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Fiction. Mystery. HTML: A murderer strikes at a school reunionâ??but the students are no strangers to deathâ?? in this propulsive, twisty thriller from the internationally bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway Mysteries Is it possible to forget that you've committed a murder? When Cassie Fitzgerald was at school in the late 90s, she and her friends killed a fellow student. Almost twenty years later, Cassie is a happily married mother who loves her jobâ??as a police officer. She closely guards the secret she has all but erased from her memory. One day her husband finally persuades her to go to a school reunion. Cassie catches up with her high-achieving old friends from the Manor Park Schoolâ??among them two politicians, a rock star, and a famous actress. But then, shockingly, one of them, Garfield Rice, is found dead in the school bathroom, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminentâ??and controversialâ??MP and the investigation is high profile, it's headed by Cassie's new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur, freshly promoted and newly arrived in London. The trouble is, Cassie can't shake the feeling that one of them has killed again. Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It's in Cassie's interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like it has nothing to do with Manor Park and she seems to be succeeding. Until someone else from the reunion is found dead in Bleeding… (more)
User reviews
For me, it is Griffiths' characters that that have made me such a fan. Yes, Ruth Galloway is my fave, but Harbinder is a close second. She too, is not a cookie cutter character. She's 'real'and her personal life has
Harbinder's first 'in charge' case is a puzzle for sure. A MP is found dead at his school's twenty-first reunion. There are a number of suspects to choose from for the whodunit. But the focus ends up on the members of 'The Group' - an 'elite' group of students. It took me a few chapters to solidify who was who in the group, specifically the women.
Bleeding Heart is written from a number of viewpoints - Harbinder's and group members Anna and Cassie. Anna and Cassie's past entries give the reader background, memories and motives - for each and every player. They're all hiding something. Present day chapters let us see how the investigation is proceeding, even as events from the past take on more of a motive for the current day crime. I did find the numerous interviews a bit repetitive.
The settings descriptions are well drawn and I quite liked the lore behind some of them - especially Bleeding Heart Yard. I think Harbinder's change of locale will open up a lot of opportunities for future cases and plots. And for Harbinder's personal life!
All in all, Bleeding Heart Yard is another great entry in this series. A little bit slower than the previous two books but still a very entertaining read. And a quick P.S. - that cover is fantastic!
Although Griffiths never intended for the lesbian Sikh police officer to be a recurring character, I am thrilled that this is now the third book in which Harbinder Kaur has appeared. In Bleeding Heart Yard, she's been promoted and is now living in London with two roommates, a teacher and an architect. I enjoyed seeing how she works with her team-- Cassie, who must stay out of the investigation because she's a member of the group of school friends linked to the dead man; the empathetic Kim who has an encyclopedic knowledge of London restaurants; the not-so-bright Tory; and the manspreading Jake. The book is told from various points of view, but Harbinder's is the best. Her thoughts and observations illuminate her character, and they're often quite humorous. Before I forget, a trio of characters from The Postscript Murders makes an appearance here, and it gives me hope that we may see them again. (Remember what I said about Griffiths' genius for characterization?)
Okay, enough about the characters. What about the mystery? Glory hallelujah-- I never saw the ending coming, and that's a rare occurrence for me. I love it when that happens, especially when I stop, think back, and can see where all the clues were planted. Clues that I ignored because I was enjoying the characters and the story so much.
Do you have series burnout and just don't want to start at book one (The Stranger Diaries)? Bleeding Heart Yard works well as a standalone, so confusion should not be a problem. However, don't be surprised if you find yourself looking for the other two books, and if you're new to Elly Griffiths (I almost envy you), she also writes the splendid Dr. Ruth Galloway series. Don't miss Ruth or Harbinder!
This was as enjoyable as the other mysteries in this series. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy the London setting as much, but that wasn't an issue. I did feel that the halfhearted attempt to pull in her old friends from the last book in the epilogue wasn't particularly successful, but perhaps if I had just read that book and was still feeling more of an emotional attachment to them, I would have liked it better. All in all, a fun read. I think this could be read as a stand-alone, due to the change of setting.
Harbinder immediately takes charge and assembles her team, but the reader is also privy to Harbinder’s inner monologue and personal life, where she struggles with the insecurities typical of someone new to their job and community. Readers are also privy to the memories and present-day actions of the victim’s classmates. A second death further complicates the situation. Elly Griffiths effectively led me by the nose to what I thought was a foregone conclusion, and I was beginning to feel frustrated by how obvious it was. But not to worry, there’s a twist!
