Samson
O’Brien left his hometown of Bruncliffe in the Yorkshire
Dales years ago to become a policeman. Working undercover
in London something went wrong, and now he is suspended pending
inquiries and back home. But he left under a cloud and people
don’t want him back; they don’t see the need for
a detective agency either. Meanwhile Delilah Metcalfe is trying
to keep her dating agency business running and unwittingly
takes Samson on as her tenant. Soon he is busy, as a local
man’s mother wants him to prove that her son did not
commit suicide. Delilah worries why the dead man is the second
of her clients to die, but not the last…
This is the first in a new series of cozy mysteries set in
the Yorkshire Dales and centering on the improbably named
Samson and Delilah. The author shows some insight into what
makes Yorkshire and its people special and this is the sort
of book that would make a good TV series. It takes its time
to get going and you get to meet quite a few people all at
once; a cast list at the front would be helpful. The mystery
part mostly happens in the last half of the book and the rest
is filled with relationships between characters, events like
the darts match and other minutiae of rural daily life. This
makes it rather slow for a mystery but ideal for anybody who
wants to read about everybody’s idea of cozy rural life.
The mystery is wrapped up but the author wisely leaves plenty
of other loose ends to make the reading of the second book
(out this autumn) more enticing. A spot of editing and more
emphasis on the detecting would make mystery readers happier
but anybody who enjoys a fairly gentle and idealized look
at small town life will like this one.
Reviews
of other titles in this series
Date
with Death #1
Date
with Malice #2
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