Strange Images of Death (A Detective Joe Sandilands Novel)

I loved the first few books in this series but the last few books are not as interesting. The plot feels forced Even the characters are different. Not worth the price of $9.99 so this will be my last Sandilands book.

Commander Joe Sandilands of Scotland Yard is once again embroiled in a very strange case. He never seems to encounter a garden-variety crime.This case arises outside his jurisdiction, in a French château in Provence. It's 1926, and Joe is off to the Riviera for a holiday. On the way he's delivering his niece to her artist father. At the invitation of the lord de Stilmont, some twenty artistic types have gathered at the château for a summer of painting, sculpting and photography.The locals call it the Château du Diable because of certain dark crimes in its past. But Joe finds a modern crime awaiting him in the ancient fortress. Someone has smashed a priceless medieval tomb sculpture of the wantonly beautiful Aliénore de Stilmont. Very quickly the violence escalates to human murder, preventing Joe from leaving as planned.Eccentric characters abound: the half-mad lord and his suspiciously good looking cousin, Joe's precocious fourteen-year-old niece, a lascivious ballet impresario, Joe's laid-back artist friend with four kids by four different mothers, the beautiful young artist's model doomed by her resemblance to Aliénore - and a self-important French Commissaire whom Joe must tame.One side of Joe's face is scarred by shrapnel; the other side is quite handsome. In keeping with his two faces, Joe vacillates between showing compassion and talking like an "unfeeling bugger," to quote one of the characters. I must confess I find the satirical Joe a bit jarring.Nonetheless the plot is clever and steeped in tantalizing themes of infidelity and questionable parentage. Followers of Joe Sandilands should enjoy this book. But I'd encourage new readers to start at the beginning of the series, with The Last Kashmiri Rose.

Barbara Cleverly has created an excellent hero in Joe Sandilands - at least if you like the understated and intelligent detective who does not go in for too much mayhem and fisticuffs. This mystery was intriguing centered around a shattered marble image with a link to the past.It is a twist on the closed country house mystery, set in a French chateau where Sandilands is dropping off his niece to be with her father and her siblings. The chateau is the setting for a gathering of people mostly British hosted by an enigmatic French nobleman and his cousin. There is a fairly intricate plot and a solution with the necessary twist.What makes it a four-star rather than five-star book is that there are rather too many characters which makes for some confusion and a lack of delineation of some of them. This is unfortunate because strong characters were a hallmark of Cleverly's mysteries.That being said, it is still an excellent whodunit in the cosy genre and I recommend it as a nice summer read.

Commander Joe Sandilands is travelling to Antibes but has to take his adopted neice Dorcas to her father at Chateau Silmont in Provence where he was staying in an artists colony. Dorcas asks Joe to help her track down her mother who disappeared 13 years ago. At the Chateau a beautiful statue of a woman on a table top tomb is smashed the night before Joe and Dorcas arrive. Joe is asked to help find the culprit.This story starts very slowly but builds to an unexpected ending.

Since I basically trashed the last Sandilands, saying I'd only try this one because I'd already bought it, I should say that Book 8 is much, much better, and that I'm prepared to buy Book 9.

Having no ability to read a recipe and KNOW what it will taste like, I rather depend on masses of glossy photos. This nice book has a few, but it would be terrific if it had more. Still, that is my failing not the book's. There is no such thing as a bad hamburger and I reckon this is giving me just the inspiration I need to surrender to my worst impulses!

While I did enjoy the novel, I felt that Cleverly was not at her best. The connection with the previous Sandilands novel that takes place in India seemed very facile, as did the development of his relationship with the young woman he'd protected in other novels. Made me wonder whether this will be her last book about him.

Normally I do not enjoy mysteries set in a particular time period. So I was really pleased to find this book and after reading it decided I wanted to read the series. The characters are interesting, the setting different and exciting, and the people could be products of our modern world.

This is the eighth book in the Joe Sandilands series and Part 2 of the sixth book in the series, Tug of War, published in 2006. Barbara Cleverly has not written the Joe Sandilands books in strict chronological order (Book 9, The Blood Royal, for example, is set in 1922, four years before this story) so it is not usually necessary to read them in sequence. This novel, however, follows so closely the action of Tug of War, that, I think the reader will be missing out if they haven't read that book first. In fact, I am glad that, although I had read it when it first came out, I re-read it before starting to read Strange Images of Death. A lot of the relationships make much better sense if you have read Tug of War and the characters have greater depth.Joe Sandilands is a Commander at Scotland Yard. He is youngish, handsome, clever and competent, but above all, good-tempered. He is driving down to the South of France for a holiday, giving a lift to Dorcas who is the teenage daughter of a friend who has been staying with his sister. She is going to an artists' commune where the rest of her family are spending the summer. The commune is based in a medieval, fortified chateau where, the night before their arrival, a medieval tomb has been vandalised. Joe is asked to stay on and investigate as the commune feel threatened and afraid. Then a beautiful young artist's model is murdered and a child vanishes. Joe joins forces with an officer of the Parisian Police Judiciaire who is also visiting in the district to solve the mystery.The author manages to combine humour in the one-upmanship and sparring between the French and English policeman, with the wretchedness and real tragedy caused by the murder and disappearance of the child. Death, in Barbara Cleverly's books is not a plot device, but a real event with real emotional fallout. The characters concerned will continue to be affected long after the story has ended.This is a worthy addition to the Joe Sandilands series, but I wish it had been published in one volume with Tug of War.

Once again, Barbara has ‘cleverly’ developed this story and kept us guessing to the end! Her novels are very engaging, but I would only recommend them for mature adults, due to the ‘modern content’ bordering on immodesty!

The book certainly is a good read and a decent story. I was disappointed because I found the interplay between the characters not as good as in other books by the same author. The secondary character, Sandilands' "niece", seemed to have a personality and to use language way beyond her years. I also guessed who dun it earlier than usual.

Great read.

Another of my new favourtite authors excellent read would recommend to anyone who likes mystery and intrigue I have noe read several books by this author and would recommend