{"id":7001,"date":"2026-05-04T08:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7001"},"modified":"2026-05-04T08:01:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:01:27","slug":"cynthia-harrod-eagles-deadly-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/cynthia-harrod-eagles-deadly-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: Deadly Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

DCI Bill Slider #26<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This has long been a favorite series of mine since the first book, Orchestrated Death<\/em> (1991), in which the main character, the married Detective Bill Slider, meets what turns out to be the love of his life. Joanna, who is now his wife and mother of two of his children, is a musician, and in the first book the music is part of the story, which adds to it and gives it depth.\u00a0 Most of the other books are straight up police procedurals, but they are excellent ones.<\/p>\n

This novel, the 26th in the series, is no exception to Harrod-Eagles\u2019 excellence.\u00a0 Her way with language, humor, and puns is undimmed, and all you need to do is skim through her chapter titles to get a taste of her humor.\u00a0 Her character descriptions are as sharp and brief as any a golden age writer committed to a page and are one of the reasons I love her writing so much.\u00a0 This book, while late in the series, does not need to be read in order, as the story told stands well on its own.\u00a0 I will say that a reading of the earlier books will add to your reading enjoyment, as the characters are filled in and established throughout the series.<\/p>\n

The book opens with a classic \u2013 a body found by a dog.\u00a0 The dead man turns out to have been a police officer, so it\u2019s all hands on deck. As the detectives sort through the man\u2019s personal life, they can find very little reason why anyone would have wanted him dead.\u00a0 He was in the middle of a divorce, but that appears to have been amicable.\u00a0 These books read very much like an extended Law & Order<\/em> episode, with clues evolving from thorough police work.<\/p>\n

Harrod-Eagles paints an excellent portrait of both Central London as well as Slider and his team, notably his second in command, Atherton, who has been a part of the series from the beginning.\u00a0 He\u2019s a suave upper class answer to Slider\u2019s more stolid middle class upbringing, and they are a nice pairing of opposites that work well together and bring out the best in one another.<\/p>\n

Harrod-Eagles does include some personal goings on here, but they are back burner \u2013 Atherton is edging toward an engagement, and Slider\u2019s older children with his first wife, Irene, are both having some issues she wants Bill to help her address.\u00a0 She leaves a thread with one of the children for an obvious follow up in the next book. Life with Joanna and his younger children is perfectly happy if chaotic \u2013 they remind me a bit of Deborah Crombie\u2019s Duncan and Gemma, whose happy family life is a solid foundation for the police work in the books.<\/p>\n

The mystery, as it unravels, is full of good detective work, unexpected clues, honest emotion, and an emerging portrait of the dead man that is heartbreaking.\u00a0 Harrod-Eagles is able to bring him to life so vividly on the page that you feel his loss.\u00a0 As the story begins to wrap up, it\u2019s hard to put the book down. Sharp and concise, this well told story will leave you wanting more.\u00a0 Luckily, there are 26 installments so far \u2013 dive in!\u00a0\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

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DCI Bill Slider #26 This has long been a favorite series of mine since the first book, Orchestrated Death (1991), in which the main character, the married Detective Bill Slider, meets what turns out to be the love of his life. Joanna, who is now his wife and mother of two of his children, is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2474,2472,2473,254,8,1276,486],"class_list":["post-7001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-bill-slider","tag-cynthia-harrod-eagles","tag-deadly-force","tag-london","tag-police","tag-robin-agnew","tag-severn-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7001"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7043,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001\/revisions\/7043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}