Written by Ann Granger
Format: MP3 This may be the first in this wonderfully entertaining series, but it remains one of the very best.
The characters immediately strike you as real and quirky, with great potential. They are interesting and likeable. The writing is good, and the setting of the small village of eccentric people is excellent. The writing tangs with realism, even though this is generally accepted as being a not-very-realistic sub-genre. (Although, in my opinion, it actually is. The category of the village mystery is filled with realism. Lots of different people all living in close proximity to each other and no one else is bound to cause...interesting, things to happen. The potential for crime in a village is just as real in a village as it is a large city. However, while in a city you could have many different murders being investigated at once, in a village, rules of proportion cut the number of murders down to one. (Or thereabouts.) And as such, you can bring across in your novel every single aspect of the society in which this murder has occured, as the society is such a small one.
The plot here is great. The characters realistic. The solution unexpected. And the style typically Agatha Christie's Miss Marple-esque.