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Oliver Tidy
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Particular Stupidities (The Romney And Marsh Files Book 5) Kindle Edition

by Oliver Tidy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,140 ratings
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A rotting corpse is discovered in one of Kent’s old coal mining communities. In their search to uncover the identities of the victim and those responsible for the death and concealment of the body, DI Romney and his team must confront and deal with issues of prejudice, bias, loyalty and betrayal (and that’s just amongst themselves).

The fifth Romney and Marsh File sees Dover CID taken to the outskirts of their jurisdiction, the edge of reason and the brink of self-destruction.

***

The Romney and Marsh Files now number six (nearly seven). They don’t have to be read in order; they do all work as stand-alone novels. However, to get the most out of each it is recommended that they are consumed in the order in which they were prepared, a bit like the courses of a good meal. (Who wants to eat ice-cream before a bowl of soup?)

Here are the books of the series in order:

#1 Rope Enough
#2 Making a Killing
#3 Joint Enterprise
#4 A Dog’s Life
#5 Particular Stupidities
#6 Unhappy Families
#7 A White-Knuckle Christmas (In production.)

***
Previous page
  1. Book 5 of 7
    The Romney and Marsh Files
  2. Print length
    290 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    July 30, 2015
  6. File size
    3997 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0105YO1F0
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ ; 1st edition (July 30, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 30, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3997 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 290 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,140 ratings

About the author

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Oliver Tidy

Oliver Tidy

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Oliver Tidy writes mostly crime and thriller novels.

He lives on Romney Marsh, Kent.

To discover more about the books he's written either check out his Amazon page or visit olivertidy.com

The books are written in British English.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
1,140 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Connield
5.0 out of 5 stars Everything is not pretty - you see the strengths and weaknesses of many ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
Romney and Marsh have returned and the result is not disappointing. #5 in the series of their adventures and misadventures can be read as a stand alone mystery, but having read the first four, their continued character development is apparent. It is a British police procedural presented with a mixture of humor and drama. A feeling for the guilty party comes fairly early but with many side tracks en route to the ending. Romney continues to be a bit of curmudgeon, bright in his reasoning but with common foibles which continue to cause him difficulties. Marsh, his Detective Sergeant partner, grows in character and personality here and it is welcome to see her come into her own in the department.

Oliver Tidy's writing continues to present a well written book with very few editorial slips. He describes the Dover area, the police station and other locales, and the characters with detail and depth. The reader is able to get into the story quickly and escape into the activities of the main players. Everything is not pretty - you see the strengths and weaknesses of many of the players. It is agreed that the extended vocalizing of the detective with dental work became a bit tedious, but that is the only real complaint. All in all, a delightful read, a return visit with some old acquaintances, and a highly recommended book.

This writer is a bit befuddled as to why there are not more readers of the offerings of Oliver Tidy - consistently well done and enjoyable.
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Charmed Cookie
4.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining read but with no "aha" and a few "particular stupidities".
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2015
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This is the fifth in Oliver Tidy's Romney and Marsh police procedural series, and it's an entertaining, but not spectacular, read. I've read all but the first book in the series, and each held my interest until the end, but without that satisfying "aha" moment that I get at the conclusion of a really great mystery. Particular Stupidities is no exception: the story is amusingly revealed but without building a foundation of facts with which the reader could, if clever enough, reasonably deduce the solution. I much prefer to be engaged in actually in solving the mystery as I'm reading, following all the clues and figuring out which are red herrings and which are truly relevant. Unfortunately, few current authors follow this model - where are all the new Agatha Christies and Arthur Conan Doyles? Without giving away the entire plot, I can say that in Particular Stupidities the identity of the perpetrator pretty much comes out of left field with little, if any, development of the character or interesting motivation for the crime. That said, I'm still giving this 4 stars because the story was mildly humorous, and the series' characters continue to be developed, although Romney continues to be beset with "particular stupidities" when reaching his final conclusions, as he has been in the previous books in the series.

