P is for Plots and Errors by Jill McGown

Today, for the Crime Fiction Alphabet, I feature Plots and Errors (1999), a book by Jill McGown.  This book is the tenth in a series of thirteen books set primarily in a fictional town in the UK called Stansfield.

Jill McGown (1947 - 2007) is one of my favorite authors. She was born in Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland, but by the age of 10 had moved to a town in Britain, Corby, where she lived the rest of her life. She is best known for the British police procedurals starring Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill, but she also wrote five stand-alone mysteries.

I discovered the Lloyd and Hill mysteries in 2007, after McGown had died. I read the first book in the series, The Perfect Match, and was very impressed. It was different, and I always like mysteries that take a different approach. Yet, I was not sure whether to continue the series, because it was not the kind of book that could be repeated. I tried the second book in the series and liked it too. Within four months, I had read all thirteen books in the series. I won't say I loved every book in the series, but all are good mysteries, and at least 10 of the 13 are personal favorites of mine. One of the characteristics of the series is that the books do not follow a formula; Jill McGown does not write the same book over and over. Lloyd and Hill, and their ongoing relationship, are the mainstays of the series, but each book can take a different approach to telling the story.

The unique aspect to Plots and Errors is that the structure is like a play and it is interspersed with quotes from Hamlet. There is a prologue, five acts, and an epilogue. There is even a list of the Dramatis Personae.

The Prologue sets the stage, when the murders are discovered. Act I goes back in time a few weeks, and is from the point of view of the Esterbrooks, the family most affected by these murders. Act II is from the point of view of the private investigators who are involved. Act III is The Plot; Act IV is The Murders. Act V is The Investigation, taking us back to Lloyd and Hill and their team. The Epilogue wraps it up.

You can see that the plot gets complex and hops around in time. Although I could not find many reviews of this book online, the author's website notes that some readers were not happy with the complexity and the approach, and I noted this in some comments at Goodreads also. At this page on the author's site, McGown discussed why she wrote the story.

The character development is very good. Lloyd and Hill are more in the background in this story than in most of the series (as I remember it), but I think that the way their backstory is introduced lets you know what kind of people and detectives they are. The other policemen involved are fleshed out. The members of the Esterbrook clan are very well developed as characters in this story. They are mostly not likable people, but interesting nevertheless. And there are plenty of surprises as the story unfolds.

Comments on Plots and Errors in this tribute to Jill McGown at Aunt Agatha's:

To me this is her best novel because it combines her genius with characters and a tightly wound plot that is one of the best I've ever read. And of course, the detective portion of the novel, Lloyd and Hill's investigation, is the thread of decency tying it all together. The modern detective novel makes us think, but it also ties up the loose ends and implies that bad deeds are righted, or at least avenged, in the civilized manner of the legal system.

I reread this book in preparation for writing this post, and I did not remember who had perpetrated the crimes. At times I thought the ending was obvious, but I was wrong. The ending was not what I expected, but it did not disappoint me. I enjoyed reading it just as much the second time around, and maybe even more this time.

The series is best read in order, because the Lloyd / Hill relationship changes over time, but the author has stated (in this post at Mystery*File which includes some excerpts from an interview) that each book is written to stand alone and contains enough backstory to explain the relationships where needed.


The Crime Fiction Alphabet is sponsored by Mysteries in Paradise.  Please visit this post to check out other entries for this letter.