Happy weekend everyone! I hope wherever you are, it has been an excellent weekend. I am a very person this week as I am now on leave for a week and boy do I need a rest. We haven't especially got any plans, apart from a wedding of one of my oldest bookselling chums next weekend, but in my crystal ball, I am seeing a bit of sorting and of course lots of reading.

Read my review of A Surprise for Christmas

I am cracking through Les Miserables with @fictionaddictionangela over on Insta, but may treat myself by having a mini-break from 19th Century France with a bit of Miss Read. Jigsaws also beckon, and I use this time to listen to an audiobook. At the moment I am listening to September by Rosamunde Pilcher. Todays review is actually a book I read early in the New Year and its part of the marvellous British Crime Library series that feature quite often on the blog.

The Plot

The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen spends his evenings reading Detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should fall across his seaside parish. But when the Vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius R+Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate is found at his home in Boscawen with a bullet through his head.

The local police officer is baffled by the complete absence of clues. Luckily for Instepctor Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is on hand and ready to put his keen understanding of the criminal mind to the test.

My Thoughts

As you already know I adore the British Library Crime Classics, a series of books republished into beautiful classic paperbacks, in this case featuring a cover depicting a classic holiday poster of Cornwall.

And this lies at its heart - a classic murder from a golden age of crime fiction.

The landscape is beautiful and Bude has captured atmospheric Cornwall and seek to play her as a means to a rather grisly end. Walks are taken, the sea crashes against the cliff, the views tremendous and a man is murdered.

Reverend Dodd is a benevolent investigator. Perfectly happy to let the experts get on with things, but through gentle conversation and with a duty of care to his parishioners, aids the wheels of crime solving.

The crime is clever, and with one of the key suspects mssing, provides ups and downs with dead ends and red herrings aplenty. All in all, this is an enjoyable read, full of fun (even with a murder) and with a likeable amateur sleuth.

I will be back on Friday, with a very important person, my first guest reviewer and she is a very special lady.

See you then!