I thought I would give this series another try. This book is slightly better than the first book as the storyline is more interesting. Dover makes an extremely unlikeable anti-hero. I think that that is what throws me off the entire series. Two strikes in the series is out for me. Although the writing is good and the author tries very hard with her characterization to make it work, I just can't get into the story. I find myself flipping through it too quickly to get it to finish.

I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I read Joyce Porter’s first Dover book only a few weeks ago and was really pleased when I saw that Duckworth were re-publishing the second book so soon afterwards. Thanks, Ducks!

Isobel Slatcher has been shot. She’s lingered in a coma for several months but now she’s dead. That makes it murder. Scotland Yard send Chief Inspector Dover and his assistant, Sergeant MacGregor, to investigate. Dover is the most slobbish, most selfish, most infuriating detective it has been my pleasure to meet. He is a tightwad. He is a bully. I often squirm on MacDonald’s behalf and cringe at Dover’s behaviour.

He is also fascinating and astonishingly lucky. Partly due to his scattergun approach of suspecting everyone in turn, he does discover the murderer eventually.

The first page dates the novel to the 1960s: “The vital connexion which they should have caught at Crewe had been axed a mere twenty-four hours before by Dr Beeching.” Also, the newspapers are full of a story about the hanging of a bigamist who had murdered several of his wives. Whenever the story appears in a paper, the report also gushes with praise about his capture by Dover’s hated colleague and rival, Detective Superintendent Roderick. That’s guaranteed to sour Dover’s day.

The town where the woman was shot, Curdley, is the last town in England (I hope) where Catholics and Protestants feud incessantly. They have split the local government jobs between them: the police are Catholic; the librarians are Protestant; etc… The deceased was a rabid Protestant – was that a factor in her murder?

Isobel’s sister, Violet, is convinced that Isobel was engaged to be married to Rex Purseglove but he denies it. Violet believes Rex murdered her sister in order to avoid a Breach of Promise case. At one point, Mr Ofield, the head librarian where Isobel worked, is a plausible suspect. Did one of them do it?

As always, Dover’s boorish behaviour and MacGregor’s attempts to avoid / allay it provide humour throughout the book. This book is a gem and is even better than Dover One.

#DoverTwo #NetGalley

I enjoyed this second story even more than the first! Chief Inspector Dover is still a glutton, lazy and wants the spotlight. What makes this series so enjoyable is watching the development of Detective Sergeant MacGregor who is unfortunate enough to work with Dover. MacGregor does not want to work with Dover as it will impede his advancement within Scotland Yard. He knows Dover does not like to give credit where credit is due. Simply a delightful series!
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It is extremely rare for me not to finish a book, but unfortunately I could not proceed with this one. The humour didn't resonate with me and I'm afraid I found the main character simply annoying. I seem to be in a minority, but just not for me.

The next in the DCI Wilfred Dover series - and just as good as the first.

Once again, Dover is sent out into the sticks to solve a seemingly unsolvable crime by the Ass. Commission, whom Dover suspects (quite rightly) dislikes him. Considering these little outings are far beneath his position within Scotland yard, Dover is on the look out to solve the crime quite quickly and head back home.

But solving the "Sleeping Beauty" mystery is not going to be that easy as Dover and his trusty Sergeant MacGregor find themselves in a town segregated along religious lines, with a fair bit of tit-for-tat going on. And Sleeping Beauty is just one incident amid many. But someone has it in for the comatose girl, who is murdered, resulting in Dover being sent.

Dover blusters about in his usual manner, throwing round accusations alike breadcrumbs to birds, raising the hackles of all whom he comes into contact with, whilst poor old MacGregor is once again assigned all the leg work so that Dover can spend the majority of his day, sitting idly by, filling his belly and getting his daily nap. And again, as usual, and always in the absence of trusty MacGregor, Dover claims the kudos for himself.

I am loving this series - Dover is despicable whilst we cannot but have a soft spot for MacGregor, who hopes that one day, someone will hears his pleas and re-assign him to another DCI.

Dover is the perfect anti-hero and I'm becoming addicted to this series.
It makes me laugh and it keeps me hooked till the last page.
A solid mystery and a fun read.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Dover is unique in the annals of British detection. He is beyond caricature and redemption. Lazy and brutish as well as habitually and universally unpleasant of speech and habit, he nevertheless bumbles his way to a successful conclusion. Sometimes, as here, because there is virtually no one else left to subject to his outrageous accusations.

