Inspector Proby's back... Proby has enough on his plate already, with a gang of violent burglars, storms and impending floods, and when eccentric local landowner Thomas Hatton demands police protection from a nameless ‘evil’, he is reluctant to indulge him. But then Lady Hatton is murdered (in the bedroom, with a doorstop) and Proby is called back to Hatton Abbey, where, marooned by the floods and with communications down, he must take part in a real-life game of Cluedo with a real live killer on the loose . . .

How do outwardly harmless and respectable individuals launch themselves onto the uncertain waves of bloody murder? Mourning the death of his wife, Detective Inspector Jim Proby gets an unexpected invitation to spend some quiet time at the home of childhood friend Mary Prideaux, now a wealthy landowner. But before he can take up the offer Mary is trampled to death by stampeding cattle. Now he must attend another funeral – and some claim she was murdered. Proby is promptly seconded to the local force and quickly discovers that a mining conglomerate is seeking to tunnel under the estate. Who else stands to gain and who to lose by Mary’s brutal demise? And how will Proby respond when he reconnects with old flames and enemies from his distant past? John Gano’s intriguing Inspector Proby Goes Back is the latest in his crime mystery series featuring the copper with a soul. It combines with poignant introspection and shrewd social observation.

The comforts of prayer are driven out by the daily horrors revealed through police work – the everyday cruelties, the squalor of human crime … A policeman’s lot is not a happy one. Detective Inspector Jim Proby has his hands full trying to discover who held the gun that shot a prison warder, an apparently harmless householder and even a bishop? There really does seem absolutely no connection between the three victims. Added to this he suspects his wife is having an affair. Even the ecclesiastical circles of Hampton are tainted with scandal as Proby finds out after the bishop is caught in flagrante delicto on church premises. And then another body is found. Can Proby overcome his own self-doubts and crack this numbing conundrum at the same time? Will his ever-reliable snout – a tramp on the streets – deliver the vital clues?