Dying Flames by Robert Barnard

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"Beside this grave, in the gathering twilight, they had made love."

Dying Flames (2005) is my sixteenth book by Robert Barnard whose mystery novels I have rated with a wide range of rankings, from nearly outstanding as A Scandal in Belgravia to failures like The Killings on Jubilee Terrace. This novel places somewhere in between, perhaps a bit closer to the lower mark. It has a very rare distinction, though: it gets better and better as we progress towards the end, which is the exact opposite of the absolute majority of mystery genre bestsellers.

Graham Broadbent, in his mid-forties, a quite popular writer of fiction, visits Colchester for the high-school reunion. Christa, a young woman, still a teenager in fact, comes to see Graham and announces that she is his daughter, which she had learned from her mother, Peggy. While Graham denies paternity he indeed did have an affair with Peggy. She had been a star in a high-school play and a target of romantic interests of many young men. But their liaison happened twenty-five years ago the idea of him being Christa's father is simply inconceivable! (a neat pun!)

Now that he has met Christa, Graham is interested in tracking Peggy, perhaps to confront her about her lies, but maybe also just to see how she is a quarter of century later. Yet Graham also has another motive to maintain contact with Christa: he is on the verge of falling in love with her, despite the rather major age difference. He conducts an investigation, which is the lamest part of the novel. There is a scene in a pub in the town where Peggy lived in her youth: every drinking patron in the pub seems to know everything about Peggy, her family, her lovers, etc. The horrible "word on the street" literary cliché strikes again!

The reader learns more and more about the momentous events from the past. The plot further thickens when a dead body is discovered and the local police have to investigate a case of murder. For a brief while the action even moves to near Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The last third of the book is highly readable, almost compulsively. It also seems to be much better written then the earlier parts, overlong, and frankly boring. I like the clever and rather unexpected denouement. So, all in all, while this is quite a forgettable novel, it is not a particularly unpleasant way of spending few hours of one's time.

Two and a quarter stars.



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