Letters from Carthage

ISBN: 0727864602

Author: James, Bill

Condition: Used

Product Description A fresh and original take on a mystery within a mystery - Fresh from the inner city, Vince and Kate are new to the suburbia of Tabbett Drive, delighted to have accessed this middle-class paradise. They've even found the neighbours remarkably friendly Jill and Dennis Seagrave seem particularly affable. However, Kate begins to detect all is not as it seems with the Seagraves. Can it be that beneath the fagade of this perfect suburban calm lie secrets as dangerous as any inner city? Is everything is anything as it seems? From Publishers Weekly Best known for his long-running Harpur & Iles series, James again proves himself a sharp and subtle stylist in this scary psychological thriller based on the short story "At Home," from his collectionThe Sixth Man (2006). The Carthage of the title is a posh house in the suburbs of an unnamed British city where Jill and Dennis Seagrave live, two doors down from a couple of newcomers to the neighborhood, Vince and Kate, who have fled the blighted inner city. Dennis is a broker and a gifted topiary artist; his wife is attractive and friendly. The novel unfolds via letters and Kate's diary, and the first hint of trouble in paradise comes in a letter from Jill to her mother in which she describes Dennis: "like any human being, however marginal, he loves to believe there are positive aspects to his personality." Can this marriage-and these lives-be saved?(Mar.)Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* James comes up trumps yet again with this uniquely plotted story that proves quite a change of pace from his Harpur and Iles series or other stand-alone crime novels. Vince and Kate have just moved from the inner city to Tabbett Drive, and to these two neophyte suburbanites, it seems like a little slice of heaven. Kate in particular is enamored of the next-door neighbors, Jill and Dennis Seagrave, whose lovely home, Carthage, is exactly the kind of house Kate hopes to own one day. Dennis is "something in insurance," but his true calling is hedge sculptures of giant deer, seagulls, even hedghogs. Jill is sweet, if slightly strange. But the golden couple has dark secrets, which are revealed in a series of letters to and from Jill, her mother, Dennis, his brother, his old girlfriend, a neighbor, and Jill's counselor, while Kate's own diary entries highlight her growing sense of puzzlement about what's real, what's made up, and who Jill and Dennis really are. James knows how to pick the perfect turn of phrase and uses this gift to evoke dark hilarity, turn everyday situations into bizarre fantasy, and bring a sense of menace and foreboding even in the midst of seemingly comic situations. Readers will be riveted from page 1 by this brilliant and thoroughly entertaining mix of horror and thriller.Emily MeltonCopyright American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Bill James has been called ""the Elmore Leonard of Britain's underworld"" (Kirkus Reviews) and has been named a ""Master of Crime"" in a mystery roundup by the London Sunday Times, which said, ""There is nothing else quite like this series of police procedurals. James is concerned with the dilemmas and difficulties of policing Britain's inner cities, and he addresses these in hard-edged narratives that leave readers gasping and flinching, praying the people in these stories never come to live in their streets."" In addition to the Harpur and Iles series, James is the author of other mystery series and a book on Anthony Powell. He lives in Wales.