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    A Stranger in the Family
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    A Stranger in the Family
    Unavailable
    A Stranger in the Family
    Ebook242 pages2 hours

    A Stranger in the Family

    By Robert Barnard

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    At the age of three, Kit Philipson was abducted whilst on holiday with his family in Italy. He grew up adored by his adopted parents but as his mother lay dying she confessed her terrible secret and gave him the details of his real mother.

    Isla Novello is ecstatic to be reunited with her long-lost son but there are some members of the family who are less than thrilled. And why are they all so reluctant for him to investigate his disappearance all those years ago?

    Kit is determined to find out the truth about his abduction and the murky motives that lay behind it. But he has no idea just how harrowing his investigation will turn out to be.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAllison & Busby
    Release dateDec 8, 2011
    ISBN9780749011567
    Unavailable
    A Stranger in the Family
    Author

    Robert Barnard

    Robert Barnard (1936 - 2013) lived in Leeds, was born in Essex and educated at Balliol. He had a distinguished career as an academic before he became a full-time writer. His first crime novel, Death of an Old Goat, was written while he was professor of English at the University of Tromso in Norway, the worlds most northerly university. He was a writer of great versatility, from the light and satirical tone of his earlier books to the more psychological preoccupations of recent ones, such as A Fatal Attachment. Under the name of Bernard Bastable he also wrote novels featuring Mozart as a detective, and is the author of many short stories. He created several detectives, including Perry Trethowan and Charlie Peace. Robert Barnard said he wrote only to entertain. He regarded Agatha Christie as his ideal crime writer and published an appreciation of her work, A Talent to Deceive, as well as books on Dickens, a history of English literature and nearly thirty mysteries. Robert Barnard was the winner of the 2003 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for a lifetime of achievement.

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    Reviews for A Stranger in the Family

    3.5/5

    31 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      British writer Robert Barnard is a heavy weight in mystery fiction. He has a closet full of awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement in mystery writing.In this book, a young man is aware of the fact that he is adopted. However, it's in his adoptive mother's dying days that he discovers both the name of his birth mother and the fact that he was not given up for adoption, but had been abducted when he was 3 years old. Vague memories begin to surface as he searches for his birth family and for the reason and circumstance of his abduction. This is a complicated story told in a very British way with focus on story elements rather than emotional content or graphic sensation. To borrow from the slang from across the pond, it's "Brilliant!".
    • 3/5
      Nazis AND the Mafia -- well, you don't get that every day.
    • 4/5
      When I see a new Robert Barnard book on the library shelf, I can't
      resist it. Not that I've read all his books yet -- I'm actually
      considering going back to read some of the ones I read 30 years ago,
      and then filling in the gaps. I've never been disappointed in a
      Barnard book yet.

      Like his recent LAST POST, A STRANGER IN THE FAMILY follows a young
      person who, after a parent's death, discovers some long-hidden family
      secrets and is compelled to investigate further. Protagonist Kit
      Philipson is an eminently sane young man who finds himself among some
      pretty dysfunctional relatives he hadn't known he had. His
      investigations into his and his family's past take him to Vienna to
      learn about the dangerous pre-war years, and then...but I don't want
      to put in any spoilers. I generally try not to delve too deeply into
      why mystery writers choose the plots they do, but I am just a bit
      curious why Barnard has chosen a similar plot beginning for two quite
      different books within a few years. I'd definitely recommend this or
      any Barnard book; he writes both series and stand-alones, equally good
      in different ways.
    • 3/5
      I have read many of this author's books and thoroughly enjoyed most of them. This one seemed a little confusing at times but it was readable. A good read but not a great one. Peter Novello was kidnapped at the age of 3 on a holiday visit to Italy with his family then adopted by a couple from Scotland. How did he get to Scotland? Why was he kidnapped? Peter, now called Christopher (Kit), learns from his adopted mother, on her deathbed, that he was adopted and is given the name of his biological mother who lives in Leeds, England. He goes to meet his mother in hopes of understanding what had happened to him those many years ago. The mystery is interesting but not as strongly fleshed out as it might have been.
    • 4/5
      After the death of his adoptive mother Kit Philipson decides to contact his birth mother to see what she can tell him about how he came to be adopted. By the time he meets her Kit knows that he was abducted while on holiday with his family at the age of 3. His welcome by his birth mother is effusive but that by her children is very guarded.Kit comes to suspect that he was abducted to order, and that his adoptive father possibly knew more than he ever told. His search for the truth takes him to Leeds, to Vienna, and to Sicily.An interesting if not particularly believable plot, with some quite nasty characters.An author I should read more by.
    • 4/5
      Robert Barnard has written more than 40 mysteries in his distinguished career, and has never once failed to turn out a beautifully written novel that tells an engaging story. Much like Jane Austen’s works, Barnard’s stories can be likened to ivory miniatures: precise, lovely, detailed. And like Austen, Barnard has a sly wit and a quiet irony that makes his tales all the more engaging.A Stranger in the Family is not a murder mystery; you will find no dead bodies in these pages, except for those who have died a natural death. But there is still plenty of suspense, as Kit Philipson tries to discover the truth behind his abduction at the age of three. It’s a tangled story that takes Kit from his home in Glasgow following the deaths of his adoptive parents to the home of his birth mother in Leeds and ultimately to Sicily to unravel all the threads. In the process, Kit must examine his heritage as the adopted son of a Jewish refugee from World War II, deal with his natural siblings who fear that he will take away “their” share of his birth mother’s estate upon her eventual death, and ultimately speak with a Mafioso who made huge profits from the suffering of others.Barnard can communicate such a great deal with such an economy of words that one marvels. A train journey is made vivid in a single sentence: “Four people in his compartment were talking into their mobiles – conversations of the most indescribable banality, which made one wonder what God’s purpose in creating language had been.” A character is described out in a phrase:“[T]he old man sat up in the bed, royally genial and welcoming, wearing a dressing gown and a woolen hat that made him look like a Dickens illustration.” Barnard’s talent is such that he can tell us just enough to let our imaginations finish the job perfectly well.There’s a reason Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for excellence in mystery writing. Pick up A Stranger in the Family and find out for yourself just what a wonderful writer he is.