Back from the dead (Perfectly Pure and Good - Frances Fyfield)

Member Name: sunmeilan

Product:	Perfectly Pure and Good - Frances Fyfield
Date:	20/04/06 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A light, pleasant read

Disadvantages: Not very believable in parts

Introduction
Frances Fyfield is most famous for her Helen West books, which have been televised, starring Amanda Burton, but she has also written a series about a lawyer called Sarah Fortune, of which 'Perfectly Pure and Good' is the second volume. There are four more in this series, including the latest one published this year, 'Safer than Houses'. The tone of the series on the whole is lighter than the Helen West books, although there are sudden flashes of violence, which seem all the more shocking for the padding around them. To my mind, the Helen West series is stronger, but the Sarah Fortune novels are extremely readable nevertheless - so much so that I travelled 5 stops in the wrong direction on the tube the other day before I even noticed.

The author
Frances Fyfield is also known as Frances Hegarty, under which name she has written three novels. Hegarty is her real name - Fyfield is taken from her mother's side of the family. She is a criminal lawyer, based in London. She has won the Crime Writer's Association Silver Dagger Award and has been nominated for an Edgar and a Gold Dagger Award amongst others. Apart from the Helen West and Sarah Fortune novels, she has also written a number of one-offs.

The plot
The first couple of chapters take us back to the first novel in this series: 'Shadows on the Mirror', in which Sarah was violently attacked in her own home and left to die in a pile of broken glass from a mirror. She was rescued by her upstairs neighbour, Malcolm, with whom she has been having an affair. However, the affair is coming to an end and Sarah decides to accept her boss' suggestion that she takes a temporary position in a small seaside town in Norfolk. This coincidentally happens to the be town where her attacker's wife, and later the attacker himself, committed suicide.

The job involves sorting out inheritance problems for the Pardoes, the richest family in the seaside town of Merton-on-Sea. When Mouse Pardoe's husband died, he left a will asking his wife to split the money amongst the family as she saw fit. This has led to constant squabbling amongst the three grown-up children, Julian, Edward and Joanna.

Added to these complications, is the appearance of a 'ghost': someone who drifts around the town and steals indiscriminately from its inhabitants. No-one is overly concerned until he nearly murders a young boy by beating his head in. Sarah, largely because of her interest in people, not because of any particular skills as an investigator, is determined to solve the problems of the family and the people around it, but first she must discover who the ghost is, before murder is committed.

The characters
Sarah Fortune is much less staid than Helen West. She is out-going and makes friends easily and sees herself as the solver of other people's problems - including their sexual ones. She sees herself as a 'tart with a heart' and finds it hard to be tied down into a relationship. She is comfortable in herself, thinking nothing of being seen naked driving in her car or turning cartwheels in the garden. She is sensitive and has a knack of being able to see the good in people and to draw it out. By the time she leaves Merton-on-Sea, the Pardoes are a much happier family.

The Pardoes themselves are characters - Mouse Pardoe pretends to be going senile, although she is completely compos mentis, in order to cope with her family's squabbles. Julian, the eldest son is a doctor and since the suicide of the woman he loved and could have saved has withdrawn into himself. Edward is probably madder than his mother is pretending to be, is in love with his sister, and wishes his brother and mother were dead. Joanna, devoted to Edward, does not realise that he is stifling her and scaring off a potential boyfriend. But thanks to Sarah, by the time she comes to leave, they have sorted themselves out.

Conclusion
I did find this book compelling reading. There is something very likeable about Sarah Fortune; her zest for life is refreshing and I found myself caring about what happened to her. There is no murder in this book, but that did not make the storyline any less compelling. The presence of the ghost and the fact that Merton-on-Sea is where her attacker killed himself do add to the creepy atmosphere and the reader expects something to happen at every turn. On the negative side, there is something unrealistic about the book - people seem to be too cut and dried and the idea that a family can be magically transformed by one person in such a short period of time is not very believable. This does make it perfect for light-hearted reading though and I certainly got through the book in a record amount of time. On the whole, Frances Fyfield will always mean Helen West to me, but although I would not hunt another Sarah Fortune book out, I would certainly read it if I came across it. Recommended for fans of crime fiction.

Costs £5.59 from Amazon. Published by Time Warner Paperbacks, 320 pages. ISBN: 0751534315

Summary: Enjoyable, if not entirely believable