggressively suspicious policeman, a patronizing headmaster, a drug-dealing student, a gang of disaffected locals bent on sabotaging the festival, and a caretaker's daughter who seems ready to go to extraordinary lengths to take care of Joe, and what we have is the kind of criminous confusion which the famous Sixsmith detective technique soon turns to utter chaos. But Joe is no quitter. Doggedly, aided by little more than that instinct for truth which is his unique talent, he moves forward over the spae of a single weekend to uncover crimes which have been buried for years. Written with all its predecessors' humour and verve, Singing the Sadness takes Joe Sixsmith into a new dimension where morality is blurred and even the light of truth is only a very faint glimmer on a very dark hillside.