Oxford, 1960. There's a murderer on the loose and two unlikely heroes are poised to solve the case. Meet Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday – smart, enthusiastic and always underestimated.
In
the hope of getting her out of the way, Trudy’s senior officer assigns
her to help coroner Clement Ryder as he re-opens the case of a young
woman's death. She can't believe her luck – she is actually going to be
working on a real murder case.
Meanwhile, the rest of the police
force are busy investigating a series of threats and murders in the
local community and Clement can't help but feel it's all linked. As
Trudy and Clement form an unlikely partnership, are they going to be
the ones to solve these crimes before the murderer strikes again ?
This novel is the beginning of a new to me series, halfway between Miss Marple and Inspector Morse. It takes place in the swinging 60s and introduces us to two characters :
- First, Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday who entered the police against her family wishes ; she wants to become a sergeant and, even if she's not against marrying and have a family, she is in no hurry. Something that her coworkes and superior officers find strange.
- Second, meet Dr Clement Ryder, ex-surgeon now coroner due to a deterioration of his health. He told noone but he has Parkinson's disease. He's an honest and straightforward man who doesn't comply with certain police methods : people respect his personality but eye him with circonspection. He usually gets what he wants and in this novel, he wants to reopen an old case that might be related to a new case.
Those two work well together. They're weary at the beginning but their respect in each other's capacities is growing and at the end of the book, we know they'll be working together again - much to our pleasure.
It's a very nice and fun cosy mystery set in a time period I'm not used to reading about. I'll happily continue reading this series.
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