Solid mystery novel of a golden-age inspired mould - not exceptionally good but satisfying and very readable. The ending is good in that it's clearly been foreshadowed when you look back so it feels pretty "fair", with the new facts that complete the case being clearly hinted at a few times before. Only mild annoyance with the ending is it's one of those ones where the case against the murderer is circumstantial and would be unlikely to hold up in court and then the murderer does something silly and unnecessary to get the case clinched. But it's not too bad (although 1 particular thing stood out to me: they emphasise multiple times that the murderer was in too bad physical shape to reasonably climb the hill... but then in the "what happened" narrative the detectives casually mention they climbed the hill in order for the ending to shake out. I mean you can make up your own explanation just felt like a weird oversight

( )

heartwarming story - if one can put aside the actual murder for a moment
Macdonald saves the day ( )

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

Dr Raymond Ferens and his wife Anne move to Milham, North Devon, mainly for his health. But all is not tranquil and calm as first appears, and Ferens has his suspicions why. Not too many months later Sister Monica, warden of the children's home called Gramarye is found dead, presumably drowned. When the local police make no headway, Scotland Yard is called in, and Chief Inspector Macdonald and D.I. Reeves arrive.
Although the detectives appears in other books by this author this is a standalone story.
An enjoyable well-written mystery, another by this author, with some well-devloped characters.
Originally written in 1952.
A NetGalley Book ( )

Milham on the Moor is one of these villages where most people have lived there for decades, and young blood is hard to come by. The local children’s home is run by a woman known about the village as “Sister Monica”—a mix of religious order and old-school hospital that gives the new town doctor and his wife the creeps. The locals all have nothing but good things to say about the Sister, but it’s apparent that somebody must not have liked her, because her body is eventually found in the mill-race, and it’s not likely to have been an accident. Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard is brought in as a disinterested outsider to solve the case.

I rattled through this book in a couple of hours. It has an excellent setting (a charming Devon village), and the team of Macdonald and Reeves make for a duo that is the right balance of cerebral and action-oriented. I also liked the inclusion of the town doctor as a sort of unintentional assistant.

If you like cosy village mysteries that come with lashings of murder, gossip and Devonshire cream, this will do the job. ( )