Office of the Dead

By: Andrew Taylor

Narrated by: June Barrie

Living in the British city of Rosington of the 1950s, Wendy finds herself penniless, jobless, and on the verge of divorce. She goes to stay with her friend, who seems to have everything Wendy lacks. But a decades-old mystery lingers, and the shadow of death seeps through from turn-of-the-century Rosington, portending tragedy.©2001 Andrew Taylor (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Maiden ladies who would make Miss Marple smile and villains as vile as Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter populate this witty, urbane but dark third volume in Taylor's Roth Trilogy." (Publishers Weekly)

Pulled me in and kept surprising me

Office of the Dead is not your typical mystery. The story builds slowly and keeps both the narrator and the reader wondering what is coming next. This is first person point-of-view done as it should be. Our narrator, Wendy, reveals enough about herself to become a well-rounded, sympathetic character. Her observations of Roth, the college, and characters around her draw in the reader. The book is full of interesting and sometimes creepy secondary characters.

While this story stands on its own, I discovered after finishing that it was actually the third book in a trilogy. The trilogy steps backward in time with each volume, which explains one of the issues I had with the story. There are hints of future happenings that are not explained. If the books were read in order, the reader would understand the references.

June Barrie was the perfect narrator for this volume.