The Vanishing of Dr Winter (Posie Parker Mystery, #4) by L.B. Hathaway

The Vanishing of Dr Winter (Posie Parker Mystery, #4) Reviews

• 
  Belinda

  4 stars -English Ebook 🦋🦋🦋🦋
  Mystery, murder, a female detective around World war I and the twenties. I liked it and want to read more by this author. 🦋🌷⭐️🌹
• 
  Voirrey

  Interesting to learn more of Posie's background and the plot was interesting.
  
  But oh how Ms Hathaway annoys me with her assumptions about life in the 1920s - in the first couple of pages we have Posie buying chocolates by the kilo - when the shift from pounds and ounces only began, slowly, in the 1970s and 1980s, and chocolates were still being sold by the ounce in many places until it became mandatory for it, along with other foodstuffs sold loose, to be sold in grams in 2000.
  
  Oh - and a ring where Posie describes the central sapphire as being the size of a penny - which in the 1920s, pre decimalisation, would have made it over an inch in diameter - actually 31mm, I know as I have just taken 30 seconds to look it up. And something tells me the writer was thinking of a current 1p piece - not even the first 1p piece which was between the two....
  
  I don't think I can cope with any more of the series as the mistakes pull me out of the story over and over again.
• 
  Tanya Marlow

  I’m a huge fan of this cosy crime series, set in the 1920s. This one was a little different to the others -a missing person rather than a murder, and lots of flashbacks to the First World War. For me it was really interesting to think about how the First World War would have impacted the mood of the 1920s, and it was another great Posie Parker story, this time set in Cambridge. I love love love this series – check them all out – they’re so reasonably priced.
• 
  Leslie

  While I enjoyed the mystery and the historical fiction, once again Hathaway put my back up with the introduction of a touch of the supernatural.
• 
  Sarah Zama

  The Vanishing of Dr Winter by L.B. Hathaway is the fourth instalment in the Posie Parker mystery series but it works perfectly also on its own. There is a sense of a bigger picture, since the cast of clearly recurring characters all have a history, which is moving and will probably bring some development in future instalments. Posie herself has an ongoing search for the truth about the mysterious sadness of her brother Richard before he left Cambringe for WWI. But all in all this one instalment dealing with Posie’s past on the French front sustains itself perfectly.
  
  The story follows two different plots, the one about this one novel, regarding the disappearance of dr Winter during the war, and a separate one regarding Richard’s mysterious last years in Cambridge before he too left for war, where he lost his life. These are both interesting plots, though I think that Richard’s is a bit more involving, maybe because it’s more personal to Posie.
  Dr Winter’s plot is straightforward enough and it presents a couple of repeated ideas that made the events a bit more predictable. But I still enjoyed both threads.
  
  Richard’s thread then offers a supernatural twist at the end that I really never saw coming in a story that – though starting with discussion of ghosts – never seemed to go down that way. Still it didn’t jerk me because the overall atmosphere of the story was very ethereal, with a great working into the mood of that particular British winter atmosphere of rain and darkness and mist. I really like that, and I think it set out the possibility of a supernatural twist even if the story was not supernatural at all.
  
  Overall, it was a very nice Christmas read. I found the recurring cast endearing. I think I’ll read more if I’ll have the chance.
  
• 
  Leslie

  This is another series that I am reading out of order but I did learn I already own book 1 so there is hope for me yet.
  
  This is simply a fabulous book, not necessarily because of the mystery but because of the history. Set 4 years after the end of the "Great War" Posie Parker (Rosemary) is a PI working in London. When she travels to Oxford for a memorial service she encounters a woman who she served with at a casualty station in France in December of 1917. The woman has a case, and perhaps a ghost. Posie reluctantly accepts the case and starts investigating.
  
  The book contains flash backs to life during wartime. It also slaps you in the face with the reality of the massive number of war dead and the ramifications of their deaths. In hind sight the amount of familial reaction seems excessive but it could be realistic. Posie lost her brother in the war and her father never recovered from the shock.
  
  This was wonderful and the author shares her research in the appendix.
• 
  Richard

  Posie is a delightful character and I love the series both for her and the settings, 1920s London. This one takes place near Christmas 1922, and has flashbacks to the great War during which the story has roots.
• 
  Jodi Kauble

  3.5 stars
• 
  Amanda Jane

  This is better but..
  
