Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2013
272 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
On a damp July morning in 1946, two schoolboys find a woman's body in a bomb site in north London. The woman is identified as Lillian Frobisher, a wife and mother who lived in a war-damaged terrace a few streets away.
The police assume that Lil must have been the victim of a vicious sexual assault; but the autopsy finds no evidence of rape, and Divisional Detective Inspector Jim Cooper turns his attention to her private life.
How did Lil come to be in the bomb site – a well-known lovers' haunt? If she had consensual sex, why was she strangled? Why was her husband seemingly unaware that she had failed to come home on the night she was killed?
In this gripping murder story, Siân Busby gradually peels away the veneer of stoicism and respectability to reveal the dark truths at the heart of postwar austerity Britain.
"Starred Review. [A] superb psychological thriller… brilliant." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Captures the hopelessness and desperation of the times... A moody gem of a novel that gives moving testament to the exemplary talent that is Busby's lasting legacy." - Kirkus
"In fiction based on fact, Busby not only captures time and place but makes them key players in this fast-moving crime novel with its characters indelibly marked by war." - Booklist
"A superbly accomplished and gripping piece of post war noir…Busby's re-creation of a forgotten London - devastated and almost lawless - is extraordinarily atmospheric." - The Times (UK)
"Brilliantly evoked... A distinctive and engaging novel." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"Siân Busby's final novel is a classic whodunit at its very best." - The Express (UK)
"A fitting monument to a writer of rare subtlety." - Mail on Sunday (UK)
"This is a novel to make you count your blessings, but it will also make readers rue the misfortune of losing such a talented novelist so early in her career." - The Daily Telegraph (UK)
"Elegant, spell-binding and unbearably sad... This deeply heartfelt crime novel brings a tear to the eye." - The Daily Mail
This information about A Commonplace Killing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sian Busby, an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and filmmaker, was married to the BBC Business Editor Robert Peston and the mother of two sons. Author of the highly acclaimed historical novel McNaughten, she died in 2012.
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