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But for the Grace

A DC Smith Investigation Series, Book 2

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But for the Grace

By: Peter Grainger
Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
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"We are living in the departure lounge," said Ralph Greenwood, "and flights leave with monotonous regularity." So when another resident of the Rosemary House care home is found dead in her chair one Saturday evening in December, no one is very surprised - not until the results of a routine post-mortem reveal something extraordinary. Sergeant DC Smith and his team have to tread carefully as they investigate what took place, and Smith himself has to confront some difficult memories. Others, meanwhile, seem intent on getting him to leave the force altogether, while, despite his best efforts, his social life also becomes a little more complicated. To top it all, Kings Lake has been waiting weeks for the snow to fall, in a winter that seems as if it will never end.

©2014 Peter Grainger (P)2016 Tantor Crime Fiction Detective Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Traditional Detectives Crime
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A great book. I love the main character Sargeant 'DC' Smith, with his dry humour and brilliant crime solving. The narration is first class.

Great.

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Thanks to the series' inclusion in the Plus Catalogue, am pleased to find myself back in North East Norfolk, Kings Lake, [roughly based on the town of King's Lynn] with Detective Sargent 'DC' Smith. In book 2, author Peter Granger tackles a sensitive issue that I've not previously encountered in crime fiction, that of assisted dying, as DC puts it "a crime without a criminal". But for the Grace, is calm thought provoking exposition of this emotive subject.
The setting is Rosemary House, a well run, caring, up-market residential, retirement home, a far cry from the reality of most homes for the elderly. DC Smith finds him assigned to investigate the sudden death of a "generous" resident, after her post-mortem reveals she died, not from natural causes but from a lethal dose of drunken heroin. She was one of a close knit group of five, now down to three, all of who have 'Advance Directives' DNR in their medical files. The initial question for the police is, was it murder or assisted dying, both a crime, though the latter shouldn't be?
The investigation that follows revolves around the uncomfortable issues of illness, old age & death, that come to us all; and raises some interesting legal points. Do we prolong life or do we really just prolong death through artificial means? Do we have the right to end a life be it our own or that of another suffering? Not personally a moral issue for me, as approaching my "three score years & ten", I'm an advocate of assisted dying, the right to die at a time of one's own choosing. The law needs to keep pace as one only has to look at the health service, society in general to see the unsustainable mess it's in with the an ever increasing older population & a care system for the majority of elderly, the infirm is not fit for purpose.

Calm look at an emotive subject, assisted dying!

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An intelligent look at the dire problems of living to long and not being allowed to leave when you want to. Is this murder? Or choice? Excellently narrated with strong characterisation. I shall be listening to others in this series.

Thought provoking

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An interesting well presented and read book. I will be looking for the next in the series.

Crime or not

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Different from the first. Continues to lay the groundwork work with characters, etc but begins to make you think it is not all cops v robbers!

Getting to understand the authors mindset

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