Review: Murder at the Country Fair

Murder at the Country Fair by Merryn Allingham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Flora and Jack Carrington are husband and wife, she owns and runs a bookshop in their little town of Abbeymead while Jack writes detective novels, they also one way or another assist the local Police in solving what have been an astonishing number of murders for a sleepy area of West Sussex.

Gilbert Barrow gave up a lucrative, if frenetic, career in the City for the life of a rural cheesemaker and had some considerable success, winning several awards, until his life was tragically cut short, killed by one of his own cheeses when his van crashes on the way to the country fair. After getting over the shock of seeing a dead man slumped over the steering wheel, Flora notices that the webbing which should have held the giant cheese wheel in place seems to have been cut ... which makes it murder.

Despite Gilbert apparently being a lovely chap, always willing to help out other people, it seems as though there could be any number of people who would benefit from his death, including his estranged wife Vivienne, his current girlfriend Lily, the representative of a rival dairy conglomerate, Reginald, and his cousin Bea who thinks Gilbert cheated her out of an inheritance.

Jack's solicitor friend Sam had known Gilbert for years and begs jack to investigate, particularly because it seems that Inspector Ridley is a close golfing buddy of Gilbert's rival.

I think this series has found its feet, the historical references are more organic (eg the reference to the new traffic wardens). Whilst still behaving with gay abandon while investigating, Flora and Jack do seem to follow the clues and use deductive reasoning. I can't wait to see where the next book is set.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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