Here we have the death of a young woman several months after she was shot outside the Anglican vicarage in a town riven with religious rivalry. Dover and MacGregor work their way through the suspects with a spirit of mutual antipathy. The humour is not subtle, but neither is it crude.

Thank you to NetGalley and Duckworth Books for the digital review copy.

This mystery was better organized than the previous story.It is still a police procedural with everything that that entails, with in-depth interviews and a lot of leg-work. Dover is no less of a slob in this installment only maybe more so. His physical descriptions leave no room for misinterpretations but he does use his brain more than in the first book. He also very visibly grasps at the limelight by any means necessary. He also successfully wraps up the entire case. In this story, a woman in a coma has finally passed on. The town is torn between two different Christian groups and this has raised questions about the impartiality of the local police. The politics of the town provides a very vivid background for the unravelling of this odd case. Macgregor is still suffering but is also seeing different sides of his superior. He does all the leg work but the final pieces are forced together, a little mutinously, by Dover himself. The explanations are brief, physical descriptions of the suspects are fewer as in this case their faiths and their manners of behaviour are more under scrutiny. This confirmed my belief that the author seems to pour very graphic details into those factors that eventually lead to the result. This is not a spoiler as such because I could not have guessed the ending any sooner than the author wanted me to and I doubt many others can either, because of the skillful manipulation of revealing appropriate pieces of information. 

Overall I am pleased to make an acquaintance of this author, and a whole new style of mystery narration. Although I do not think the content would be everyone's cup of tea, if one can get past the (graphic) negative caricatures of people and look at it only as part of the story itself, it is more palatable.I say this as someone who is usually very sensitive to the background portrayal of any story, and someone who actually (surprisingly) enjoyed both the stories I have read of this series so far.

I received an ARC of the reprint thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is completely based on my own reading experience.

Chief Inspector Dover Is Jumping To Conclusions Again

A young woman is shot in the head but she doesn’t die. No, she languishes in the hospital for eight months in a coma. The man she named as her fiancé was the last person to visit her and after he left the staff found her dead. But not from natural causes. Scotland Yard is called in and the indomitable Inspector Dover is sent to investigate. Accompanied by his young Sergeant, Charles MacGregor, Dover almost immediately concludes that the man who visited her last must be the assailant. So in his usual lazy, self-assured but bumbling manner, Dover decides the fiancé is responsible and sets out to prove it. The pieces just won’t fit together, though, and he proceeds to systematically suspect each of the people he questioned about the original assault all to no avail. The pieces just won’t fit together.

Dover continues his slovenly, bullying way of doing things as he questions everyone involved again and sends MacGregor out to do the routine but necessary work while he sips tea, eats, and bums cigarettes, all at MacGregor’s expense. With all of his faults, it’s hard not to like Dover, though, there is a certain predictability about his actions and he is relentless when it comes to solving the crime. And sometimes he gets it right when he decides to jump to conclusions.

Thank You, Farrago and Net Galley for offering me a free advance copy of this novel for my honest review.

Dover Two is even better than Dover One.

Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is back in Dover Two, as slovenly, crude, rude, lazy and unlikable as ever. His assistant Detective Sergeant Charles Edgar MacGregor is back, too. Ambitious, long-suffering, full of good detecting strategies that usually get ignored or stolen by Dover, definitely not happy to be stuck paired with his Chief. As we get to know Sergeant MacGregor a little better, though, we see that he is a bit of a prig and a prude and not always that likable either. This time the pair is investigating a death in the village of Curdley. The victim wasn’t particularly likable, and the villagers are the usual assembly of weird, sneaky characters with many secrets. It’s not even a nice village; Curdley takes the animosity between Protestant and Catholics to a new level.

So with all this unlikable-ness how could I possibly like this book? Well, read it and I think you’ll agree with me. It is a strong British police procedural, with compelling, complicated characters and a well-developed plot full of clues and red herrings and surprises. I had no idea who the murderer was until just before it was revealed and the ending was totally satisfying. Although it appears that Dover is just bumbling along, fighting or taking credit for MacGregor’s ideas every step of the way, there is a lot of solid detective work hidden in there. It is a pleasure to watch things unfold and try to stay a step ahead of author Joyce Porter.

