Unnatural Wastage

Rowlands’s plodding 12th Sukey Reynolds mystery (after 2011’s Miss Minchin Dies) has Sukey and her fellow detective constable of the Avon and Somerset CID, Vicky Armstrong, methodically investigating the murder of Fenella Tremaine, found in a rubbish bin outside her upscale Bristol flat, stabbed in the back with a distinctive oriental knife. Sukey and Vicky quickly zero in on the victim’s pugnacious neighbor, Marcus Ellerman, as the two had an earlier hostile confrontation and were bitterly competing for a senior position at a major corporation. The local police, always polite, always attentive to detail, link the promiscuous Fenella to the director of a nursing home, and further ripples of suspicion involve a cleaning lady and an interior decorator. Sukey and Vicky combine their carefully structured interrogative skills with endless cups of hot tea to coax information from reluctant witnesses. Unfortunately, too many stodgy and bland characters weigh down the narrative, and red herrings swim by with alarming frequency. (Dec.)