Part of Series
In Flaxborough’s posh neighbouring village, Mumblesbury, the local solicitor, Richard Daspard Loughbury, has suddenly died. Natural causes it appears, but DI Purbright and the ever-helpful Miss Lucy Teatime are taken aback by the quality of Loughbury’s art collection – including a Paul Klee, a Corot, and even a fragment of the “True Cross”. All seem to have been acquired locally and the question of blackmail hangs in the air. Loughbury’s decidedly un-posh widow, Zoe, is less than grief-stricken, as are a cast of colourful characters from randy farmers to gin-soaked county types. Then, the recent suicide of a local farmer’s wife also begins to look questionable.
Author
Colin Watson was educated at the Whitgift School in South Croydon, London. During his career as a journalist he worked in London and Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he was a leader-writer for Kemsley Newspapers. His book Hopjoy Was Here (1962) received the Silver Dagger Award. He was married, with three children, and lived in Lincolnshire. After retiring from journalism he designed silver jewellery. As well as a series of humorous detective novels set in the imaginary town of Flaxborough, featuring Inspector Purbright, Watson also wrote and later revised a study of detective stories and thrillers called Snobbery with Violence.
