The Mind of MR Mosley

Here is a felicitous example of the English rural police novel, which has come into its own as a subspecies of British detective fiction. This little bonbon verges on a spoof of the type, set as it is in the town of Upper Crudshaw and displaying such characters as Horace Kettle (a boilerman), Wilfred Weskitt (a wimpish parson) and Millicent Millicheap (an out-of-control, middle-aged poet). Inspector Mosley is called to investigate the suicide of Reuben Tunicliffe, a 74-year-old Upper Crudshawian who committed suicide in his privy. Mosley, an unorthodox practitioner constantly at odds with his superiors, suspects blackmail, but the traps he lays to get the evidence all backfire. Somehow, the intelligence services of three countries are drawn in and it looks like Mosley's career will come to an abrupt end. Greenwood (pseudonym of the late John Buxton Hilton), who wrote four previous Inspector Mosley novels, beguiles us yet again. (August 12)