Aline Tenpleton

Lamb to the Slaughter

Detective: Marjorie Fleming
Setting:     Galloway
Time:        Current
Genre       Scots Police Procedural

This the fourth of Templeton's, Flaming novels is nicely crafted with puzzling leads and a neat final twist. A dead sheep is dumped in the courtyard of a small town craft centre. The land owner, who may or may not be about to sell the location to a large supermarket chain, is shot at close range with a shotgun on his doorstep. Is there a link, and if so what? And who will benefit from the murdered man's will. The final arrest comes as a surprise, but there's a twist beyond that.

In the backplot Fleming has to cope with the problems of having a teenage daughter and the death of her father, while within her team there is romance and duplicity.

Rating A

Aline Templeton's Website

Previously Read
Cold in the Earth
The Darkness and the Deep
Lying Dead

Alison Bruce

Cambridge Blue

Detective: Gary Goodhew
Time         Current
Setting      Cambridge UK
Genre        British Police Procedural

This is the first of the Gary Goodhew novels. Goodhew is a a young and gifted Detective Constable with a yen for extending an investigation on his own bat. Marks, his exasperated DI, is perhaps a little too generous in tolerating his methods.

The book opens with a murder in self defence which is apparently unconnected to the murder which eventually triggers Goodhew's investigation. The strands in the plot come together intriguingly and that to some extent compensates for some of the implausibility of Geoodhew's characterisation.

Rating A

Alison Bruce's Website