  .. the irritation is still there because once again historical facts are being moved to suit the author.. they actually don't have any impact on the story so it appears that it's some kind of inbuilt issue she has with sticking to the facts. Unfortunately this then causes misinformation within the general public who will state it as fact because "I read it somewhere." As a living historian I spend much of my time trying to unpick these false beliefs.. there were no dogs on ambulance crews in the great war.. they started during WWII.
  
  It gives nothing to the story to include it, it takes nothing away to miss it out.. in fact it ads to a novel when an era is captured accurately. So far every book has had issues like this and it doesn't significantly affect any of the stories.. so it appears to be a willful ignorance of the effects of misrepresenting an era.
  
  It's not the made up ship, it's not the made up restaurant or hostel it's the altering the dates of significant events or actions.. she might as well have written a Tudor mystery with fingerprint evidence..
• 
  Michelle Hartman

  A fast moving cozy hardly worth the money that trade sizes require. Alas, the loss of paperbacks really makes you look at the worth of a book. The plot and setting were good, the writing itself leaves a lot to be desired. First, the alterative names Posie Parker, Felicity Fyne, are reminiscent of Stan Lee's, Peter Parker and Reed Richards. A comic book trick in an adult novel seems to stick out.
  
  Second, the protagonist had a very limited vocabulary, using words like golly, which were too young for the character, and not very professional. And her "bread is bread" remark became redundant by the end of the book. In general, the writing was prosaic, with the same adjectives being used in two sentences in a row, and whole paragraphs with every sentence starting with the same word. Many words were jarring, and seemed out of sync with the times. For example near the end, Posie tells the blackmailer to stop "hassling" her victims. The word form hassling did not come into common usage until the 1940's according to Webster's.
  
  There was never any real danger, and events seemed to fall synchronistically together. In summation the book was trite, and a waste of money.
• 
  Sheila

  Four and a half stars. I really enjoyed this view into Posie Parkers past. The interplay between the Great War and its survivors and its victims, and the aftermath of the war was well done. Looking forward to the next in the series!
• 
  Debbie

  Excellent addition to the Posie Parker series!
  A lot of background information we didn't have before, including Posie's war years, and many twists and turns!
  Highly recommend!
• 
  Belinda Vlasbaard

  4,35 stars- English Ebook
  
  This is the fourth Posie Parker book. After breaking up with Len in the second book, and being alone in the office for the part of the third when she was in London, Len is back as a partner in their detective agency. Do now he’s married and has a baby he’s devoted to. They also have a full-time secretary-receptionist named Prudence, who’s something of a piece of work but useful enough to be worth her pay.
  
  Posie is called in by an old acquaintance, though they’d been more enemies than friends when they worked together in a medical group during the Great War. Felicity Fyne had been the senior nurse for the group, and Posie had been an ambulance driver. Both had been lucky enough to be away from the medical tent when a German heavy shell hit it squarely and killed everyone else in the group. But Felicity had been at Cambridge for the funeral of Dr. Rolly, who had also been part of the group but had been assigned elsewhere before the disaster, and was sure she’d seen Dr. Winter, whom she’d been married to a couple of months before the disaster. And he was supposed to have been killed, although admittedly there weren’t enough remains left to be sure all the bodies had been properly identified. Guess everyone didn’t wear dog-tags then the way they did in Hitler’s War. At least, US soldiers did. So anyhow, Felicity wants Posie to see if she can find out whether she’d seen a ghost or if Dr. Winter had survived.
  
  And so begins a very complicated tale. I enjoy this series; the prose is decent, the plots are complex, and I like the character of Posie and the other characters.
• 
  Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews

  This historical mystery is a well-written story with delightful characters. Posie Parker is a nurse during World War I. While on duty in Europe, she meets an interesting group of co-workers, including Dr Winter who is engaged to a nice girl. Suddenly, the doctor breaks off his engagement and rushes into marriage with a stunning nurse, Felicity, working with him.
  
