A Fine Place for Death: A Mitchell and Markby Village Whodunit

Granger's deft plotting and elegant descriptive prose are in full play in the latest case featuring Inspector Alan Markby and his beloved Meredith Mitchell, a diplomat with the Foreign Office. Missing, however, are her delicate comic touch and her endearing eccentric secondary characters. When two young girls are brutally slain in the English market town of Bamford, Alan hopes to keep Meredith safely detached from the investigation. But both her recent speech about her career to the parish youth group and her quest for an antique Welsh dresser lead to entanglement in the lethal puzzle. Granger sets and meets a series of narrative challenges in her sixth mystery, following a daring plot with three (maybe four) murders, multiple killers, some deaths left unresolved and one victim a youngster for whom readers have developed sympathy. Despite the achievements here, readers may still miss such elements (from Murder Among Us) as the Alice Batt Rest Home for Horses and Donkeys and the members of the Society for the Preservation of Historic Bamford. (Jan.)