Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm

By: Gil North

Narrated by: Gordon Griffin

'He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of evil, of things hidden.'

Amy Snowden, in middle age, has long since settled into a lonely life in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw, until - to her neighbours' surprise - she suddenly marries a much younger man.

Months later Amy is found dead - apparently by her own hand - and her husband, Wright, has disappeared. Sergeant Caleb Cluff - silent, watchful, a man at home in the bleak moorland landscape of Gunnarshaw - must find the truth about the couple's unlikely marriage and solve the riddle of Amy's death.

©2016 Gil North Limited (P)2016 Soundings

Sergeant Cliff Stands Firm

I t took me a while to finish this book, I found it just a little boring , and had to go back a few times to re read parts of it before moving on. The reader was ok, but a little too samey with the carachters voices. Could just be me or my mood at the time of reading sorry.

Quite good, but grim

I definitely understand the comparison between this and Simenon's Maigret books, dear reader.
They are alike in many ways, except most of the Maigret's have some comic relief. There is no relief in this mystery, it is grim and close from beginning to end. The criminals are despicable, with very little to give us empathy for them. Simenon perhaps also differs here, as many of his criminals are, if not forgivable, then at least understandable. In the dark of winter, I got rather depressed listening to this and had to break and come back. I will, however, try others in the series because it was very well written and thought out. Hopefully even Cluff gets some fun at some point. May your life be not grim, and may laughter and light always find you, cousins.