I'm deducting the half star for the suggestion at the very end that there might not be enough evidence to charge the murderer - it seemed to me that there was plenty. ( )

An author who relishes words and uses them both soundly and amusingly and without intruding on the story is an increasingly rare find. My liking of the Bill Slider mysteries is 90% about the often whimsical turn of phrase; I bet friends of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles envy her readiness with the witty pun.

The other 10% of my enjoyment of these books is that Harrod-Eagles has created a rarity in crime-fiction - a detective who does not fold softly into stereotypical obscurity, or have any outstandingly obvious reasons why he shouldn't. Slider reads like an ordinary, dogged bloke who has a job to do, and who is given to flashes of insight, often brought about by sheer accumulation of information. His home life and troubles are painted in enough detail to matter, instead of becoming a background murmur of stock hero-woes. His partner, too, is not blatantly side-kick material - slightly swifter than Slider, though a little less wise, and a little less dull on hungover mornings. The plots move steadily, the mysteries are sound, and the peripheral characters not glossed over.

This book, like all of the Bill Slider mysteries, is outstanding on its own, without aid of astonishing contrived endings, or characters with momentous issues. A crime fiction novel to be genuinely liked and which takes it's place happily beside its preceding tales. ( )