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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780449002537
ISBN number: 0449002535
Label: Fawcett
Manufacturer: Fawcett
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: September 05, 2000
Publishing house: Fawcett
Release Date: September 05, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 493624
Studio: Fawcett
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Product Description:
When the owners of a struggling detective agency are found asphyxiated in their car, Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd rejects the majority opinion that they committed suicide. And his theory--that they were murdered--becomes even more likely when the doomed couple's one client, wealthy Mrs. Angela Esterbrook, is found shot to death.
Why would someone with her sort of money employ an untried agency to carry out an investigation? The super-rich Esterbrook family is a puzzle that Lloyd and his partner, Judy Hill, must solve before it's too late. For the curtain is rising on a tragedy of Shakespearean grandeur. But no one, not even the cunning killer, anticipates how the plot will take on a lethal life of its own-- beyond everyone's control . . . .
Amazon.com Review:
There's nothing cute or coy about the relationship between Jill McGown's two high-ranking British police officers--Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd (whose very first name has never been mentioned) and Detective Inspector Judy Hill of the (fictional) Bartonshire cop shop. They have been together for many years, and still maintain separate residences. She is smart and ambitious, determined to succeed on her own, even though her present unplanned pregnancy might slow things down; he is supportive but secretly wishes for a more old-fashioned kind of relationship. They know each other well: she tolerates his smugness and flair for dramatic effect; he appreciates her cool logic and occasionally brilliant insights. Together, Lloyd and Hill make up one of the most interesting and believable detecting duos in current crime fiction--the kind of people you can actually imagine having dinner with.
In Plots and Errors, McGown uses that hard-earned believability to anchor a complicated story as full of plot twists and false leads as any Agatha Christie play. (She even constructs it like a play, with acts and scenes set off by appropriate quotes from Hamlet).
The book opens with the suspicious suicide of two middle-aged private detectives, Andy and Kathy Cope. A short time later, their only client, a member of the wealthy (and dysfunctional) Esterbrook family, is found murdered. It seems all the deaths are somehow connected. As we shuttle between the Esterbrook family estate in Bartonshire to a yacht anchored in Cornwall, we rely on the solid comfort of Lloyd and Hill to help us achieve closure. --Dick Adler
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Rated by buyers -
I discovered Jill McGown through an Amazon recommendation and am I ever glad I found her! Her detectives, Lloyd and Hill, are by turns witty and brilliant and always very likable; her plots are deviously cunning.
McGown uses an unusual style for this tale. After giving the reader five corpses in the very first 50 pages, she then takes one back eleven weeks earlier and begins to unearth the secrets of the Esterbrooks, an extremely wealthy, extremely dystunctional family. Additionally, McGown structures the book like a play, with multiple acts and scenes.
This is not a straightforward story; it requires that the reader pay attention. Despite all the misdirection, McGown never cheats; she even has one of the characters warn "Never trust anything an Esterbrook says."
McGown has become one of my favorite mystery writers, and "Plots and Errors" is one of her best.
Rated by buyers 
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I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW MUCH YOU NEED TO READ THIS SERIES FROM THE FIRST TO THE LAST. EACH BOOK IS A MASTER PIECE IN PLOT AND DEVELOPMENT. HER CHARACTERS NEVER STRAY FROM THE PERSONALITY SHE HAS PRESENTED THROUGH OUT THE SERIES. IT'S A PAGE TURNER THAT KEEPS YOU GUESING TO THE LAST CHAPTER!
THE BUILDING RELATIONSHIP OF HILL AND LOYD IS WORTH THE PRICE OF THE BOOKS!
Rated by buyers -
I love Jill McGown's books and I'm a real fan of Lloyd and Hill, but this book is a bit too much. I really enjoyed the very first half of the book, but it just got a bit too complicated with the plots and counterplots, blind and double-blind. This did take away from the story somewhat. In this book we have a lot of murders and it's up to Lloyd and Hill to try to connect them all and to determine motive and opportunity for each of them. At very first a couple are found dead in their vehicle in their garage, apparently from suicide, but there are a number of "little Puzzles" about the deaths. Why are their groceries put away in the wrong cupboards, for example? Then there is another body - this time a very rich matriarch, found shot in her home. Lloyd and Hill, in their quest to find the killer encounter a truly disfunctional family and enough hate and animosity to sataisfy anyone looking for motive, but all is not as it seems. It just takes a little too long for the reader to get to the solution this time.
Rated by buyers 
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I, too,was looking forward to another Lloyd and Hill mystery and enjoyed the beginning 72 pages of the "police procedural" but I was dismayed to discover that on page 77 I was going to be thrown backwards in time into the world of the "already dead" via a series of long flashbacks. After groping my way through the subsequent fifty or so pages, I realized I was being given way WAY too much information via these flashbacks, and that they were going to go on and on ... and on. I wanted to discover all about the crimes and the characters involved in these intriguing murders ALONG with the police and other "outside" characters. Why oh why are we being forced to choke down more and more massive volumes of 500 pages that could (and should) have been written with greater clarity, crispness and tension in under 300 pages? Terribly disappointing. Even strong writing is weakened by lengthy over-written repetitive passages such as the ones in this novel. Too bad. I had to quit half way through. I just didn't care enough to keep plugging on.
Rated by buyers -
I stumbled upon this book, not having heard of Jill McGown. But it was a happy accident. I'm not much of a fan of British police procedurals (too convoluted) but I was completely taken by this book, particularly her literary device of changing the timing in the various acts. It caught me by surprise, I didn't think I'd get into it and ended up fascinated. Unfortunately, by the last 1/4 of the book, I was tired of the plot twists and was reminded again of why I don't much like this genre.
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