As always, Farrago Press has a knack for finding these old series from the 1950’s and 1960’s that are full of the most delicious use of words and the mental pictures they bring to mind. How can you resist something like, “There was a clock right opposite him on the dining room wall but Dover didn’t believe in keeping a dog and barking himself.”

Once again, many thanks to the folks at Farrago Books for finding another great series and allowing me the opportunity to read, review, and thoroughly enjoy it. I can’t wait to get started on Dover Three.

After having read Dover One I couldn't wait to read Dover Two _ and I wasn't disappointed. Dover is so rude and abrupt but he makes me laugh out loud. His nerve at claiming all the glory for himself is brilliant and is hapless sidekick is often left speechless by his antics. It's amazing that I can't wait to read the next book about this bad-mannered slob - but Joyce Porter has created a brilliant character and I'm very grateful that they have been published again.

*3.5 stars rounded up.

This is book two in a British police procedural mystery series by Joyce Porter first published in 1965, being reissued now by Farrago Press.

In this outing, Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover and his assistant Detective Sergeant Charles Edgar MacGregor of New Scotland Yard head off to Curdley to investigate the sudden death of a young shooting victim who has been in a coma for the past eight months. Lipstick on her pillow indicates that someone suffocated the poor woman whom the press has dubbed the Sleeping Beauty.

The one thing Dover, "a black-browed, bad-tempered, fat chief inspector," resents the most is having to w-o-r-k. He wants to get this murder solved quickly so he can return home.

"When Sergeant MacGregor, in later years, looked back to the Curdley Sleeping Beauty murder case, his dominant memory was of the seemingly endless breakfasts of which he and Dover partook together in the Station Hotel. Rightly or wrongly he remembered them as gloomy, long-drawn-out affairs, during which pathetically ineffectual attempts were made to repair the havoc wreaked on Dover's theories of the night before."

And according to Dover's daily blustering, anything that has gone wrong, is poor MacGregor's fault; if it's proven correct, then of course it was Dover's brilliant idea all along. If this case gets solved, it will be a miracle.

The odd thing about Curdley is that it is divided by religion, between Catholics and Church of England parishioners: "All of the town's social life, from golf to bingo, was strictly segregated, except for the annual reception which the mayor traditionally gave at the end of his year of office. Here all parties gathered together and congratulated each other on the growing tolerance and cooperation which had been observed in the previous twelve months. Nobody believed, or was expected to believe, a word of all this twaddle and everybody went cheerfully home, mentally girding up their loins for the next round in the battle."

Dover is a completely unlikeable protagonist but his bumbling methods and tirades are what make these stories so hilarious. Oh, we'd hate to be in poor MacGregor's shoes, having to work with a boss like Dover. Will he ever get transferred??

Thank you to Farrago Press for bringing this series to my attention and offering me an ebook copy via NetGalley. These books are fun, quick reads with intriguing crimes that keep the reader guessing. I look forward to reading more in the series.

Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is back - the gloriously unconventional anti -hero of Joyce Porter's Dover series and probably Scotland Yard's most problematic Detective. Dover is everything he shouldn't be and more, he is also completely unappealing in every way possible. But, we know that Dover gets the job done - in any way he can and if that means imposing on others then Dover knows no bounds. Scotland Yard have sent Dover out on his travels once again on the trail of a killer in the North of England. Darkly humorous, slyly satirical and just hugely entertaining, Dover is rather magnificent.

Indignant, irascible and incompetent – Chief Inspector Dover is back to solve another crime.

This time, the death of Isobel Slatcher, suffocated while comatose, nearly a year after being shot in the head.

Dover marches in and bungles his way through the case, accusing everyone and anyone, ignoring procedure, and taking all credit away from his reliable sidekick, Sergeant MacGregor.

Amusing, politically incorrect and a quick read, you’ll be no closer to working out the murderer than Dover is.

What a waste of time Mr Dover is. But what fun! He lets others do all the work, takes the credit for things he did not do, but still somehow manages to solve the crime. I loved reading this and figuring out how he was going to "solve" the crime!