Amazon.com Balancing the personal and the professional side of an ongoing relationship has always been one of the hardest tricks to pull off in a mystery series. Nobody does it better then Jill McGown， whose books about Welsh police officers Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd (like Morse， he never uses his first name) and Detective Inspector Judy Hill deserve much more attention than they've received so far. "They were in her flat， which was highly unusual， but it had been the only way he was going to get to see her watch herself on television for the first time，" McGown writes in a typically terse moment of revelation. "He resisted coming to her flat very often; it seemed to him to be sanctioning their private lives. But she had refused point-blank to come home with him this evening， so he had turned up here just before her debut， relieving her of the remote control as she had threatened to turn off the TV." When the brutal owner of a large farm gets death threats and then is murdered， suspicion naturally centers on his gorgeous young wife--who married him strictly for the money she would get if she bore him a son. But the dead man's abused daughter has plenty of motive， and a rising TV interviewer who seems intent on ruining Lloyd's career is also a likely suspect. Two other Lloyd and Hill books available in paperback: Murder...Now and Then and Murder at the Old Vicarage. --Dick Adler From Publishers Weekly The death of East Midlands farmer and landowner Bernard Bailey from booze， drugs and a dull knife leaves an excess of suspects in this meticulously detailed and lushly atmospheric addition to McGown's series starring British coppers DCI Lloyd and DC Judy Hill (Verdict Unsafe， 1997， etc.). The list includes Bailey's routinely battered second wife， Rachel， who so far had failed to produce the male heir that would bring Bailey the proceeds of a significant inheritance， and Bailey's grown daughter， Nicola， the local vet who had also felt her father's wrath. A wealthy builder， Mike McQueen， has made a handsome offer for Bailey's land and has an eye for Rachel's charms. Rachel， however， is sleeping with Curtis Law， a local TV journalist who is working on a number of stories and has an active role in a drug sting operation. The abundance of motives in Bailey's murder proves perplexing for Lloyd and Hill， who are also lovers and whose relationship is challenged during this case. McGown gives Bailey an unlikely Yorkshire accent of almost cartoonish bluntness and struggles some to make Rachel a magnet for every male in her range. Yet McGown's latest Lloyd and Hill mystery possesses a wealth of psychological nuance and narrative depth， all the way through to the resolution， a masterpiece of controlled complexity. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information， Inc. See all Editorial Reviews