Unfortunately, I found a couple "particular stupidities" perpetrated by the author to be very annoying. In one story thread, a member of the CID unit has a temporary mouth problem leaving him with a speech impediment. This was kind of funny at first, but the author carried on the joke waaay too long. During fully half of the book, this detective's dialogue - and there was a fair amount of it - was written in the author's conception of phonetic spelling. A typical example: "shcwap bushinesh chwishe". Multiply that a hundredfold and you will get some idea of how this could break the flow of the storyline. I found it tiresome to be continually trying to figure out what the heck the detective was saying, and in each bit of dialogue there were always several words that were frankly indecipherable. I got the gist of what he was trying to say, but perhaps missed that all-important clue that would have allowed me to figure out the murderer, ha ha! In another story thread, unimportant to the actual plot, the author coyly tries to mislead the reader with allusions to a mysterious female in Romney's life. While the identity of the mystery girl is revealed at the end, I thought from the beginning that it was obvious the author was dropping hints that I was meant to misinterpret. Although the existence of this person was somewhat illuminating in regards to Romney's character development, the obvious attempts to manipulate the reader were clumsy and distracting.

Despite these few flaws, I'm recommending this book because it absorbed and entertained me, and I will no doubt read the next book in the series. I probably have graded this a bit too easily with 4 stars, but am giving a little extra credit because this is a self-published ebook and I think this genre, without professional editors and proofreaders, should be cut a little slack.
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Bkrdr?6
5.0 out of 5 stars Another good read in company of DI Romney and Sgt. Marsh.
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2020
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These books are well written and have well thou

The author has created likeable characters and provides them with imaginative puzzles to solve. There is a bit of humor too. For those who like police and detective stories that offer good mysteries this series should be a good choice.
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Robert C. Rettke
5.0 out of 5 stars More than enough "particular stupidities" to go around and Romney has a goodly share.
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
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In this fifth Romney and Marsh police procedural the author continues to show us two main characters and their situations, warts and all, pluses and minuses. These are not super cops. There are even welcome hints to the three-dimensionality of some of the supporting and minor characters. The mystery is solved by a combination of good police work and chance discoveries. For me, the main story was that D I Romney's minuses seemed to be overwhelming his pluses and an officer and a man. Without giving away too much, I'll just say that bad decisions based on his particular stupidities caused bad things to happen to three other people who had done nothing to deserve them and could have ended his own and perhaps other careers. Fortunately, there is some effective and much appreciated humor to balance the inevitable gloominess of realistic description of crime and people affected by it. As a retired teacher (and teacher of teachers), I enjoyed the descriptions of the riotous behavior of young children at change of classes and recess -- I've seen things very like those described. I also enjoyed Romney's neat twist on the multiple intelligences theory of Harvard's Howard Gardner which I still have in my library. I'm already looking forward to the next book, although Dover is credited with many more homicides than actually occur. The whole UK has a homicide total less than that of a medium-sized American city.
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bobby
3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the other books.
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2015
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I have read all the Romney and Marsh books and always enjoyed them and found them quite humerous. Unfortunately I did not enjoy this latest book as much. I found it dragged a bit and found it most annoying trying to decipher what Grimes was saying without his teeth in! I don't think that was necessary. I found also that Romney got on my nerves a bit this time. A good twist though at the end. However, I will still buy another book if it came out as the other books were good.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Brecon
5.0 out of 5 stars Tolle Krimireihe
Reviewed in Germany on June 24, 2020
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Ich mag die Serien und hab jedes gelesen, warte auf weitere, aber leider noch keine neuen nach Buch 7 erschienen. Empfehlenswert! Gut geschrieben.
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S. E. Walsh
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2018
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Half-way through the first Romney and Marsh novel, 'Rope Enough', I decided to download the remaining six books in the series. I enjoyed all of them; the characters are well drawn, the writing crisp, with lots of amusing and sometimes laugh-out-loud moments. 'Particular Stupidities' is my favourite; I love that theory. I've since read his one-off novel 'Cold Kills' and his book of short stories 'The Crime Writer'. I have also downloaded the three in the Booker and Cash series, and the four in the Acer Sansom series. Can’t wait to finish my Book Group book to get started on them. Oliver should be far better known than he is.
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DMG
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read!
Reviewed in Canada on September 17, 2015
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I have read all the books in this series and I have enjoyed reading them immensely. The author has developed characters that are so real you want to know what happens to them from book to book. His books are very interesting and are hard to put down once you start reading them!
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Caroline REGNIE
5.0 out of 5 stars Particular stupidities est passionnant, au fil des livres les personnages se révèlent et ne tournent pas forcément comme on pens
Reviewed in France on March 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
Particular stupidities est le 5ème livre d'Olivier Tidy je le trouve meilleur de livre en livre, ai beaucoup apprécié son sens de l'humour, on a hâté de connaître la fin du livre excellent merci
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shirley
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Australia on August 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
Romney and Marsh series another winner. All reasonably priced. Kept me intrigued.
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