Gina Gray Series by Penny Freedman (Books 1-5)
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Overview: Penny Freedman taught English and Drama in Schools, colleges and universities. Her experiences as Director of English Language courses for overseas students forms the background to her Gina Gray murder mystery series.
She has two grown up daughters and lives with her husband in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Genre: Crime Mystery
Book 1 – This Is a Dreadful Sentence
When Gina Gray sets out to discover who murdered her least favourite foreign student, she becomes an unlikely detective. She has nothing on her side but stubbornness, bravado and a detailed knowledge of English grammar. But will her unorthodox methods be enought to catch the killer?
Book 2 – All the Daughters
In this explosive follow-up to This is a Dreadful Sentence, featuring Gina Gray and DCI Scott, a twelve-year-old girl is killed, pushed down the stairs at her home and beaten over the head with a golf club. Scott leads the investigation and finds himself crossing paths again with Gina, a university lecturer, linguistics expert, harassed daughter, mother and grandmother, and all-round know-all and busybody. Gina’s daughter, Ellie, was the dead girl’s teacher and when the police suspect her of involvement in the murder, Gina steps into the fray and launches her own parallel investigation. What she lacks in forensic evidence and IT wizardry she makes up for in linguistic acuteness, an extensive network of informants and sheer chutzpah. Scott is determined that she will be kept well away from the inquiry but a serious attempt on her life persuades him to work with her again and together they bring the case to a startling conclusion. Gina’s view of the world is often comic but the crime she unravels is as wicked as it is possible to be. Penny cites Susan Hill and Kate Atkinson among her inspirations. ‘I love murder mysteries,’ she says, ‘but there aren’t enough good female detectives, and those there are fail to convince as having the kinds of lives most women lead. There’s not enough multi-tasking!’
Book 3 – One May Smile
Struggling, as ever, with the demands of work, family and a precarious love life, Gina Gray finds herself in the world of Scandinavian noir. A trip with students to perform Hamlet in Denmark, at the very castle where Shakespeare sets the play, starts out as an adventure: ‘I like young people, I like Hamlet, I have a predilection in favour of Denmark as a rational, civilised not-too-hot country,’ she tells us. What could possibly go wrong?
Almost everything, as it turns out. At the last minute, Gina has to take her three-year-old granddaughter, Freda, with her, David Scott, her ‘boyfriend, partner, lover or significant other’ breaks off contact and the student group turns out to be seething with neurosis, envy, conflict and soured relationships. Even before the first death, Gina is wishing she could go home… but when one of the students dies in a car crash and the local police suspect foul play, she is drawn into the investigation.
As other attacks follow and Gina stumbles towards the truth, hidden deep in Hamlet itself, police suspicion lights on her and a murderer’s net closes in around her. I could come over, David Scott texts. No need, she replies. Can she really cope alone?
Book 4 – Weep a While Longer
‘I saw them,’ I say. ‘I saw them this afternoon.’ And then, stupidly, ‘How can they be dead?’
The fourth in a series of crime novels featuring Gina Gray and DCI David Scott, Weep A While Longer sets cosy Middle England against a dark crime.
Picking up her granddaughter from nursery one summer afternoon, Gina Gray notices a mother and child with a dog. A few hours later she sees their faces on the TV screen, victims of a brutal murder. DCI David Scott, Gina’s semi-detached partner, is determined to keep her out of the investigation but nothing can prevent her from witnessing the case’s terrifying dénouement.
The murder case is not the only thing preoccupying her, however. Her mother, her granddaughter, her job, her house invaded by her daughter’s student friends, the costumes for open air Shakespeare in the Minster grounds and, not least, her relationship with David Scott, all combine to distract her. As the police pursue the killer, Gina’s life at work and at home is running out of control. When the crash comes, just how bad will it be?
Book 5 – Drown My Books
If she disappeared on Monday night, more than three days ago, without her phone or her toothbrush, then she is dead, isn’t she?
The narrative follows the story of Gina Gray, a woman who is disappointed by work, love and life. She has settled on a bleak stretch of the Kent coast where she walks her surly dog, coaches unpromising A-level students and teaches English to asylum seekers in Dover, whose stories break her heart. The one bright spot in her life is the community library and the book group she organises; however, on one grim February morning, her dog finds a body on the beach and her source of comfort turns into her biggest threat…
Alarmingly, Gina learns that the dead woman is the second member of the book group to be killed, making Gina convinced that the book group is being targeted. DI Paula Powell, the lead of the police investigation, also happens to be Gina’s old rival in love, and Powell breaks the news that the killer is believed to be among Gina’s class of asylum seekers. With or without the help of DI Paula Powell, Gina has to move fast to find the truth. Could it be one of her asylum-seeker students who she admires so much that is actually a cold-blooded murderer?
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