Griffiths has hit her stride in this third book featuring Harbinder Kaur, and I hope she continues to develop the detective and her London team in future installments.
The book developed Harbinder Kaur's career and her social
A good read. I recommend reading the two earlier books in the series first.
However, Ms Griffiths has also embarked on another equally engaging series, of which this is the third instalment, following the cases of (now) Detective Inspector Harbinder Kaur. In her first two exploits she had been back in her native Sussex, but Harbinder has secured promotion and moved up to serve in the Met, based in West London. Still eager to establish herself in her new role, and not yet feeling properly established in London, she finds herself leading the investigation into the death of a prominent right-wing politician who has died in unusual circumstances while attending a reunion at his old school. To make things more difficult, one of Harbinder’s Detective Sergeants was a fellow pupil of the dead man and had also been at the reunion.
It had clearly been a notable cohort of pupils in that year. The dead man’s friends back then had included pupils who would go on to become a leading actress, a successful rock star, the future headteacher of that very school, and another (Lib-Dem) MP. As Harbinder and the rest of her now-depleted team start to investigate, they uncover undercurrents of strong feelings left over from schooldays. And then another of the group is found dead in Bleeding Heart Yard.
There are various strands of investigation which, as always, Elly Griffiths manages with great dexterity. She excels at creating characters that provoke fellow feeling – that is as true of Ruth Galloway and Edgar Stephens (and especially Emma Holmes) as it is of Harbinder. These are all characters whom I would be delighted to meet.
Thanks to Mariner Books for access to a digital ARC via NetGalley.
As the book begins, Harbinder and her team are called to investigate the murder of an MP, Garfield (“Gary”) Rice, while he was attending the 21st reunion of the class of 1998 from London’s posh Manor Park school. Harbinder is surprised to find one of her officers, Detective Sergeant Cassie Fitzherbert, was from the same class at the same school and also attended the reunion. Since Cassie was a witness, she could not be involved with the case.
Harbinder soon focuses on a group of friends which included Gary Rice. All the members of his clique were at the reunion: Isabelle (“Izzy”) Istar, now a well-known actress; Henry Steep, also an MP; Chris Foster, now a famous band member; Anna Vance, a language teacher in Italy; and Cassie herself.
The group is tied together not only by friendship, but by the death of fellow classmate David Moore at the end of their senior year. Since that time, at least some members of the group occasionally attended lunches with Rice at a dining club in "Bleeding Heart Yard" in Holborn. Moreover, shortly before his death Gary had received anonymous notes that read “bleeding heart,” a few of which also included a drawing of a heart with an arrow through it.
There are plenty of tantalizing leads and red herrings, especially after another member of the group is found dead.
Harbinder is only one of the narrators in the book; we get to see what happens with group members from multiple viewpoints.
Evaluation: Fans of Tana French will be reminded frequently of the Dublin Murder Squad book, The Secret Place. It wasn’t the similarities in the story line so much, although both were set in elite schools, but the style of writing. It would have been hard for me to remember it was by Elly Griffiths, were it not for the occasional injection of very funny observations by Harbinder. At any rate, I consider any likeness to Tana French to be a very positive aspect of a book, and the combination with Griffiths’s slightly different strong writing points made for an excellent novel.
One can’t help loving Griffiths’ recurring characters, and I can’t wait to read more about them.
Kaur tries to understand the connection to the bleeding heart yard, and scrutinizes the group's past.
I enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed the other Harbinder book I read. I am enjoying this series.
The classmates have a shared secret. Soon after they finished their final exams, the body of one of their classmates, David Moore, was found near the train tracks. Because of traces of heroin on his nose and the presence of insulin in his body, his death was ruled accidental.
But the members of the group know much more. David had raped and attempted to rape some of the girls. Their revenge was to get him to the abandoned train station and threaten him. It obviously went beyond that but was never thoroughly investigated.
The evening of the reunion, the body of one of the members of the group was found near the loo in the school and the police, lead by Detective Inspector Harbinder Kaur, began it’s investigation. Another death soon follows.
At the reunion, memories of David’s death brought them together again as they try to figure out what really happened then and now.
The chapters are related primarily by Harbinder, Cassie, and Anna, each of whom has a different perspective.
There is a lot of repetition, sometimes identical, sometimes not, throughout the book. Old relationships are rekindled, old memories reexamined.
The ending is totally unexpected and somewhat unrealistic. One clue, that should have been spotted earlier is ignored. The switching from past tense to present tense and back again is confusing. The epilogue, a month later, briefly tells what happened to each of the characters since the crimes were resolved.
This is a nice transition to a new series and a new setting.