London Detective Sergeant Bobby Owen is the protagonist of this long-running series. Here, he visits his fiancée in a small country village which houses a library of valuable and extremely rare antiquarian books and incunabula. Various sinister characters appear and there is a death which Bobby is called to investigate along with the local constabulary. A tangled and tortuous tale emerges whose twists and obscure roots only become plain after more death and suffering.
It’s a decent mystery, with some interesting bibliographical detail and a very engaging protagonist. My Kindle edition has an interesting afterword explaining that Punshon took the idea for the book from a real-life case. Punshon writes well so it’s all very readable, but I did find the climax both rather predictable and rather overdone. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable read and I’ll probably be reading more Punshon at some point.
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