Customer Reviews

A Commonplace Killing (Unabridged)

Sian Busby's final book is a tremendous achievement both as a novel and as an example of what an indomitable spirit can achieve. First, the book itself: it's a very good read, with a strong narrative and a stronger sense of place and time: north London, as tatty and battered as its inhabitants immediately after the end of the war. The body of a woman is found on wasteland, the police investigating wearily assume it's a sexual assault that went wrong. But it turns out not to be the case, so who is the dead woman? A prostitute? If not, how did a "respectable" woman end up strangled?

Busby's characters are a bit squalid, like their physical surroundings; morally compromised (petty criminals, fences, spivs, sleeping with people they shouldn't) but one of Busby's hallmarks as a writer is her empathy with, understanding of and compassion for people and choices that many would dismiss with a judgmental word or two. And so you find yourself caring about the war-traumatised thief, about the diminished husband, about the hard-edged victim, about her brittle, feckless lodger, about the weary police officer who can't do a good enough job.

As well as standing as an achievement in its own right as wonderfully conceived and executed book, A Commonplace Killing is also an extraordinary achievement for Busby, who was dying of cancer as it was being completed. When she died in September 2012, her husband, BBC business editor Robert Peston, found the final part of the book handwritten in her notebook; he transcribed the final pages so that the book could be published posthumously. As he explains in the foreword to the novel, "I did not know, until reading handwriting as familiar as my own and hearing her voice in my head, that she had finished this exquisite work."

Where Peston's transcription takes over is noted in the book; I'm not sure that a reader would otherwise spot the join. Perhaps the final few pages are a little more sparse than the prose that precedes it, but that sparseness is appropriate to the bleakness of the end of the book. The love with which the book was completed gives A Commonplace Killing a redemptive and emotional power that the narrative itself deliberately doesn't provide: there's little redemptive about the narrative that unfolds.

Any book is a labour of love. This one, which stands on its own two feet as a very good novel by any standards, is doubly so, given the circumstances in which it was written and the circumstances in which it was finished. I'd recommend it without the coda of its completion; the achievement that it represents makes it outstanding.

In post-war Holloway, north London in 1946, two boys discover the body of a woman on a bomb site. The immediate response from the police is that it is a sex-related murder "a commonplace killing", a remark tossed in by a detective in a casual, dismissive way. The site was a haunt for courting couples. Detective Inspector Jim Cooper may be disgruntled at the post-war crime boom and his own shabby, lonely life but he is street-wise. He has a pragmatic view of lawbreakers - they do it because they can - and is determined to find the culprit who strangled Lillian Frobisher along with the motive, sensing it is someone in the locality.

Lillian's husband, Walter, has returned home from war to a bomb-damaged house, a wife who no longer loves him, a frail incontinent mother-in-law and a lodger who does not pay her rent. His prospects are not bright. Lillian is desperate to escape this scenario. She even misses the odd fling that she had during the war. Now her domestic life is depressing; rationing , shortages, queuing ,the black market are everyday events. The story leading to Lillian's murder is set against the bleak and authentic atmosphere of a run down crime-ridden area filled with vivid imagery of a ruined area. Sian Busby's narrative utilises the dialect of the times portraying in graphic detail the features of the location 'heavy with loneliness, shadowy with the ruin of lives and homes'. She draws her characters in a way they can readily be identified with by the reader.

Sian Busby has written an impressive authoritative novel of authenticity. It is melancholic, atmospheric and heart-rending. The circumstances surrounding the publication of this book are well-known and add to the sense of loss and poignancy.

It's been a long time since I sat up half the night to finish a book, but I did with this one. Not only does it leave you guessing about the perpetrator until almost the end, it brings the taste and feel of what it must have been like to live in post-war Britain. Good storyline, brilliant descriptive writing. Would definitely recommend.

This book leaves you touching and feeling the brick dust and grime of 1946 London. The sense of despair and "when will it get better" hangs over the book like a London smog. The cafes and pubs are filthy, the houses collapsing around their inhabitants - a very strong sense of place. The characters are also well drawn, with a three way third person multiple viewpoint which takes a little getting used to at first.
It's not really a whodunnit - we can guess the victim and the murderer from the start - but the suspense is around whether the depressed Cooper will ever catch his man, and the details of why and how the deed was committed. In the end you feel sorry for all the major characters, with only the young Douglas and PC Tring carrying the hope for the future. A great read, and a great shame that Sian Busby will write no more.

Despite my initial reservations about the subject matter, I did really enjoy the plot and characters. However, the constant phrase of "as all good detectives know" really irritated me & I think they overplayed that hand. Really enjoyed the correct historical references to the Met Police of the post war years & the introspective feelings of Cooper. In all - would recommend to others

I listened to a bit of it on the radio and wanted to know what happened. It was a quiet, thoughtful book, with good period feel.

Really good story with characters you related to. Enjoyed the scene setting and the use of language common in those years.

Excellent.

This book completely transported me back to post war North London. The characters were believable and the area was bought to life. I got a sense of the fashion, rationing, interiors and atmosphere of the time. I loved every page of this story and it is beautifully written. What a wonderful woman Sian Busby was.

Excellent descriptive writing. A story that unfolds from two, quite different directions but makes you want to know more. And you do!

Sian Busby here tells the story of murder, but comes at it from different points of view, which converge towards the end. Her evocation of the desolation and grimness of post-war London is immaculate. Her gift here is that it is done that effortlessly. No jolly cockneys all pulling together - this I suspect - is nearer the truth. The principal characters are human and believable, and her meticulous research drops in little nuggets here and there which establish it firmly in reality. The threepenny bits used for suspenders definitely rang a bell, for example.

And yet it is not depressing - merely fascinating. The story unfolds cleverly from the point of view of the blonde Lillian and her sad home life and the policeman, as they tend to be, a little bit battered and worn down by life, but dogged and honest, and disarmingly crossed in love and full of impossible yearning.

It ticks a lot of boxes without trying, and I enjoyed it very much.

Sian Busby is a great loss, not only to fiction but movingly to Robert Peston, who finished her final transcription as a gesture of love and benediction. A brave and gifted lady.