2008 mystery, second of the "Thorny" Deepbriar series. In rural
Yorkshire in 1957, Thorny the village bobby is still trying to get
into the CID. But his superiors want him walking the beat where he is.
He'll need to pull off an impressive feat of detection, but how can he
do that in a village where nothing much happens?
Of course, it does. Someone's setting mantraps on the local
paths. A women dies on the arterial road, hit by a lorry: but was it
suicide or misadventure? One of Deepbriar's childhood friends comes
back to the village, with his bride-to-be, but why is she so nervous?
The investigations progress, and things get more complex. Evidence
suggests that the mantraps were stolen by one of the guests at a
shoot, but they're all powers in the land, and even getting permission
to question them will be a challenge. The woman had received a
poison-pen letter, and others may have too, but how is the writer
getting the information?
We revisit some of the village characters from the previous book, and
introduce some new ones. Things gradually come together on the
man-trap matter, but the poison-pen looks as though it'll be more
intractable. There's some period detail too, such as the legislation
banning gin-traps that came into force in 1958 (perhaps mentioned
slightly too often, as Deepbriar has to keep explaining that these
man-traps that are turning up are already illegal).
This is mostly a slow-moving period piece, with fairly lightweight
characterisation that nonetheless gets the job done. The resolutions
of the cases are more satisfying than last time, though Rowden does
seem to be repeating some of her effects (there's another rich nasty
who can't be touched by the police, there's another big robbery that
will end up tying in to one of the cases, Deepbriar ends up in
hospital again, Deepbriar goes outside the limits of his authority in
sorting out a solution).
Still, it's an enjoyable work in a setting that's often neglected in
the rush to get from the Second World War to the Swinging Sixties.
Followed by More Deaths than One.
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