Heads You Lose

Inspector Cockrill Mysteries Series, Book 1

De: Christianna Brand

Narrado por: Derek Perkins

In the English countryside, one of the well-mannered guests at Pigeonsford Estate may be a murderer in this series debut by an Edgar Award-nominated author.

As war rages in Europe, the citizens of London flee to the country. At Pigeonsford, a group of guests plays cards, drinks tea, and acts polite - but Grace Morland knows the strong emotions that lurk beneath the placid social surface. She's painfully in love with Stephen Pendock, the squire of Pigeonsford, but Pendock's smitten with young beauty Francesca Hart. One afternoon, Fran debuts a new hat, and Grace's jealousy gets the better of her. She exclaims, "I wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch in a thing like that!" She will soon be proven wrong. Grace is found dead with the hat on her head - and her head removed from her neck. To the scene comes the incomparable Inspector Cockrill, who finds that far more than petty jealousy lies beneath this hideous murder.

©1988 Christianna Brand; Foreword copyright 1993 by Jessica Mann (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Leaps around too much

Detective is almost irrelevant to story. Characters solve the mystery. Ending not even interesting. Narrator did a great job though.

terrific golden age mystery

Well done lightweight country manor romp. Recommended. Having seen Alastair Sim in the movie version of another Brand novel; Green for Danger couldn't help mentally visualizing him in this Cockrill story. He was a perfect choice for the character as written.

Frantic mystery

As a fan of A. Christie or J. Tey this story was disappointing and frantic. Reader was good. Story ok, too many clues and Cockrill not well developed.

Disappointing & sloppy plotting. But at least not virtual voice!

The narrator did a good job & distinguished the characters so that the listener can tell who was speaking. But the story was not as well thought through. For example, if a person’s head is cut off, even immediately after death, there would have been an enormous amount of blood on the perpetrator & in the area that would certainly have to be accounted for in the correct resolution of the crime. Here, it’s ignored entirely. The difficulty of moving a dead body is also ignored The psychology of the people involved in unbelievable too.

Good, average mysteries

Agatha Christie she is not, however, she is interesting, and worth getting to know. The criticism of the cultural slurs of the time are accurate, but I find the world we live in today is equally as bad as those times, and while they may not appear in current books I read, I hear them everyday, including antisemitism. The change of narrators from book to book, and I have listened to five, does not affect this series. The books are more character driven, with slow moving plots. For me, the inspector is kind of bland so the narrator does not seem to matter.