What the "Critics" have to say!!

Winding Up The Serpent

Scaring Crows

“A mystery that is excellently constructed; easy to follow with believable characters and with a descriptive style that places you actually in the setting where the action is taking place. . . As the novel begins, the atmosphere is beautifully captured of an early July morning with a mischievous starling able to mimic the farmer's whistle used to attract the assembly of cows with bloated udders.” Shropshire Star

“The riddle of the alibi will make you laugh. The solution will break your heart.” The Jerusalem Post

“Set in the isolated English countryside of Staffordshire Scaring Crows is a masterpiece of crime fiction.” female
detective.com

“For followers of Priscilla Masters’ Joanna Piercy series Scaring Crows is a welcome fifth adventure. . . By all
accounts British fans have been happily shocked by Crows which spins a dark yarn about the shotgun murder-suicide
of a farmer and his son.” The Ottowa Citizen

“The solution which becomes inescapable when Ruthie turns up comes like a bolt from clear skies” The Sunday Times

“A fine crime cracker from Masters.” Peterborough Evening Telegraph

“Classy Whodunnit” Bolton Evening News

“The denouement of Scaring Crows is a deeply accomplished surprise. Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy penetrates
the secrets of this dysfunctional family and its few friends to come up with a stunning solution.” Gerald Kaufman The
Scotsman

Embroidering Shrouds

“When I read Scaring Crows I thought I'd like to get to know these characters better. I was right. Well plotted and
wonderfully moody, this is a fine weekend read.” I love a mystery.

“The threads of this intriguing plot are skilfully woven, both reflecting today's society, where the elderly are fearful of
violence and the simple act of closing curtains at night make their fear and vulnerability a little less, and a mystery
which is embedded in the past.” Shropshire Star

“A good workmanlike tale; plenty of interesting characters and their relationships; lots of local colour, and an
elegantly prepared twist in its tail.” Birmingham Post

“A crime puzzle simply packed with drama.” Northern Echo

A fine British writer. An equally deft mixture of life in a small town with the kinds of crime that Christie couldn't abide
- actual bloody murders performed by working-class people. Chicago Tribune

A Wreath For My Sister

“There is no better exponent of the female detective novel in England than Priscilla Masters.”  female detective. com

And None Shall Sleep

“A straightforward detective story. . .an absorbing story which keeps us guessing to the very end”  Tangled Web

Catch the Fallen Sparrow

Endangering Innocents

"A hard book to put down.On all counts, it is a compelling but sad tale of our times." Reviewing the Evidence

"Masters has a couple of tricks up her sleeve ... and Inspector Piercy is left with far more problems than she could
have imagined." Mike Ripley's Crime Fie Birmingham Post

"Gripping read from a Master detective" Sentinel Sunday

"Endangering Innocents is a tense thriller, told in Masters' usual fluent and unfussy style, enabling the story to unfold
at a swift but not hurried pace. The characters are identifiable and credible. Ultimately the most chilling aspect of
Endangering Innocents is that it's all really very believable." Sherlock Magazine

"Relationships with children are at the heart of the seventh novel featuring DI Joanna Piercy. At the start of the book,
when she attends a family christening, she is firm in the view that she doesn't want to start a family of her own. But her attitudes come under pressure as the story develops. Meanwhile, a man called Josh Baldwin is watching the small
children at a school in the village of Horton. He takes a special interest in a troubled little girl called Madeleine. But
when the girl goes missing, Baldwin becomes the prime suspect.

The setting is rural Staffordshire at the time of the foot and mouth crisis in 2001, a time when 'the Prime Minister was
busily delivering pre-election speeches assuring his voters that the countryside was open for business.' As the bleak
resolution to Masters' story, in which the disease plays a part, illustrates, that was far from the truth. This is a moving
story, probably the darkest so far from the pen of this writer, and it is likely to stay in the memory of those who read it
for a long time."  On Tangled Web : Martin Edwards - author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries
 

Harriet is disturbed to find that one of her creepy patients, Pritchard, who lives with his mother in a tin hut in the
middle of the same forest, was a suspect in the little girl's disappearance. She is even more disturbed to find that he is the caretaker at the school where her own daughter is a pupil. And then one night her pager flashes a message.
Melanie Carnforth needs a doctor. The address given is Pritchard's.

