The Suffocating Night by Andrew TaylorMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A London reporter comes to Lydmouth, hoping to sell an article to one of the London papers about the families squatting in a disused army camp after they were evicted from their homes in the local slums. To their faces he is friendly and sympathetic but in reality he intends to slant his piece very firmly towards those who want to evict the families.
Against the backdrop of the war in Korea and the era of McCarthy, there is a fear/hatred of communism running through even small towns like Lydmouth.
When the reporter is found dead in his room at the Bathurst Arms there is a plethora of suspects. Could it be Jill Francis' boss and friend Philip Wemyss-Brown who 'fought' very briefly against Franco in the Spanish Civil War? Could it be one of the evictees, angry at the way they were portrayed and betrayed? Could it be the landlady of the Bathurst Arms who was seen getting very cosy with him in the bar after hours by her step-daughter?
Together and separately, Jill and DI Richard Thornhill investigate the murder, while Richard's wife's Uncle Bernie lobbies for the police to re-open the cold-case of a young teenager who went missing three years ago.
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