  There is an explosion, killing almost the entire medical team, but Posie is safe. She finds herself in the 1920s working now as a private detective. Felicity surprises her and hires her. Supposedly, Dr Winter was killed in the explosion, but Felicity swears she saw him recently. Also, she’s being blackmailed. She wants Posie to look into the supposed death of the doctor and to find out who is demanding money from her.
  
  This sets the clever Posie on the trail. She doesn’t particularly like Felicity, and she wasn’t crazy about the doctor, but she’s a professional and gets to work.
  
  Her adventures in England have Posie asking many questions as confusion builds, but her encounters are enlightening. At times, her life is in grave danger, and readers will wonder how she will get out of certain situations. Characters are easy to like or dislike in this tale, and details of place and time add much to the story. This is a good story with surprises that will keep a reader guessing.
• 
  Bobbiann Markle

  The story was interesting; I like WWI stories and I was glad to see that Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (an excellent memoir) was suggested for further reading.
  
  But such a strange lack of editing! A page-long telegram and another somewhat chatty one; court-marshalled (should be court-martialled); "sure as bread is bread" about three times in chapter 4 and several times thereafter; at sunrise "the sun burned angrily at it's very centre": how can the sun be at the centre of the sky at sunrise?; the oxymoron "almost exactly" is used a couple times; gunnels instead of gunwales (although I realize this spelling is becoming more accepted); an 8- or 9-year-old child calls Posy a "funny lady" for no apparent reason--this seems rather rude; Inspector Oats assumes the blackmailer is a "she" although Posy didn't say so; two people begin sentences with "Mnnn" on the same page but never again in the whole book; Posy's father, Dr. Winters' mother, and Helena's mother all have strokes or something upon hearing terrible news; and I have no idea what is silver-lacked holly and mistletoe.
• 
  moxieBK

  The Vanishing of Dr. Winter (Posie Parker Mystery # 4)— L.B. Hathaway/Narrator: Clare Wille (dated chapters of 4 titled parts + titled Epilogue) March 21, 2023
  
  While her relationship becomes strained with Alaric, Posie is approached by a former nemesis from the Great War; she swears she has seen her dead husband, or was it a ghost?
  
  This is a great story in that it fills in the background of Posie and her work in the Great War and of the tings that happened that forever changed her life.
  
  She also is on a quest to find out what happened to her dear brother who was killed on a mission.
  
  Wonderful backstory and development of Posie’s character. I really enjoyed this story.
  
  I listened to this a 2.0 speed and the wonderful Clare Wille’s narrative voice was not distorted at all. There was a little bit or paranormal in this story. I will be interested to see if this continues going forward.
  
  Five stars.
• 
  J.L. Rallios

  A fun cozy mystery in which Posie Parker helps a WWI acquaintance in finding out if her husband, a surgeon on the same unit in which they worked, was indeed killed during a bombing raid. The mystery was good, but the resolution of the added mystery of a blackmailing scheme behind all of this stretched my credibility too far. There were some grammatical errors, but nothing truly horrible. I liked the characters overall. The settings, although detailed, did not jump out at me. I seldom felt I was "there." Still, an enjoyable read, and I would not be adverse in the least to read more from this author.
• 
  Sheri Dumire-Hamilton

  An entertaining mystery in a series that I enjoy. The protagonist, Posie Parker, is not your typical 1920's woman. She is independent, runs her own business, and doesn't define herself in terms of her male partner.
  
  This story, with its flashback to Posie's experiences during WWI, provides more insight into Posie as a character. The primary mystery, who is blackmailing an individual that Posie knows from the war, is intriguing. The secondary story, which is related to Posie's brother (killed in the war), is very touching.
  
  I noted that some reviewers complained about certain discrepancies in the timeline, etc. but I am not as knowledgeable about the period so I did not notice them.
  
  Although this is the 4th in a series, it could be read as a standalone story.
• 
  Barbara Linton

  I agree with other reviewers that the phrase ‘Sure as bread is bread’ gets really annoying when it is used over and over again. And was it a phrase from England in the 1920s? The modern phrases the author uses don’t bother me as much as they do other reviewers. For me, they make the dialogue more relevant ..even if phrases and fashion change, people are people. However, there is something one dimensional about these early books. I don’t really get a good sense of what any of the characters are really like. The writing isn’t bad, but the character development leaves me cold. The later books are much better so maybe the author just needs to find her rhythm.