Reviews: “What a magnificent novel is Night Visit. It demonstrates a combination of the highest technical
mystery-writing skills with a real feeling for life in a small, country town.

Almost alone among her contemporaries, Masters has mastered the application of powerful imagery in a female
detective novel. In Scaring Crows she uses the device of the birds to link the various parts of her story together, while here, in Night Visit, the visual theme is a particular species of poisonous fungus.” female detective.com

“We shall not miss Joanna Piercy if all non-Piercy books are as good as this.” Tangled Web
 

A Fatal Cut set in a teaching hospital in Birmingham, opening in an operating theatre where the surgeon is unfit to
work. Nobody stops him.

Years later medical students, late for lectures, stumble across a body, wrapped in a clinical waste bag, dumped on the
hospital grounds. But when Karys Harper performs a post mortem she finds the killer has performed surgery after
death.

As the body count mounts, each one with a different incision, the killer honing his skill and performing ever more
ambitious surgery, Karys finds herself forced to work with an old acquaintance, Barney Lewisham, now a pompous
and arrogant forensic psychiatrist and she is forced to turn around and face her own past.

Reviews: “A second gripping mystery.” The Shropshire Star

“This is a very atmospheric and tense book.” Shots Reviews

“Something of a small masterpiece of crime writing. Not just for the chilling conceit at the heart of the story but also  for the understated yet extremely effective characterisation which is the lynchpin of the story.” Sherlock Holmes
 

Disturbing Ground set in the valleys of South Wales this is a story about the blurred line between sanity and insanity. Inspired by a quote from Herman Melville. “Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet ends and
the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the color, but where exactly does the first one visibly enter in to the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some cases, in
various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the line of demarkation few will undertake.”

From her surgery window Doctor Megan Banesto, a native herself of the valleys,  witnesses the body of a paranoid
schizophrenic patient being dragged from a coal-stained pond.

But as Megan recalls some of Bianca's more bizarre claims she begins to wonder. What if some of them were true?
What if everyone rationalised strange occurrences while Bianca was the one with true perception?

Reviews: “This is a moody, evocative piece, with an appealingly flawed amateur sleuth and lots of idiosyncratic folks.
A spot to visit but not to love in. Highly recommended.” I love a mystery

“Disturbing Ground highlights the legal, ethical, and practical ambiguities surrounding this issue (the role of the
general practitioner in cases of a patient's violent death). The book's most interesting turn is that the "soft" evidence
of the family doctor (whether the patient “would have” behaved in such a way) is - perhaps inevitably - trumped by
the “hard” evidence produced by the police and the pathologist. The former is subjective and impressionistic; the
latter can be itemised, weighed, measure, or examined down the microscope.” The British Medical Journal

“A powerful novel well anchored in contemporary events”. The Guardian

A fine British writer. Masters' own background as a practice nurse combines to excellent effect with her considerable
ability to turn cliche characters into recognizable human beings in the turn of a phrase. Chicago Tribune

A Plea Of Insanity

When Doctor Claire Roget took up her new post of clinical psychiatrist at Greatbach Secure Psychiatrist Unit in the midlands city of Stoke on Trent, she was replacing a predecessor who was brutally murdered in her office by one of the inmates. As Claire settles into her new job she becomes suspicious that someone other than the accused patient Stefan Giulio might be involved in the murder. The result of her inquiries is kidnapping, mayhem murder. A Plea Of Insanity is a superbly crafted British murder mystery of the first order and documents author Priscilla Masters as a first class storytelling talent in the genre. Highly recommended reading from beginning to end! From the Midwest Book Review, Reviewers' Choice
 

Reviews about the Martha Gunn series

"A twisty fictional story" Shropshire Star

"Not so much a whodunnit or a whydunnit but a how can we prove it." Literary Review Don't miss

"A well-crafted tale of psychological suspense, very character-driven and featuring an interesting protaganist with a unique profession who is just beginning to emerge from her personal grief cocoon and start to smell the roses." Carol Howell I Love a Mystery

"A difficult and unsettling book to read; there is heartbreak and remorse. The lenachol of the young, sensitive boy thrust into the pit of despair will touch the reader's heart." Lorraine Gelly I'm reveiwing the evidence.