{"id":430,"date":"2022-06-21T22:48:35","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T02:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreadingandreviewing.wordpress.com\/?p=430"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:03:09","slug":"in-place-of-fear-catriona-mcpherson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"In Place of Fear – Catriona McPherson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You may know Catriona McPherson\u2019s name from her Dandy Gilver mystery series (entertaining and comical with excellent plots; highly recommend), as did I before reading In Place of Fear<\/em>. Now I have a totally different novel and heroine to attribute to her, and they were just as excellent. As far as a standalone mystery goes, I\u2019ll happily give it five stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the NHS in Edinburgh, newly appointed medical almoner (social worker) Helen Crowther has escaped her future as a worker in a bottling factory and been given her own office at a popular medical practice. She and her new husband have been given a little cottage as part of the deal, and are happy to get out of Helen\u2019s family apartment. However, their excitement is short-lived when Helen discovers a body in the shed belonging to one of her mentor\u2019s daughters. Convinced that the death is not as straightforward as they claim, she makes two vows to the girl: that she won\u2019t let her charges feel as endangered as she felt, and that she\u2019s going to find out what really happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve read any of McPherson\u2019s other work, you\u2019ll recognize that her writing is not very direct and that you have to do a bit of reading between the lines to find out what characters are seeing or what they mean. While this might not be everyone\u2019s cup of tea, it\u2019s really engaging for me as it makes me pay attention more (I read really fast and sometimes infer rather than read things) and challenges me to explore the material. It can\u2019t be easy to put innuendo into the written word, yet McPherson does it with aplomb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of a murder mystery, In Place of Fear<\/em> had everything I was looking for. Helen is an intelligent hero, the secondary characters were quirky and interesting, and the plot was really well done. The weaving of the mystery with the events in Helen\u2019s life and job was excellent, and I was just as interested in Helen\u2019s family dynamic as I was with the case. In fact, I\u2019m not sure that the book would have been half as interesting without them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just had the thought that this novel reminded me of the show Call the Midwife<\/em>; it\u2019s in the right time period with the NHS just being formed, and I can picture the squalid housing situations in the show when Helen goes to visit some of her patients. I feel like the rhythm of the novel is kind of on par with Call the Midwife<\/em> as well, with a lot of different scenarios requiring resolution. Of course, a major difference (and bonus!) is that this novel also includes a murder mystery. See? Total package. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything I would change about this book? I don\u2019t think so. It was so crafty, and altogether very well rounded. I\u2019m not sure if McPherson would develop a series off of it, the epilogue seemed to suggest not, but it certainly has potential as Helen\u2019s job could take her into all kinds of situations. If you\u2019re looking for a good standalone mystery full of Scottish dialogue and drama, pick In Place of Fear<\/em> up. I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll be disappointed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may know Catriona McPherson\u2019s name from her Dandy Gilver mystery series (entertaining and comical with excellent plots; highly recommend), as did I before reading In Place of Fear. Now I have a totally different novel and heroine to attribute to her, and they were just as excellent. As far as a standalone mystery goes,Continue reading “In Place of Fear – Catriona McPherson”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,51,52,72,157,165,283,287,293,299,300,370],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-arc","tag-book-release","tag-book-review","tag-catriona-mcpherson","tag-historical-fiction","tag-historical-mystery","tag-murder-mystery","tag-mystery","tag-netgalley","tag-nhs","tag-nhs-formation","tag-scottish-mystery","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/in-place-of-fear.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}