Peckover and the Bog Man: An Inspector Peckover Mystery

There's no shortage of cheap (but funny) laughs at the expense of bonnie Scotland in this mystery starring doggerel-happy Cockney copper Henry Peckover (``the Bard of the Yard'') and his sartorial eyesore of a subordinate, Jason Twitty. The scene is the traditional Robert Burns supper in Inverballoch. The haggis is cooked to perfection (courtesy of Henry's wife, a professional chef) and the guest of honor, noted archeologist and pompous blowhard Sir Gilbert Potter, insults everybody at the table. When, later that night, Potter gets a short ceremonial dagger thrust through his offending voicebox, Peckover is soon busy detecting. The backdrop is suitably mysterious: Potter had been keen to fund a dig in the area, based on his ambitious assistant's conviction that the Romans once inhabited the selfsame spot, whose peat bogs are famous for keeping treasures and bodies hidden and remarkably well-preserved. It turns out that Potter isn't the first ambitious digger to cop it in this remote locale. Kenyon gives a handful of the locals virtually impenetrable dialects, and Twitty, the son of Jamaican immigrants, is a scene-stealing delight. Kenyon's latest offering blends the easy pleasures of a classic cozy with the earthy gallows humor of a modern cop tale. (Sept.)